#4596539 - 04/09/22 02:28 AM
Re: Moving WOFF to different drive.
[Re: catch]
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Joined: Jan 2016
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kksnowbear
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Adger makes two very good points:
One is that moving a program's "primary" files as a means of relocating the program - although sometimes it can work - isn't the best idea (that is, ever since Windows/registry; used to work just fine in DOS). His advice on moving WOFF sounds like the way to avoid problems.
Two, it sounds as if your C: drive might be an SSD and the F: drive a conventional, platter-based "spinner". If that's the case, you would very likely experience lesser performance running from a conventional hard disk than from an SSD. Longer loading times almost without doubt, and also probably an increase in the occurrence/frequency/duration of the occasional 'loading stutter' that sometimes happens (which higher-speed drives like SSDs can help to mitigate). If the drives are as I've described, then there wouldn't be much way to avoid the difference in performance, so even if you can move WOFF safely, it might not be a good choice (unless, of course, you have/get faster drives that you could move WOFF to).
On that note, you might consider that some people (myself included) typically advise running games from a drive *other* than the OS volume (I can elaborate as to why if you wish)...but, it might be a good idea to add/use an SSD (besides C:) to run WOFF and other sims from. This would likely help performance as well.
Last edited by kksnowbear; 04/09/22 02:36 AM.
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#4596546 - 04/09/22 05:09 AM
Re: Moving WOFF to different drive.
[Re: catch]
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Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 936
VonS
WWI Flight Sims on a Mac
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WWI Flight Sims on a Mac
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@OP, see also this thread on the identical topic, over on CombatAce. Also double-check my last post in that thread regarding tinkering with the directory install path as per the relevant registry tweak for WoFF/BH&H2. Hopefully you will be able to solve things quickly without a total reinstall. NOTE: I don't recommend running any flight sims on a spinning HDD - best is to stick with SSDs for flight sims and other heavy-lifting gaming. For example, the only things that work well, in terms of gaming, on my 5400 RPM spinning HDD (in the 2012 Mac Mini) are retro 2.5D games from the 1990s, as well as somewhat newer strategy-based sims such as the 'Civilization' series (Civ IV to be specific). Cheers and happy tinkering, Von S
Last edited by VonS; 04/10/22 03:06 AM. Reason: Edited post.
~ For my various FM/AI/FPS/DM Mods. for First Eagles 2, WoFF, RoF & WoTR, and tips for FlightGear, recommended is to check over my CombatAce profile ( https://combatace.com/profile/86760-vons/) and to click on the "About Me" tab while there. ~
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#4596627 - 04/10/22 12:53 PM
Re: Moving WOFF to different drive.
[Re: catch]
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Joined: May 2001
Posts: 1,827
Panama Red
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Irmo, SC, USA
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catch: If you have the motherboard connections (and most do), have you considered just buying another SSD just for games ???
This is what I did with my game PC. It has 3 disks, 1 SSD just for the OP, 1 SSD just for my flight games and 1 HHD just for "data" or slow games and that solves your WOFF / WOTR problem.
As "cheap" as SSD's are now, you should be able to buy at least a 1 TB SSD for your flight games and have room inside your PC case since they do not take up that much room.
CPU = i9 11900K GPU = RTX 3080 Ti Monitor = ASUS ROG Swift PG32UQX 2160p G-sync
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#4596707 - 04/11/22 12:47 PM
Re: Moving WOFF to different drive.
[Re: catch]
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Joined: May 2001
Posts: 1,827
Panama Red
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External SSD depends on the (1) SSD R/W speed, (2) the USB cable connection speed (USB 2, 3 or 3.1) and (3) your PC USB motherboard connection speed (USB 2, 3 or 3.1).
This is why the internal SSD works better because the standard internal connection speed for many years has been 6Gbps rate which is far faster than an external connection or SSD speed.
