playing offline

[soundzen]

in this era of online gaming - in my case trough Steam provider - is it possible to go back to those windows XP times, where i had physical games on CD and play it, being disconnected from the internet (knowing that i wont get the latest updates, bug fixes, or install mods and DLC) ???

i want to go to the country side with my computer uploaded with my favorite games to play offline, since i don't have access to the internet there !!! maybe game creators could sell me their game CD compatible with Win11 since i don't mind paying for the games again, that i already own on Steam... the problem is that my game characters, sets, weapons, progress, XP (solo play) are saved on their servers and constantly backed up to the latest play.

Online gaming saves PC disc space and is always up to date, but we are way too dependent of the internet service, so... no wifi - no game !!! (even if its on Console, you need to be connected to the wifi)

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

GOG. Full offline installers. Just download them and archive them.

If the game itself does not require an Internet connection that is your best bet.

If it wasn't for GOG I would pirate the games I own* so I could play offline.

*Own as much as you can nowadays.

 

[Super Firm Tofu]

Steam has an offline mode. Your game saves are local to your computer and backed up to the cloud if you choose to do so. If it's an online-only game, that's a different story.

 

[64K]

GOG or sail the high seas I guess but are you planning on becoming a hermit living in a cave? Where is this place that there is no internet, even satellite internet?

 

[soundzen]

satelite probably yes... but need buy hotspot kit and a sim card aka sign contract telecom company

 

[AsRock]

Steam has an offline mode. Your game saves are local to your computer and backed up to the cloud if you choose to do so. If it's an online-only game, that's a different story.

View attachment 357232

Yes and some games don't work when steam is offline too.

I'd say there is another way but not allowed to say here.

 

[Solaris17]

I'd say there is another way but not allowed to say here.

Absolutely right, no piracy discussion thanks!

 

[soundzen]

thx folks, i'll check GOG for game i need.

 

[W1zzard]

Steam has an offline mode. Your game saves are local to your computer and backed up to the cloud if you choose to do so. If it's an online-only game, that's a different story.

View attachment 357232

This is actually working very well for games that aren't pure online-only. It works for Denuvo games, too, I run like that all the time

 

[Wirko]

GOG or sail the high seas I guess but are you planning on becoming a hermit living in a cave? Where is this place that there is no internet, even satellite internet?

I understand the OP is planning to return "here" some day. Here, where the level of civilisation is measured by the number of bars on the phone...

 

[Frick]

since i don't have access to the internet there !!!

Then even Steam will be no problem. Just install all the games and go there. There's not even a need to go into offline mode for Steam, already installed games will work just fine. Do note however that IF you have not put Steam in offline mode and you connect to the internet all games with pending updates will become unplayable until you update them.

 

[Frick]

GOG. Full offline installers. Just download them and archive them.

"Just" is doing some heavy lifting here, because GOG sucks at it, because the games comes in 4GB chunks. I have started to download the installers, but for modern games that means dozens of files. For each game. And then patches come along with their seperate downloads. At least let me download a compressed file or something, but no, hundreds and hundreds of individual downloads it is from dozens of screens.

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

"Just" is doing some heavy lifting here, because GOG sucks at it, because the games comes in 4GB chunks. I have started to download the installers, but for modern games that means dozens of files. For each game. And then patches come along with their seperate downloads. At least let me download a compressed file or something, but no, hundreds and hundreds of individual downloads it is from dozens of screens.

I prefer that, as my Internet can be a little spotty. Helps with download integrity and not randomly cancelling hours worth of work.

As for many screens, Ctrl+Click is your friend.

 

[Frick]

As for many screens, Ctrl+Click is your friend.

Oh yeah sure, but there are still hundreds (if not thousands) of seperate files to download. One problem is that browsers (Firefox at least) sucks at that kind of thing. I have a stable connection, and just downloading the files for Baldurs Gate 3 was a real PITA. Downloads just stopping or slowing down to nothing. Unknown errors. Gog Galaxy? It just works. Thorugh a browser? Hellish.

 

[soundzen]

ok, found a skyrim SE and its up and running without internet cable plugged in, yay! had 1 EXE to run in middle of dozen BIN files extracted from a ZIP bundle

 

[AusWolf]

GOG. Full offline installers. Just download them and archive them.

