Help / Advice for a new user please? Stable/OB and best use of Drives

[Keith Briscoe]

Hi. I'm only a month in but totally hooked.  I originally downloaded only 2.8 Stable, but I already have the itch for MP so want to look at Open Beta - but I have a few questions:

1. Is it generally a good/better idea to have BOTH versions on my system, available to use?
2. Any downside of having ONLY open beta?
- do user file single missions (i.e., the great F15c training by N22Yf) work in OB?

3. I originally placed 2.8 Stable on my D drive (only thing on it), but I notice that DCS Saved Games is in C drive.  Is it best to have them in two different drives?  Could/should I consider "moving" / DCS Saved Games to D where I have the most available Free Space?

Thank you!

[MAXsenna]

Hi. I'm only a month in but totally hooked.  I originally downloaded only 2.8 Stable, but I already have the itch for MP so want to look at Open Beta - but I have a few questions:
1. Is it generally a good/better idea to have BOTH versions on my system, available to use?
2. Any downside of having ONLY open beta?
- do user file single missions (i.e., the great F15c training by N22Yf) work in OB?
3. I originally placed 2.8 Stable on my D drive (only thing on it), but I notice that DCS Saved Games is in C drive.  Is it best to have them in two different drives?  Could/should I consider "moving" / DCS Saved Games to D where I have the most available Free Space?
Thank you!

1. If you have the space it's no harm to have both. Get Skatezilla's GUI Updater/Launcher too, and never look back. You'll probably stop using Stable soon enough, and then just delete it.
2. Last time I used them, yes.
3. It could be considered "good" to keep them separately performance wise. And you can't move them without moving your whole Saved Games, unless you do some Windows trickery with symbolic links etc.

Cheers!

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[silverdevil]

3 hours ago, MAXsenna said:

trickery

lol

[Slippa]

Just reading through these threads as I really do have to sort out my drives again. 

I’ve been putting it off as I almost always bugger something up. Messing with some of these things is wizardry, never mind trickery for me .

I only have Stable installed as well as Beta because for whatever reason almost every training mission for every module I have is missing in Beta. I’ve tried a repair, still no better so I reinstalled both. Reading above reminds me I still haven’t worked out Skatezillas thing but will have to have another look.

I still want to use my D drive in the same way I have been, same as OP does. I can see myself getting mixed up somehow though as I’m moving as much of DCS as I can to yet another drive (ext ssd). Guaranteed to bodge something somewhere, my C drive’s in the red, D’s getting that way too and the whole lot needs organising better. DCS isn’t about to start dieting either. No doubt I’ll be starting a thread myself asking for help (wizardry and trickery) to get ‘back in the air’ soon.

Good to have so many little threads to check back on.

[Slippa]

Oh I’m well acquainted with the ‘move saved games folder’ threads . I’ve had myself tied in knots a few times. Worked it out with some help from here, Rudel, MaxSenna, SilverDevil, Flappie, they’ve all stepped in as well as admin with a support ticket when I’ve got myself in a hole. A proper band of merry wizards they are too. 

I have my saved games folder on D, stable and beta installed on C. I’ll have another go at renaming and reinstalling later as if the training missions are repaired on beta I won’t need stable anyhow.

Part of my problem is I’m a bit OCD when it comes to backups. On one of my external ssds, which is itself backed up, I have DCS saved games folders as well as a ‘DCS Drawer’. In the drawer there are older copies of saved games folders, inputs, liveries, mods and god knows what else. It all needs organising sensibly. Probably by somebody else .

I’m a couple of years into DCS now and have more of an idea of what I’ll need backed up etc so can strip a lot of it out.

I hadn’t thought the two versions would be merged so soon as in the next patch. That’ll give us all another 300 odd Gb so good to hear it’s soon. Saying that, when is the patch, two weeks away? . DCS is going on a diet then.

I should probably just start a thread for advice as I have a bit of a complicated set up. Over-complicated by myself and my crazy mind half the time. Keeps everyone on their toes I s’pose?

I’m running Windows on a partition of a Mac with Bootcamp. I could, if I wanted to, almost double my C drive by allocating more of the drive to windows. I have a pair of external ssds, 2tb T7s that are in their packaging ready for me to make a mess of. There are 1tb T7s almost full with DCS saved games and other bits and bobs too. I’ll have shedloads of drive space, I just have to organise it all better. Trouble is, when I switch it on I can either fly, or get my head stuck into folders within folders and scratch my head at the mess of double back ups. If I start really trying out some magic, like redirecting drives and reinstalling stuff, it could all go pear-shaped at any stage and I could be grounded.

So I have a fly. I try not to think about the glowing red drives and I put it off. It’s no good though, I’ve got two maps installed and I own most if not all of em so something needs sorting.

Cheers for the nod. I’ll see if I can fix beta up a bit.

[Slippa]

On 2/15/2024 at 4:30 PM, Slippa said:

I could, if I wanted to, almost double my C drive by allocating more of the drive to windows.

I had to.

I went through deleting pointless old copies of backups and made loads of room. Uninstalled both OB and stable and re-installed OB. Training missions all back as they should be, thanks. When I’d re-added skins (around 80gb) and a few mods etc my C drive was still in the red with more space but still not enough. That was with just OB, no stable installed.

I started checking how to allocate more space on the drive, and whether I could adjust the size of the drive while still having software, including DCS, installed. I could, so I crossed my fingers and toes and tried it. It worked fine (I was on Wizard form) but it had me messing about trying to set up DCS as I used to have it. Eventually I found the right copy of my options folder. My C drive is now 1.5tb. To me, that’s nothing like I’ve ever had. It doesn’t seem right and I never did work out how to install DCS entirely on an external drive. I’m obviously not the IT expert around the place but we have to have a fiddle don’t we.

As far as I can work out, no matter what I want to do, or which drive I want to install it on, DCS will make its ED folder in the program files on C. It’s not just DCS either. Maybe I missed a trick but I thought I’d be able to have most, if not all of DCS on an external of my choosing. My saved games folder is on an external ssd but program files on C are over 300gb. Is that gonna be, whatever happens? I’m forever telling everything to go anywhere but not on C:.

As it is, I’m back in the blue anyway, drive-wise and DCS wise but how big a C drive am I gonna end up with? I’m sure I’m messing something up here. 

 

[MAXsenna]

@Slippa I believe there's a bug in the installer. It seems to default to C:\, either because there is and old registry setting pointing there or there are no registry entry at all. Like when one install for the first time. In any case. Just move the Eagle Dynamics root folder to wherever you want. Update the registry setting, shortcuts etc. and you should be all set.

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[Slippa]

Ah, I wouldn’t know Max, cheers.

I’ll have a look next time, expect I’ll have some questions. I’ve tidied a lot up but I know it’s still a bleedin mess. Get there eventually .