Most racing fans on the PlayStation 3 are going to be happy to finally get Gran Turismo 5 after a wait that has seemed like forever. Those non-hardcore fans will likely be happy with the basic 256MB installation that the game requires prior to playing.

Those that are hardcore fans of the franchise will likely opt for the full installation, which tips the scales at 10GB of required hard disk space. Actually, that is only 1GB more than the full dual disc install for Forza 3 on the Xbox 360, so the size really isn’t the issue; but the install wait will seem like forever. Yes, that’s right:  it will take about 50 minutes to install the entire 10GB.

Apparently, the installation on the hard drive is actually a two-phase process, with the first phase the copying of the 6.4GB data onto the actual hard drive; but then it has to actually uncompress the 6.4GB it copied over, and once it does it will take up almost the full 10GB. 10GB is a lot of disc space, and if you happen to own one of the older PlayStation 3 consoles with a smaller hard drive you might not actually have the room for a full install.

According to sources, the hard disk install, while optional, is actually pretty necessary if you are going to play GT5 a lot, as it really speeds up the load times (and there are a lot of load times, from what we hear). Finding the 10GB of disc space is likely the best option in the long run, as the performance is much smoother and it makes the game more fluid, according to our sources. The install time is just something that GT5 fans are likely going to have to learn to live with.