CPU = i9 11900K GPU = RTX 3080 Ti Monitor = ASUS ROG Swift PG32UQX 2160p G-sync
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#4596712 - 04/11/22 01:26 PM
Re: Moving WOFF to different drive.
[Re: catch]
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Joined: Jan 2016
Posts: 945
kksnowbear
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Catch, as I had previously mentioned above:
"...you might consider that some people (myself included) typically advise running games from a drive *other* than the OS volume... it might be a good idea to add/use an SSD (besides C:) to run WOFF and other sims from..."
Regarding an external drive: I can't offer any particular specifics, but I would say - as a general rule - I don't recommend external (removable) drives for use as static/permanent drives. They're great for things like backups and being portable, and I use them extensively for the PC work I do (creating/restoring drive images)...but the only real advantage is convenience (i.e., not having to open the chassis to add them) and there are a few potential "tradeoff drawbacks":
One is speed/performance of the drive. For the same reason a platter-based conventional hard disk isn't the best choice for performance (as above), an external drive can also be undesirable. The USB port you'd almost certainly be using for such a drive is going to be limited itself in transfer speed - so even with the fastest of SSDs, the 'bottleneck' might be the USB interface of the external drive. Now, this can be mitigated somewhat by the more recent forms of USB, and might be less a factor depending on the actual drive in the enclosure. For example, if you use a USB 3.0 (or "3.2 Gen1" as I believe it's now called) external enclosure that contains a SATA 6G/s SSD, then performance would be OK (about 500MB/s which is about the same as an internal SATA SSD). However, it depends on the ports available on your PC. It wouldn't make sense to use external storage if all you had was USB 2.0 ports. That might be fine for backups (although still slow, backups don't generally care). Conversely, it wouldn't make sense to use a USB 3.2 Gen2 port and connect an external enclosure with a conventional platter-based hard drive inside (these are still very common on the market, and you might buy one if you didn't know any better).
(BTW sorry about the 'fancy' USB version names...I didn't do it. It's really become stupid, because the people responsible for the naming conventions keep changing their minds)
If you really want to go the external drive route, I'd suggest having someone experienced review both the type of ports on your computer and whatever drive you might be considering. This can all be done remotely. I'd be happy to help if you want to send me a PM.
Another factor is how Windows can behave at times about external/removable storage. Without getting too far off on a tear, I'll just say Windows is becoming more and more a piece of absolute cr*p when it comes to pretty much everything an OS is supposed to do. The interface keeps getting overhauled, but who cares - and many people were happy with the way it was. Microsoft is always blabbering about 'security' but it's just as bad as ever - people just don't realize it (and who wants to be worried about it after all?). Anyhow, Windows does "know" the difference between removable storage (like an external drive) and 'fixed' storage (like an internal drive). And sometimes USB can just up and decide it's not going to play nicely today - we've all had this happen; you just unplug/replug the USB connection or perhaps restart the machine...but what happens when the USB port decides to act up, and Windows decides your external drive's letter has changed because it didn't "see" the external drive on account of the USB port issue? When the USB connection is restored, there are a number of ways a drive can wind up with a different letter than it was after going away/coming back...
Or, maybe the little power adapter ("wall wart") for your external drive gets accidentally knocked loose...or the dog/cat/bird/(insert pet type here) chews up the cord...
I think you can see where I'm headed, as your original post was an inquiry about just moving the files for WOFF. Having a drive letter change (for *whatever* reason...doesn't matter how or why) is effectively the same thing as trying to move the install files. It's not likely to go over too well.
And, although I have read about people doing exactly that - running WOFF from an external drive - I can't say I'd recommend it, for the reasons above (among others).
Theoretically, you can jump start any number of older vehicles by touching the metal bumpers together (ground) and using the car's tire tool and jack handle to short the positive terminals together between two cars...
But what a tremendously horrible idea it is.
