EVE General Discussion

Today, a full install package for EVE is about 7GB that has to be downloaded and this expands to 12GB once installed. After the change, the initial download package required to play the game will be on the order of 200MB and it expands to about 350MB. This installs the game code without any resources (models, textures, audio and so on). The EVE client itself then downloads resources as it needs them and caches them locally on disk, so any given resource is only downloaded once.

On a fast connection you probably won't notice much of a difference – load times may be slightly longer at times. As you play more, more resources will be cached and fewer and fewer need to be downloaded. The client will be smart about pre-fetching resources it expects will be needed soon. When entering space, for example, it starts downloading the resources for stations and stargates in all neighboring systems so that if you jump through any stargate, in all likelihood all those static structures have already been downloaded when you enter that system. The client also starts a background download of all the low detail resources for all ships as soon as the game starts, so it'll soon be able to display any ship without any delay. Ships usually enter the scene (what you see on your screen) in low detail any way – the higher detail resources are then downloaded on demand.