Google’s new Incremental File System may let you play big Android games before they’re fully downloaded

In early May of 2019, Google submitted patches to merge support for the Incremental File System into the Linux kernel. According to the documentation that Google submitted, Incremental FS is a “special-purpose Linux virtual file system that allows execution of a program while its binary and resource files are still being lazily downloaded over the network, USB etc.” The purpose of this feature is “to allow running big Android apps before their binaries and resources are fully downloaded to an Android device.”

Isn’t this already possible in various other ways, though? I mean, PlayStation 4 games can be played well before they’re entirely downloaded, as can Blizzard games, to name a few. I’m pretty sure those just load early-game assets first, so I’m not sure if that aligns with that Google is doing here, but this kind of feels like a solved problem.

4 Comments

  1. 2020-02-18 8:11 am
    • 2020-02-18 12:39 pm
  2. 2020-02-18 12:35 pm
    • 2020-02-18 1:06 pm