In 40+ yours of tech support maintenance, I've heard the phrase "But it works..." more times than you can imagine. In reality, the fact that people can hobble together pieces of stuff and somehow the gods are kind enough such that the car actually starts (for example)...doesn't make it a good idea. Intermittent failures and/or erratic functionality, random connection issues, etc...all these are very common manifestations of something that was hobbled together at first, and appeared to work...
Do you have any alternatives (to adding the drive yourself or using external devices)? Maybe someone you know that could help you?
Last edited by kksnowbear; 04/11/22 01:58 PM.
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#4596714 - 04/11/22 01:38 PM
Re: Moving WOFF to different drive.
[Re: Panama Red]
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Joined: Jan 2016
Posts: 945
kksnowbear
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This is why the internal SSD works better because the standard internal connection speed for many years has been 6Gbps rate which is far faster than an external connection or SSD speed. Actually that's not correct. I use external storage all the time; external drives on USB 3.2 Gen2 (what you called 3.1 - the former title) are capable of transferring in excess of the 6G/s SATA interface speeds. I have many NVMe > USB 3.2g2 enclosures which transfer data at very close to the rated 10G/s of the USB 3.2g2 spec. It won't hit PCIe 3.0 speeds of some NVMe drives, but then again nor do some of the less expensive drives, either. Best speed/cost for a newer PC (with USB 3.2g2 ports) is going to be NVMe > USB 3.2g2 enclosure, populated internally with an NVMe M.2 SSD with ~10MB/s read rates. This will provide * double* the SATA SSD speed you mentioned (and could actually even cost less per unit of storage). M.2/NVMe has been the 'standard' internal drive connection on motherboard chipsets for around 8 years now (intro with Z97, c. 2014) and is much faster than SATA. As much as 10x faster, on some of the newest boards (PCIe 4 NVMe). The problem is you have to be familiar with what you're buying (which is obviously an issue for the lesser experienced). (EDIT...with all the foregoing said, I still don't recommend using external devices as fixed storage on a Windows PC, for all the reasons described)
Last edited by kksnowbear; 04/11/22 02:38 PM.
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#4596763 - 04/12/22 02:15 AM
Re: Moving WOFF to different drive.
[Re: catch]
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kksnowbear
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Might be worth trying, and you may even decide that running WOFF from the HDD isn't the terrible idea we're all making it sound like Also, as I mentioned earlier, I do believe there are people here in this forum who have said they run WOFF from an external drive...and thus, I'm not saying it can't be done. In fact, I'm saying I think it *can* be done, just not sure it's worth the risks I outlined (for me). If you, OTOH, aren't too worried about these risks, then by all means, you could try an external drive. I'd be happy to provide some details on what to look for, if you decide you want to try that. Best of luck to you, whichever way you decide to go.
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#4596821 - 04/12/22 03:35 PM
Re: Moving WOFF to different drive.
[Re: catch]
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Joined: Jan 2016
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kksnowbear
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I don't think it will be unplayable or any such thing, of course...just that you may see more stuttering (or pauses, hitches, micro-hiccups or whatever other euphemism we're using these days), that lasts longer when it happens, or things like that. Though nothing completely eliminates this, running from a faster drive can help with it, since everything loads from the drive into memory that little extra bit faster.
I believe the business about VC++ is being triggered by running the WOFF install (although VC++ is a 'stand-alone' product itself). It 'sees' that it's already on your system (I believe) and since it's been triggered by the WOFF install, it's asking you: "Hey, this is actually already here - did you want me to re-do it, or get rid of it?" Provided it's intact from your prior install, you should be fine, although I would also say that it wouldn't have hurt to tell it to "repair" it.
Interestingly enough, this is mentioned in the official WOFF FAQ, which states you should leave it on "Repair". In this case, Repair means basically install VC++ over again, so you wind up with a good install. It would be difficult to determine if your VC++ was somehow compromised; easier by far to just run the "repair" to be sure.
