solidstatemind said:
As a developer, let me assure you that just because you don't see a reason for large, contiguous files doesn't mean that good reasons don't exist. The easiest to explain is, as I said above, HDD read/write times. With desktop computers often shipping with 4GB (or even more) memory these days, it makes sense to keep all that data together.
Sure it makes sense to keep files together, but it also makes sense to keep the sizes reasonable, i.e. < 4 GB. A big file rarely is a huge chunk of homogenous data (like megatexture), it's usually just an archive with tons of files inside. For example, patching or repairing/redownloading such a file is a *****. But whatever; not that big of a deal.
solidstatemind said:
This is not an oversight. By stating that the OS needs to be XP, Vista, or Win7, they are implicitly stating that an NTFS file system is necessary!
Definitely not right. First, at least XP can easily run off a FAT32 drive and I bet Vista or 7 can be made to run off them too.
Second, even if the system drive is NTFS, you can still have additional drives for other data. Despite Windows having the retarded system of everything having on the C: drive (C:\Windows, C:\Program Files, C:\Documents and Settings, C:\whatever), it's always best to keep system separate from the data. Everyone buying a computer should be looking for at least two drives. Then, no real reason to have more than one NTFS. At least you spare youself the hassle of disabling NTFS indexation and other shit that keeps slowing Windows down to a quarter of their speed.
I've got 4 HDDs with around 10 partitions and only some of those are NTFS. The gaming partiton is NTFS, but if I didn't have enough space there, I'd just put the game somewhere else.
So apparently people STILL use FAT32 on their other drives for whatever reason - so it's pretty clear it actually IS an issue, even though just for a few users.