Forged Alliance Forever

Re: How to Stop FA and FAF dumping everything in my document

2014-02-02T20:54:35+02:00

Where can you vote?

Nvm i saw it!

Statistics: Posted by Kulu — 02 Feb 2014, 20:54

Re: How to Stop FA and FAF dumping everything in my document

2014-02-01T23:10:36+02:00

Ah, this got my vote after proper mod vault.

Statistics: Posted by pip — 01 Feb 2014, 23:10

Re: How to Stop FA and FAF dumping everything in my document

2014-02-01T20:10:51+02:00

Actually it's possible to change these folders.

It's not difficult, but requires many changes all over the place. I will do it eventually some day, but you can vote for it for the coding marathons

Statistics: Posted by Ze_PilOt — 01 Feb 2014, 20:10

Re: How to Stop FA and FAF dumping everything in my document

2014-01-31T00:26:36+02:00

Just move the My Documents folder. I have currently around 1.3TB in "Documents" and similar libraries like "Pictures", "Videos", etc. The SSD shows as 119 GB, 100 of which are used. As a bonus: when you whipe your C:/ because for one reason or the other you installation is messed up, all your documents are still there.

Statistics: Posted by E8400-CV — 31 Jan 2014, 00:26

Re: How to Stop FA and FAF dumping everything in my document

2014-01-30T12:40:53+02:00

I don't know if you're the guy who asked this in IRC the other day, but I'll put it here for good measure.

NTFS junction points could be your savior: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_junction_point. They're like symbolic links on linux (only worse).

Using them requires a bit of commandline interaction:

If you first move the maps folder where you want it, making sure to remember the old path, then fire up cmd.exe and type the following:

Code:: mklink /J "c:\games\path-to-where-the-maps-folder-was" "x:\path-to-moved-folder"

Will create a link so when FA tries to look for maps in the old directory on your SSD, it'll read from your new folder on a traditional disk instead.

I'm had performance issues with apps requiring a lot of IOPS using this feature before -- but I don't think that's an issue here.

Statistics: Posted by Sheeo — 30 Jan 2014, 12:40

Re: How to Stop FA and FAF dumping everything in my document

2014-01-30T10:54:10+02:00

All games reside off of my ssd on an external hard drive. The ssd was pretty much full the moment I installed windows.

The my games folder is a terrible idea. If I install a game to a directory, everything to do with that game should happen within that directory (with the exception of shared libraries like directx, opengl, etc) I haven't heard any good argument for the "my games" folder from anybody, ever since it was introduced.

Rants aside, I actually discovered yesterday that Vanilla supreme commander has an option in the options menu which disables the My Games folder!!!! I don't understand why this option was removed from the Forged Alliance options menu, but I remain convinced that the option is still accessible in the backend somehow. Is there a collection of .ini files where my settings are stored which I can inspect and edit?

Edit: didn't notice the post above. That's actually a really good idea as well, not quite optimal as I'd have dangling references to folders that aren't actually there and really never should have been in the first place, but at least I'd be able to keep everything in a location of my choosing!

Again, thanks all for the replies. Even the "Just get used to it" and "Buy a bigger SSD" guys

Statistics: Posted by shpxlbh — 30 Jan 2014, 10:54

Re: How to Stop FA and FAF dumping everything in my document

2014-01-30T08:41:27+02:00

No he said the game was installed on another drive.

If you really are short on diskspace, don't miss the FAF data in programdata, after some time it can get big (like replays, cache, logs and old mods versions). Clean all windows temps too while you're at it

Custom versions of this, however, are time consuming and complicated to set up.

You can create virtual links at OS/driver level and its not that complicated. Yes it takes some time to read & do stuff, but he took the time to post so... That way the folder is virtually still on C: but any program reading/writing stuff there would do it from a location of your choice. It is not very hard to do and there are a lot of step-by-step tutorials explaining how to do that in windows. You can do it both with command line or additionnal software like steammover. Since disk space and proper file organizing seems to be an important concern for the OP i would encourage him to try that.

On a side note, last month, my SSD suddenly went full to 100% for no reason. I discovered FAF had created some 30Gb log file somewhere... It happened only once, but maybe it's worth checking your FAF folders from time to time ^^

FYI I formatted my disk 6 months ago and atm my C:\ProgramData\FAForever folder is 600mb big while C:\Program Files (x86)\Forged Alliance Forever is 80 mb.