I think it's reasonably safe to assume it was there already and intact...and, as you noted, if there was a problem, you'll know soon enough.
If that happens - I'm no expert - but I would suggest you completely re-do the install, following the FAQ instructions in Sec 17/p 35. You may wind up with some other issues, if you deviated from the FAQ procedure - not sure. OBD is fairly adamant that if there are problems like this, you have to follow the FAQ. I believe it's even mentioned that if you were to contact them for help, they're going to ask that you do the un/reinstall per the FAQ. So, if you run into a problem, that's what you should do.
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#4596916 - 04/13/22 12:47 PM
Re: Moving WOFF to different drive.
[Re: catch]
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Joined: Jan 2016
Posts: 945
kksnowbear
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I'm gonna uninstall WOFF from my C drive to free up some space... Oh, man...I don't know if you did that already, but... When you said you had installed WOFF on the F drive, I thought surely you would've already uninstalled it from C before putting it on F. Are you talking about just deleting old WOFF files from C? I'd be very careful. Thing is, you have a working install on F: If you now run the uninstaller, I'm not sure it can automatically behave as you want it to. For example (and I just don't know): It might not know the difference between the old install on C and the new one on F, and thus might not remove the one you intend. Not sure. Also, even if you have two installs on two different drives, I'm fairly certain there will only be one set of registry entries for the game. That means it's possible (again - I'm not the expert here) that running the uninstall *after* you installed successfully on F could affect the wrong installation (the one on F instead of C). There could be a big difference between just deleting old files and actually running an uninstaller. Deleting old files does pretty much just that, and that alone. An uninstaller, though, is generally going to delete the files and make changes involving the registry, user profiles, etc. The order in which you do these things can matter...and I'm not the expert on this, but I'd be concerned about running an uninstall as outlined above. You have to understand that the developers - as skilled and talented as they might be - would have very little way to make sure everything works when you're already kind of off the path they could foresee. If you wanted it moved, I feel certain their advice would be uninstall it first and then reinstall after that. I suppose it's also possible it could work just fine...but I just don't know. TBH I'd be really skeptical you could do all that, in that order, and come out of it unscathed. Just seems kind of...unlikely - to me. I could be wrong. Sorry if this sounds harsh or anything like that - please understand that's not the intent at all. I'm just concerned that you may be going about things in a way that could cause problems that would be incredibly difficult to totally resolve (especially on a Windows PC).
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#4596998 - 04/14/22 02:04 AM
Re: Moving WOFF to different drive.
[Re: catch]
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Joined: Jan 2016
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kksnowbear
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Well, although it is unfortunate that you wound up losing settings etc, I suppose it could be worse. I am glad to hear you managed with no worse than that. As you referenced, I believe the 'connection' between those two installs was this stupid registry thing we keep bustling about And, after all was said and done, you did get the space you were aiming to get. I do hope it goes smoothly once you get all your settings dialed in. Best of luck with it
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#4597009 - 04/14/22 08:25 AM
Re: Moving WOFF to different drive.
[Re: catch]
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Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 2,808
Adger
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So when I toolboxed the uninstall on C it also wiped the F install. Not in my plan. Hmm so after cleaning up folders in both drives and the registry and stuff I reinstalled WOFF on my F drive. Then it wanted my order# so after a frantic search I found it, entered it and all was ok. Then updated it to 1.24. So far so good (ish). But of course all my stick, pedals and other settings were wiped. So I have a virgin install of BH&H2 as clean and shiny as when Pol and Winders released it.
The upside is I have more space on my OS C drive as planned. The downside is I have to redo all my settings on my F install. No matter, it gives me something to do and I've learned something, like maybe being less impatient.
Been there done that Catch What I’ve also noticed in the past is..if you don’t “nuke” the installation properly and reinstall on a different drive then any patches will only look for the original installation drive (Registry)..Best of luck going forwards with your bindings etc mate.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.
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