Installing BMS on SSD
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Hey
SSD will give you mainly faster load times. Mainly means:
1. Faster pie screen.
2. Faster loading of 3D models and textures in 3D when the engine is pulling data from disk - E.g when in 3D and loading a model that isn’t in memory already (or must have been swapped due to memory management). However, the BMS loader is async, so models/textures are loaded while the engine keeps running, so you shouldn’t suffer any stutters or hiccups like it used to be in the old days (For who remembers).In general, a GFX engine wants everything to be in memory so it won’t need to go search the disk in Real time, but sometimes that isn’t quite possible to hold everything, so sometimes there is disk access at Runtime.
I say, if its easy to make room, then it’s the best, but it’s not THAT critical as one may think. Anyway don’t expect any performance improvements or something like that, real time performance (Besides possible delays on models/textures loading as noted in #2) don’t depend on disk access.
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Hey
SSD will give you mainly faster load times. Mainly means:
1. Faster pie screen.
2. Faster loading of 3D models and textures in 3D when the engine is pulling data from disk - E.g when in 3D and loading a model that isn’t in memory already (or must have been swapped due to memory management). However, the BMS loader is async, so models/textures are loaded while the engine keeps running, so you shouldn’t suffer any stutters or hiccups like it used to be in the old days (For who remembers).In general, a GFX engine wants everything to be in memory so it won’t need to go search the disk in Real time, but sometimes that isn’t quite possible to hold everything, so sometimes there is disk access at Runtime.
I say, if its easy to make room, then it’s the best, but it’s not THAT critical as one may think. Anyway don’t expect any performance improvements or something like that, real time performance (Besides possible delays on models/textures loading as noted in #2) don’t depend on disk access.
Thank you for such a detailed answer, appreciated
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Hey , here’s what I’ve did.
Same thing, savig SSD space , but I do have 240GB ssd anyway, … anyway here’s the trick.
Symbolic Links , or symlinks… You can ‘MOVE’ some bms folders to some other location on SSD and then create ‘symlink’ in BMS directory to that folder, mainly whole theater which you are playing at the moment. So, the whole theatre is on SSD, but main BMS is on .
Symlinks were born long ago on linux /unix, and Microsoft implmented shortcuts instead in Win95? first, something like Macintosh-copy, … but symlinks are much better.
Here’s docs. It’s easy stuff, for beginners.
https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16226/complete-guide-to-symbolic-links-symlinks-on-windows-or-linux/
…
In my case , I have BMS installed on 1TB, drive which is not ssd , and I’m playing Balkan theatre atm., so…I’ve created directory on (ssd) drive , eg. “C:\Temp\Add-On Balkans” … so the stuff inside “C:\TEMP…” is NOT in root , where you need admin privileges , so you would also need to run BMS as admin , but in our case, where files put in sub-folder in drive , so we don’t need admin privileges… cute trick!
Then move whole theater to that c:\temp… locationHere you see “D:\Falcon BMS 4.33 U1\Data” , that Balkans have a shortcut icon , which is ‘symlink’ to the C:\temp\Add-On Balkans" location. … So , the system (windows) and BMS… thinks that it reads D:… \Balkans , but in reality, it reads C:… \Balkans from ssd.
That’s it … Pie screen is really faster then before., and I’ve saved some space from SSD.
…Now , how to create symlink in window and how to use them properly, just a friendly warning, some OLDER software is stupid enough that it really ‘thinks’ that is a ‘real’ folder rather then symlink (shortcut) so , if you delete your shortcut in that older software , it will really DELETE the target folder with all files in it … but fortunately Windows 10 explorer is SMART enough to delete symlink shortcut only , NOT the target folder.
Cheers
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Please add it in hotlist
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@ White_Fang
That is so Y2K, really a wast of time today with our high performance Mech HDs and fast cheap ram.
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Well it might be old, but since it does the trick.
Example I have an hdd and an SSD, I could use the trick to load the theaters from my SSD and use the space for my hdd. I use the SSD for development and falcon backup. For development I need just one or two theaters not the whole package.