If the game itself does not require an Internet connection that is your best bet.

If it wasn't for GOG I would pirate the games I own* so I could play offline.

*Own as much as you can nowadays.

This.

Steam has an offline mode. Your game saves are local to your computer and backed up to the cloud if you choose to do so. If it's an online-only game, that's a different story.

View attachment 357232

And this.

It is possible with a little pre-downloading while you're home.

 

[Klemc]

ok, found a skyrim SE and its up and running without internet cable plugged in, yay! had 1 EXE to run in middle of dozen BIN files extracted from a ZIP bundle

You can use innoextract to extract content of GOG setup/bin, it has a gog (g) mode that instead having the SETUP using temp foolder then copying files in final directory (for less SSD writes).

BAT for extract TO directory (will make the directory if not exists already) :
innoextract -e -g setup_fullname.exe -d "D:\Games\NAME"

innoextract - A tool to unpack installers created by Inno Setup

innoextract - A tool to unpack installers created by Inno Setup

constexpr.org

GOG.com installers with a 2.x.x version number on the download page or in the filename use Inno Setup 5.5.0 and cannot be extracted by innoextract 1.2 and older. Older installers use Inno Setup 5.2.3 and usually have no version in the filename.

Some GOG.com multi-part installers with version 2.1.x or higher use RAR archives (renamed to .bin) to store the game data. These files are not part of the Inno Setup installer. However, innoextract 1.5 or newer can extract them using the --gog option if either unrar or unar is installed.

Other newer GOG.com installers don't include the raw files directly but instead store them in GOG Galaxy format: split into small parts which are then individually compressed. These files are named after their MD5 hash and stored in the tmp directory, for example "tmp/ab/d7/abd72c0dddc45f2ce6098ce3a286066a". innoextract 1.7 or newer will automatically re-assemble these parts and extract the original files unless the --no-gog-galaxy option is used.

Some multi-part GOG.com installers use .bin slice files larger than 2 GiB - extracting these requires innoextract 1.8 or newer on 32-bit platforms. Older versions failed with a "bad chunk magic" error.

innoextract Manual

constexpr.org

 

[droopyRO]

"Just" is doing some heavy lifting here, because GOG sucks at it, because the games comes in 4GB chunks. I have started to download the installers, but for modern games that means dozens of files. For each game. And then patches come along with their seperate downloads. At least let me download a compressed file or something, but no, hundreds and hundreds of individual downloads it is from dozens of screens.

It's so that you can burn them on DVDs. Just Install GOG Galaxy and download the game, then copy-paste it to your backup drive or make a .zip archive and it will work just fine.

Steam has an offline mode. Your game saves are local to your computer and backed up to the cloud if you choose to do so. If it's an online-only game, that's a different story.

It is highly depended on the game, Warhammer III for example runs one time in offline mode, and after you shut down your PC it requires an internet connection to run again.

 

[Ruru]

It's so that you can burn them on DVDs.

Interesting, never even realized that. But that's logical since GOG's point is owning your bought games.

 

[Klemc]

Or it is InnoSetup filesize limit !?

 

[Ruru]

Or it is InnoSetup filesize limit !?

Also possible. But they both reasons make much sense.

 

[SomeOne99h]

Or it is InnoSetup filesize limit !?

Also possible. But they both reasons make much sense.

Seen the answer in GOG forums some time ago. It is to adhere to FAT32 file system limit for a single file.

 

[soundzen]

 

[SomeOne99h]

View attachment 357417

You actually think the same way I do with Skyrim. Just the very essential mods that cover the technical side and fixing bugs ONLY, preserving the vanilla experience and ensuring the game won't break in the middle. SkyUI is an exception here but it doesn't generally affect the game and won't meddle with the data or scripts, and it is so safe that it can be removed if one desired while continuing the same saved game.

 

[Klemc]

It took me four years to mod it, now it's 150GB !

A good one to add is Proteus, it can play multi players in the same save. This is THE mod !

Proteus

Proteus will redefine how you play Skyrim. Play as multiple characters within the same game world, on the same save game file - all with their own unique appearance, perks, spells, items, and stats. A

www.nexusmods.com