Morning all... something I've been pondering on over the last few days is the verification of game files... What is it all about, when do I need to do it and why, and finally on the odd occasion when I have randomly done it it says (for example) 1261 files have failed to validate and will be reacquired... Why does this happen??? Many thanks Eric
Validation is the way that Steam checks the versions of the files that are in your installation against what it thinks should be there As an example your computer could have accidentally moved or deleted the files (antivirus, malware, other reasons) and verification will check the version and size of the file you have against the version and size that steam knows about If it finds differences then it deletes the version on your machine and then downloads a fresh version from steam This CAN sort several problems with assets or routes maybe missing things due to the reasons above, but what it also does is remove any "enhancements" that you might have done. So some third party providers will upgrade some existing assets (AP EPs do this) and verifying will revert the files that steam knows about to the original versions. If doesn't remove the EP, it just reverts the files to the original so the EP won't work as expected What it won't do is remove any assets or routes that steam doesn't know about, it ignores these, only dealing with Steam known assets and routes
