UKTerrorist
Posted by N3M- at 20:56 12/9/2003.
There have been a lot of rumours floating around about contents of the steam file 'gcache', which a few people have reported to contain references to files downloaded from peer-to-peer programs such as KaZaA.
VALVe's (plausible) explanation about this is simply that the cache file contains "garbage" old content from your hard disc when it is first created, and this info is gradually overwritten as the file is used.
Unfortunately most of the discussion on this issue has been on a CS cheat site, which obviously we're not going to link to from here. But some of it has been mirrored on our forums for your inspection.
Comments
Head Arse
UKTerrorist
21:03 12/9/2003
Last Chance
21:08 12/9/2003
Last Chance
21:10 12/9/2003
From: Derrick Birum
Sent: Friday, September 05, 2003 11:52 AM
To: Erik Johnson; Gabe Newell; John Cook
Subject: RE: gcache and its mysteries.
The cache file gets created on the client using the Windows CreateFile() command. This command will create the file but not initialize it. Due to the large size of the file, we don't bother initializing the empty data blocks in it as this can take an appreciable amount of time. On NTFS machines, files created with this method happen to have the property of appearing empty (initialized to zero) but for FAT32 machines, it shows up as whatever old data was sitting on drive in the sectors that just got allocated for the cache. The people that are reporting this behavior are actually seeing old data from their hard drives.
10q and goodnight [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
BLACKLiGHT
21:10 12/9/2003
BLACKLiGHT
21:12 12/9/2003
21:26 12/9/2003
STEAM = SKYNET I TELL YOU [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
21:27 12/9/2003
21:33 12/9/2003
"Converting Base Goldsrc Shared Content Localized files into steam cache..."
Its happened 4 times now, HELP! [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
Bleeding-edge
21:37 12/9/2003
The Next Generation
21:37 12/9/2003
Shoot First Ask Later
21:39 12/9/2003
21:42 12/9/2003
Install Steam.
Update Platform
Create and Account
Update Platform again
Download The selected mods.
The screen when they copy the files from the old HL directory. [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
21:42 12/9/2003
21:43 12/9/2003
21:44 12/9/2003
21:46 12/9/2003
And didnt valve say this was a quicker and easier way ?
nah. [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
21:57 12/9/2003
22:05 12/9/2003
22:17 12/9/2003
22:19 12/9/2003
as for steam id rather stick with the old hl.exe, steam has its good side but its just not user friendly im on a p4 3 gig, etc but it takes about a minute just to load the steam.exe, looks more like an a-level project design.
the friends system on it may be handy tho, specially for when your looking for mates before matches [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
BLACKLiGHT
22:43 12/9/2003
Plus it's the first time anyone has really tried to do something like Steam... Rockets didn't work too well at first either, boom! [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
Puk Kai
22:46 12/9/2003
Anti-saviour of UKT
23:05 12/9/2003
virtual Junkies
23:10 12/9/2003
23:21 12/9/2003
ive left it running for about 5 hours now and its still "converting half-life files into steam cache" [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
23:28 12/9/2003
23:59 12/9/2003
eSports.Edge
00:22 13/9/2003
'Converting HL files into stream cache'
then going to work for 7 hrs and just gettin back its still on
'Converting Base Goldsrc Shared Content Localized file into steam cache'
7hr?
WTF? [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
00:53 13/9/2003
IT SHJOULD BE MAKE ILLIGAL
I HAVE NOT BEEN DRINKING FALME ME! [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
01:05 13/9/2003
01:26 13/9/2003
Asylum.uk
11:28 13/9/2003
11:35 13/9/2003
Professional Gamer
13:22 13/9/2003
Professional Gamer
14:27 13/9/2003
ClanNEW
19:42 13/9/2003
18:29 10/5/2004
18:29 10/5/2004
18:31 10/5/2004
18:31 10/5/2004