Games on USB

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Pilgram
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Games on USB

Post by Pilgram » Sun, 26. Feb 23, 16:44

Do any of you run games from a USB?
How to tell how many gig a game is before I get it?

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Re: Games on USB

Post by Alan Phipps » Sun, 26. Feb 23, 16:50

Usually the game spec (minimum and/or recommended) will include something such as 'x GB hard drive space'. There must be a spec somewhere or you wouldn't know whether your system could run it.
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matthewfarmery
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Re: Games on USB

Post by matthewfarmery » Sun, 26. Feb 23, 19:14

Wouldn't try running a game from a USB stick, generally, they are best for storage / backup. However, if you got an external USB SSD, that would work, if its USB 3 / .1 or .2. But the problem is, games are getting bigger. So most USB sticks won't have the storage space.
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Pilgram
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Re: Games on USB

Post by Pilgram » Tue, 28. Feb 23, 12:35

USB
Some on line were saying it is great to be able to be able to play at a friends house or on a different computer. Portable and I was thinking of saving space on a computer hard drive.

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Re: Games on USB

Post by chew-ie » Tue, 28. Feb 23, 13:21

I'm using an external 2 TB SSD for taking my games along on business trips and / or moving stuff between my Steam Deck and the other PCs I own. (I almost only own GOG games, so moving games around is easy)

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Pilgram
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Re: Games on USB

Post by Pilgram » Tue, 28. Feb 23, 16:01

HDD V SSD for gamming and longevity?
What about format and start from 0 if it gets full does that hurt either?
About to launch X4 and was thinking of putting on a usb or HDD , SSD?

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Re: Games on USB

Post by CBJ » Wed, 1. Mar 23, 09:23

If you're installing X4, then SSD is definitely the best option. It won't affect general game performance, but the startup, loading and saving times are considerably better on SSD. There's no single answer as to whether the same applies to other games. I have a large HDD that I install most games on initially, and I only move them to SSD if I find a good reason to do so. I wouldn't bother reformatting an SSD to clear it out; just deleting the files is sufficient.

Pilgram
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Re: Games on USB

Post by Pilgram » Wed, 1. Mar 23, 13:46

So it's my understanding that if a game is saved on a separate drive that it loads on the computer and when you end the game it is gone from the computer?

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Re: Games on USB

Post by CBJ » Wed, 1. Mar 23, 16:01

Not sure I understand you here. Are you talking about the installation of the game, or your savegames? If you install the game on an external drive and unplug that drive then you can't play the game any more. If you only save your progress to an external drive, using a savegame, and then unplug the drive, you can still play the game but you can't load your savegame (in practice this latter scenario doesn't normally happen these days, as savegames are often stored in the "cloud" and are available no matter what computer you play the game on, as long as it's connected to the internet).

Pilgram
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Re: Games on USB

Post by Pilgram » Wed, 1. Mar 23, 16:05

Mostly saving the game to an external drive then running the game from a computer.
Not saving anything to the computer.

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Re: Games on USB

Post by CBJ » Wed, 1. Mar 23, 16:12

Again, "saving the game" is ambiguous here. Do you mean installing the game, or saving your progress within the game.

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Re: Games on USB

Post by Alan Phipps » Wed, 1. Mar 23, 16:22

An external drive is just that - external, but otherwise much the same in behaviour as an internal drive. On running the game from an external drive, the various gamefiles are downloaded into system RAM, processed as necessary to construct the gameplay loops, and then the save is downloaded and the current game environment/situation reconstructed.

Play proceeds on the PC system with further situational gamefiles downloaded from the external drive as and when needed in-game. Saves should go back where you loaded from or there will soon be a mismatch and the cloud may 'intervene' and further complicate things.

On leaving the game, no gamefiles should need to be restored back to the external drive as everything needed to reconstruct the play situation will be in the saves and the gamefiles were left intact on the external drive all along.

Your only other concern is to make sure that game updates are directed to the relevant external drive or they won't happen.

This is all assuming the game is not specifically designed to do it differently, of course. Oh, and there may be on-system caching of files, which you might need to be aware of.
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