Having hdd for falcon backup ends up having a huge amount of gb taking space like a full falcon setup 3-4 times. This goes above 100gb. And when you backup development stuff this can go to even 500gb or more depending… If you are on a 1tb hdd you find your self zipping erasing and doing yoga to get free space… I believe this is what most guys do, so this could help even not SSD guys.
Personally I didn’t knew this think worked that way.
Another thing - use? I have 500gb hdd at work and I want to have apps for falcon. I have an external HDD to transfer things from home, that way I could have the programs running from the USB disk and free up my disk space. Sure it will be slow but it could work. Not to mention with a usb3 disk I could use the same disk for home and work and be like just the same. There will be issues with resolution but nothing unmanageable I believe.Στάλθηκε από το MI 5 μου χρησιμοποιώντας Tapatalk
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Y2K ???!! that was merely 20yrs ago … look, I would post you my config specs , but I don’t want you or anybody on my consciousnesses (dead from laughter)
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What socket 7 with 80Gig HDs ? And a pair of 256MB of SDRAM sticks. Do tell & I might be more sympathetic.
A 1TB WD Blue is so cheap, fast & reliable, I can remember thinking it was so cool when I had a pair of 10GB Quantum in raid.
Before that I used some of the System memory to create a Ram Drive to load Falcons Data Base into at System boot. Now that made a hell of a difference.
Today’s rigs are so fast for the dollar that I don’t even bother to OC the CPU anymore,
In some ways I do miss the old days of eking out every last drop of performance out of every sub system, storage, memory, GPU, CPU and cooling.
Now it’s how to economically arrange my medical appointments. :crutch:
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well if u have the money for it… if you don’t you overclock and you do whatever to squeeze every thing from it to give you better performance and not loose anything as much as you can.
When I was to buy my last os boot hdd I wanted to go beyond the 1TB, blue of course, but instead I chose a 1 tb black, safer than larger.
The ssd is 120gb bought on flash sale and painful to buy it, but theaters were getting more and more and larger and my old 60gb was not enough. now even with the newer 120gb ssd i bought is not enough.So with this trick I can have my not so used theaters in one of my old hdd’s and not worry for the space in my ssd.
Or I can move theaters by such way and keep the 120ssd and save the money that I don’t have for some xx years or until the ssd dies.
I was already thinking if I should upgrade to a new bigger ssd, but with this I don’t need to.
So when the going get tough the tough gets going…
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Well, I partially concur with you… BUT! (it is umm big butt) , today prices of dd3/4 systems specs and of course some cutting edge SSD’s (like EVO Pro) are definitely not economical, if you allow.
We, (I am) are always looking for some best-buy, … in the end is a matter or personal preference.
Ddr2 is ok, cheap, and old… , my motherboard was unique design GA45PE-DS3L , which accepts 4GB ddr2 sticks, … just go on e-bay and see how much for that rarities, 1 stick only!. . … I don’t know man, it is not economical if you ask me.
So… why not to save some buck wherever you can?
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I’m using the same method on Linux / Wine to link installed theaters on Win7 into my WINE-based BMS install on Linux, works like a charm on that end, too
All the best, Uwe
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Yo, you can use compactGUI downloaded from here https://github.com/ImminentFate/CompactGUI/releases/download/v2.6.2/CompactGUI.exe which is a GUI for windows 10 new compact feature. I compressed my falcon installation from 60GB to 26GB using 16k compression. Saves a ton of space and no issues
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wow we r in the dark here…
It says with old hdd’s this makes it faster… probably assuming you have a good cpu.so what settings did you use?
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Used xpress16k, you can use any of them the more you compress the longer it takes though, but damn its a great way to save up those GB’s.
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well if from 60 went to 26 then I can have all theaters in my ssd that way.
ssd is fast, my cpu is fast so there must be a gain here.
But i’m on win7… :lol:
At least I can use it at my work notebook. -
wow falcon from 31,5 went to 13,5…
and with medium compression…
looks very promising.
looks very impressive.I’ll test it and on heavy apps.
