Re: USB install / run MTW?
Hi Dellathane
I am interested to hear how you get on with this project. Best o'luck.
Best regards
Victor
Sapere aude
Horace
Re: USB install / run MTW?
I imagine a transferred install would work, for mods I just copy a fresh install to a new area and put the mod on top of that. Unless there are system specific files chosen at install-time it should work for you. I'm not sure about it running from a USB stick, but if it works that's a bonus.
USB 2.0 - 480 Mbits/s
SATA 1 - 1.5 GBits/s
Even with the lower throughput from USB, the lack of seek times may cancel it out. Good luck, and let us know how it goes.
Welcome to the Org, Dellathane! ~:wave:
Re: USB install / run MTW?
Hi
Being picky but it's slow at work today...
You make a valid general point about data transfer rates, Drone, but I think that on the kit that many of us play MTW1 on (well, me anyway) the USB DTR would be better compared with an older standard's DTR such as Ultra ATA/100 which is rated at 100 megabytes per second.
That 100 MB/s is a theoretical maximum, of course. When you take overhead and congestion into account the USB 2.0 DTR looks none too shabby.
Best regards
Victor
Saper aude
Horace
Re: USB install / run MTW?
Ordinarily, MTW requires a CD in the drive to run. So to have it portable on just a USB stick, there would also have to be an image of (I think) Disk 1, as well as virtual drive software on each computer.
Also, flash memory is not rated to survive as many re-writes as a hard-disk. But would MTW need to overwrite any of its data? Should be just savegames, presumably.
Re: USB install / run MTW?
Well in the end I got Medieval installed by sharing my dad's computer's dvd drive on the home network and launching the installer on my laptop. Worked perfectly. Makes me think there is a driver/windows issue on my laptop. When launched though the game CTD instantly. I think the best fix might be a reinstall of windows, start fresh, possibly in 32bit.
I can't really move on to test USB stuff till I fix this issue or get it working on my desktop, but I don't think I can do either for a fortnight.
I don't think the data transfer rates will have much impact on gameplay, since isn't everything the game needs loaded into the RAM? So I reckon the only thing launching from a USB could affect would be load times for battles and campaign map.
The point about needing the disc in the drive is taken but it wouldn't be too detrimental. If you had the disc and USB you could potentially be playing medieval on the local library (university:devilish:) computer. Either that or one of the work arounds Plato mentioned.
I doubt rewrites would be a problem. You would need save dozens of times a turn on the same file name to get near the 100,000 rewrite limit . Doesn't win 7 move where it writes files to avoid damage to USBs?
Re: USB install / run MTW?
Hmm.. interesting idea. I've just finished testing it. First load 2-3 min. Going to the menu and coming back to game 35-40s. Loading a battle ~1min. Transfer rates of my USB - 25MB/s read, 10MB/s write.
Conclusion - it works but you'll need a lot of patience (or much faster USB stick). IMHO If you have at least 3GB RAM - create RAMdrive and copy the whole game into the ram. Works ultra fast. The only drawback is that you have to remember to copy your saves from ram to hdd or usb stick before shutting down your PC.
Re: USB install / run MTW?
Nice one!
How did you do it? Install straight to USB or did you copy the files across?
I've often wondered about loading games entirely in RAM, good to know it can actually be done. I'll definitely give it a wurl.
Is there a way to change the directory Medieval saves the games, that would solve the problem nicely.
Re: USB install / run MTW?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dellathane
How did you do it? Install straight to USB or did you copy the files across?
copy
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dellathane
I've often wondered about loading games entirely in RAM, good to know it can actually be done. I'll definitely give it a wurl.
I recommend "VSuite Ramdisk" but there are a few others you can try too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dellathane
Is there a way to change the directory Medieval saves the games, that would solve the problem nicely.
No. But you can try a program like SyncToy - make a directory for saves on your hdd and synchronize this directory with directory in ram when the game keeps saves. It's only an idea cause I've never tried such a tool.