Hello,

Don't know if it's possible but can you download a game as a single file? I can download the Witcher 2 Mac version as a single 19.5GB file. I would like to do the same for the Windows version but it's only offered as 13 parts. A single part download would be more convenient for me.

You could use the gog downloader, to just automatically download everything... I am not sure if it ends up as a single file then, (can't check at the moment).

There are still windows users with a FAT32 formatted hard drive out there. FAT32 can't handle files above 4GB. So... No, I don't think GOG will offer a single file download anytime soon. They can't ask their customers to check which file system they use, before they decide which installer they download. We would have dozens of "Download no work! I wantz my moneyz back!" threads :/

Best solution for you: Use the GOG Downloader. You'll still download all the small files, but you'll get them all with just one click.

Sounds like a solid reason. Still, a single file alternative next to the parts (without using the GOG downloaders) would be nice.

A single 6+ GB exe file? No thank you. The ~2GB ones were pain enough.

This is a moot point in the case of The Witcher 2 though, as it has asset files so big that FAT32 can't handle them anyway. So if all you have is a FAT32 drive, you wouldn't be able to play it regardless of the splitting.

The first and foremost reason for file splitting is in the interest of file integrity - a 2GB chunk is less likely to be corrupted and can be more easily corrected than a huge 16GB file.

Huge files without extra checking only makes sense to download that way if you happen to have an INSANE connection speed... I'd rather get 30 small 1Gig files and I can have them tested and redownload a faulty one than download 1 huge one repeatedly and HOPE for the 0.001% that absolutely nothing will go wrong during the download...

Besides, after you successfully download them, it's probably just a split zip/rar file, so extracting will give you the original exe/bin files... I think... I haven't tried to download a large game without the downloader so personal experiences with it are limited.

I lost you here. What split zip/rar file?
Downloading through the browser gives you the same files as if you downloaded through the downloader (usually, few cases when there was a problematic chunk, but exception rather than the rule).
GOG does have (or did have) some files that were ~2GB exe, most notable of which being Baldur's Gate. So access to that is much slower than accessing a small exe with a few bin files.

If the file isn't split into separate files (and there's the fat32 4Gb limit) then a solution to download in smaller portions while keeping it the same across the board makes sense to use zip/rar splitting...

As I said I haven't tried to download any large games without the downloader. I've seen some games do the exe+bin combination, and some that are a single exe. So I'm not sure...

The downloader uses chunks, without messing with zip/rar splitting.

GOG tries to split the installers at 1.4GB, so 3 .bin files can fit on a DVD. A few games that are between 1.4 and 2 GB don't get split (eg Baldur's Gate), but others get split in an exe, a 1.4GB bin and a 15MB bin. Not sure how they decide if they'll split or go over the limit though.

I'd rather download in small chunks than a whole 6gb file. Files may become corrupted during downloading, when this occurs you'll be grateful that each game is split in separate files, it can be a nightmare.

Besides, not everyone can afford or has unlimited bandwidth.

My Story:

Few months ago I had this problem with Sacred 2 (A Massive 14GB download) from GamersGate, my download got errors and frequent disconnects and I had to restart about 3 times till I got a perfect non corrupted game. Spent like 6hrs that day just trying to download the game.

Witcher 2 here on GOG is about 15.5GB and split in 13 parts, Haven't had a problem downloading that.

My connection is extremely bad, so I appreciate games being split into smaller pieces.

Curiously involving smaller files/chunks, I've never had trouble with torrents. Torrents (usually) internally separate into 4Mb blocks, then spreads the load between dozens or hundreds of peers allowing higher connection speeds. I know at least one F2P game that the installer/downloader was just a large torrent.