Statistics: Posted by Poch — 30 Jan 2014, 08:41

Re: How to Stop FA and FAF dumping everything in my document

2014-01-27T16:32:10+02:00

Maps take a huge amount of space, my GPG folder where maps are is more than 3 gb. I don't have a SSD, so I don't really care, but if I had one, it would be a bit annoying. The best way to free up space is indeed to put maps in the installation folder. I don't think it's possible for the mods from the vault though, if they are not in my documents, they won't be recognized.

That wouldn't make a lot of sense since I'm imagining he's put FA on to his SSD.

Statistics: Posted by Anaryl — 27 Jan 2014, 16:32

Re: How to Stop FA and FAF dumping everything in my document

2014-01-27T14:04:05+02:00

pip wrote:
I don't think it's possible for the mods from the vault though

actually this works for me too (retail, might be some kind of difference to steam i dunno)

Statistics: Posted by ColonelSheppard — 27 Jan 2014, 14:04

Re: How to Stop FA and FAF dumping everything in my document

2014-01-27T10:09:40+02:00

Maps take a huge amount of space, my GPG folder where maps are is more than 3 gb. I don't have a SSD, so I don't really care, but if I had one, it would be a bit annoying. The best way to free up space is indeed to put maps in the installation folder. I don't think it's possible for the mods from the vault though, if they are not in my documents, they won't be recognized.

Statistics: Posted by pip — 27 Jan 2014, 10:09

Re: How to Stop FA and FAF dumping everything in my document

2014-01-27T04:09:35+02:00

This is Windows - all games are put their settings in the My Games folder (as per windows). Either way FA or FAF will not brook you messing with this - unless you feel likie changing all the references in the code.

Maps and replays are not particularly big - and all the big featured mods like blackops are in the Program Data folder- unless you have a lot of maps - your my games folder shouldnt exceeed 100mb - and if that's a problem, you have bigger issues my friend. Buy a second ssd or just review your storage policies, it shouldn't be that hard to reserve 1% of space on your drive for FA.

Statistics: Posted by Anaryl — 27 Jan 2014, 04:09

Re: How to Stop FA and FAF dumping everything in my document

2014-01-27T03:56:22+02:00

Thanks for replies all.

I know that it's possible to install mods and maps directly to the installation directory and they work just fine. There's no need for the "My Games" folder. (I cringe whenever I see it )
The main annoyance for me in terms of FAF is that when you go to the map vault, or save a replay, download a mod etc. all the files get wacked in my documents/my games, when they would work just as well if they were installed in the Forged Alliance Directory.

For now I guess I can just keep downloading the files to the my games folder and then manually move them to the install directory. It's a pretty primitive solution but it works. I still wish that one day the FAF devs could patch up this situation. As already mentioned; I don't have enough space, and even if I did; My documents is for my documents, not random crap from various video games. it also makes backing up my supcom copy just that much harder if it's not all contained within a single folder

Statistics: Posted by shpxlbh — 27 Jan 2014, 03:56

Re: How to Stop FA and FAF dumping everything in my document

2014-01-26T18:55:54+02:00

I believe I achieved relocation by just cutting the folder and pasting it somewhere else

DON'T try it though, because I'm not sure and it could go horribly wrong...

Use Mak's link, that'll help you out.

Statistics: Posted by Plasma_Wolf — 26 Jan 2014, 18:55

Re: How to Stop FA and FAF dumping everything in my document

2014-01-26T17:31:06+02:00

One idea that popped into my head, what if you create a new user account on your computer and set your My Documents folder to another location. I know you can change the folder where Windows can find your My Documents folder (as well as any system folder).

If that does not work for a single user you can do this for all users and just use that new location as your My Documents folder. This way that precious SSD space can be used for what you want to run fast and your storage drive can be just that.

Edit: How To Change Location of My Documents Folder, Windows 7

Statistics: Posted by The Mak — 26 Jan 2014, 17:31

Re: How to Stop FA and FAF dumping everything in my document

2014-01-25T04:14:14+02:00

Simple answer? I don't think you can.

Long answer? Technically it is possible to set up addresses so that whenever something tries to save to a folder, the data is physically encoded in a different place. See SteamTool for an example of this in action. Custom versions of this, however, are time consuming and complicated to set up.

Perfect answer? Get a bigger SSD

Statistics: Posted by IceDreamer — 25 Jan 2014, 04:14