Topic: How many maps are up?

[KingKuros]

I noticed that there hasn't been any announcements of how many maps since 10,000 on July 5, 2008.  So I was just wondering how many maps are up as of now after nearly 3 years?

[magicbay]

i've been wondering the same thing myself cuz i've been very curious to know just how many maps and or games we've got access to here.

i don't know about everyone else but this curious member wants to know..

[JonLeung]

As of now, 17,401 map files for 1073 games.

Keep in mind that I said "17,401 map files".  There are two .PDF files with multiple maps within them, and some single images (like many in the MSX section) are a few maps combined into one image.  Considering that some maps are comprised of a few hundred screenshots, I wouldn't be surprised if we were near a million screenshots total.  Well, there are a lot of hand-drawn and single-screen maps, but it's still got to be a lot...

The game count is based on the number of title images I have, but some are for off-site links (I should probably remove them one day >_>) and some games don't have title shots.  But 1073 is probably still close to the actual number of games.

I guess I should at least take this opportunity to say thanks to all of you.  I may put up the maps in my silly manual way, but they're painstakingly created by you guys.  That's a freaking lot of maps for a lot of games.  I'm pretty confident in saying that this site is the largest screenshot map database on the Internet, and it wouldn't be this big if you guys didn't keep finding new things to put together for me every week!  

[magicbay]

i can't even imagine how much hard drive space 17,401 map files for 1073 games takes up.

it must take atleast a couple of hundredy gigabyte or maybe a terrabyte drive to store everything for the website?

forgive my techno brain for a few moments while i slap it back to reality but it does seem like an awefully lot of space to store 17,401 map files for that many games.

[JonLeung]

No, only 6076 megabytes.  Roughly 6 gigabytes (if you count 1000 MB = 1 GB instead of 1024 MB).  So you'll need more than a single-layer DVD to hold it all.

While it's certainly a lot of stuff when considering how much work must go into each map, it's actually not a "lot" when you see that SD cards or USB thumb/flash drives of 8 GB are quite affordable.  A MyPassport hard drive, which is the size of a passport, are up to something like 1.5 terabytes, could hold all those maps almost 250 times over and still fit in your pocket.

[magicbay]

so your able to back up everything on the site on an 8 gigabyte flash card in case something happens to the site again in the future.

[JonLeung]

More like I back the site up in triplicate (or I guess quadriplicate or quintiplicate?) among my other computers and external hard drives, including dated six-month backups in case I really screw something up.

I've had a total hard drive failure once before during VGMaps.com's lifetime, but except for me likely complaining about it briefly, you wouldn't have known it, because I was smart enough to have backed it up.  I back it up after every update if I can, including the forums now too.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to find some of my Legend Of Zelda: Oracle Of Hours work files, the .MP3 of the GameSHOUT.com interview I did, the Attack Of The Show - Episode 69 video file featuring VGMaps.com, and I also lost the work files for creating the VGMaps.com logo.  >_<  It was a pain trying to get the original high-res logos back from CafePress.com (since I had lost them but knew they would still have them since I bought some shirts off of them with my logo) - I guess they were concerned that I wasn't who I said I was at first but at least I eventually got those back.  If I ever got those other things back (I'm sure the interview and Attack Of The Show clips are out there, please let me know!), I'll put them with my VGMaps.com files to ensure they would be backed up in quadriplicate or quintiplicate as well!

[The Ultimate Koopa]

It's quadruplicate and quintuplicate