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Lol I tested it and as a feeling I didn’t notice the slidest.
Thanks WurminatorZA.
In my work laptop 500gb SSD from 60gb free now I have more than 100gb free just from heavy load and personal use apps that I don’t use that often.
In xp that I tried that compression tool it was a nightmare, now on w10 looks good. I wonder why they don’t have it easily accessible and they still have the old compression thing on the folders files properties…
Well Microsoft forces the stupid things and hides the good stuff…Android studio app folder from 12gb went to 485mb… Go figure…
Στάλθηκε από το MI 5 μου χρησιμοποιώντας Tapatalk
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Yo, you can use compactGUI downloaded from here https://github.com/ImminentFate/CompactGUI/releases/download/v2.6.2/CompactGUI.exe which is a GUI for windows 10 new compact feature. I compressed my falcon installation from 60GB to 26GB using 16k compression. Saves a ton of space and no issues
WOW! That is the best thing I’ve learned since I went over to the darkside and installed Win10! Thank you - gonna check that out for sure. I have several titles that want over 70GB (or more with mods) – this will really help save space on the SSD!
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I’m using the same method on Linux / Wine to link installed theaters on Win7 into my WINE-based BMS install on Linux, works like a charm on that end, too
All the best, Uwe
eh, you’re on your own turf … MS implemented them in windows , not fully supported tho, since Vista or Win7 , I think.
On Win10 is a MUST , because option for linux co-exist install , for devs. -
Used xpress16k, you can use any of them the more you compress the longer it takes though, but damn its a great way to save up those GB’s.
REALLY ??! WOW … I’ve played with “compact” since WinXP . only caveat was, maybe still, that disk must be formatted in ntfs , 4K cluster size. That are the slowest operations , even on ssd . read-write., on that cluster size.
And still , if any hard drive fail occurs , it is more problematic to repair compressed files.
So then it wasn’t so relevant to me, and left the idea…
You should see ‘compacted’ files and folders blue in explorer. (green, or red? are encrypted ones, but that doesn’t interest us now , also that can be changed with some tweak.)Now, with ??TB disks (non-SSD) it really speeds up things if you format bigger cluster size , eg. 16K , but space is wasted much more when lots of small files. (smaller then 16KB) , or incomplete filled clusters., but reported fully in use.
- defragmentation is A must much more often …where/when required.
But still, for SSD’s , space gained is almost ENORMOUS…, with those new algos , … well ,they’ve finally put modern cpu’s in use somewhat … and are still faster then any electromechanical disk.
I think I’m in
We’ll see for cpu use still, maybe it is irrelevant , maybe it isn’t. (I’m still on quad core non-ht intel , from 2008/9.) … Maybe it will suffer some penalties, from (de)compress on the fly…,
-, … I 'm thinking all around, system global use, not just for BMS ,…at least for stuff that just lies around taking up space.(…hmm now you got me thinking,… what if you could restrict only one cpu core/thread for disk I/O , eg the 4th one , less used… then it wouldn’t impact the system at all that much…, with some cpu/thread tweak we should be able to attach only windows disk I/O thread service image to that core, the one which is responsible for de-compress on read/write… I guess it i a bit deeper in windows, but could be doable… , … to check)
think I have some benchmarking to do, time wise … and/or fps wise
Anyway , HUGE Thanks for that info.
Cheers
edit:
Xpress16, lzx and other algos are ONLY for exe files , so no benefit for other types … icons in explorer are changed in Win10 , so files are not blue but have two boxes in upper right corner and, of course , every compressed file or folder gets a ‘C’ attribute as before
Typical, all around, cpu usage on my 4core Q6600 3.4Ghz(oc) system is about less then <5% (Its not worth disk i/o thread h4cking in the end) , … so it is very small , … that much is spent watching full hd / surround video with “media player classic home-cinema” player using HAL video acceleration (hardware video decoding) , so … very small cpu usage indeed