DimmDrive and Mod Organizer

[thetommartowseries]

Hi guys,

I have come across a problem when using DimmDrive and MO. I have 32GB of ram and can only have the data folder and MO's mod folder which comes to 27GB. When I create the dimmdrive and open up MO I notice in the left pane that a complete copy of every mod has just been created.

I would just like to ask if I unchecked all the mods from the HDD directory and checked the mods in the DimmDrive directory and had to correctly sort them, would that work as intended?

Thanks for reading.

 

 

This is when DimmDrive is off.

 

 

This is what happens when I load my data and mods folder into DimmDrive.

 

 

This is my mods folder directory when DimmDrive is active.

 

Edited January 18, 2015 by thetommartowseries

[thetommartowseries]

Hey Guys, 

 

I selected the full mods folder but because there was an empty folder inside one of the mods, DimmDrive automatically deselected that causing every folder inside the mods folder to have a symbolic link. The dd.presync folders no longer show up in MO anymore now I've deleted the SkyProc Debug folder.

 

 

All boxes now have a full check mark and the only symbolic link is for the 'mods' and 'data' folder.

 

 

@Tannin that would be useful for people without enough ram to load up the full 'mods' folder as it really threw me off track.

Edited January 19, 2015 by thetommartowseries

[GSDFan]

I have not seen this. I will modify my Dimdrive to this configuration to test. Meantime what version of MO are you using?

[GrantSP]

Firstly I have never heard of DimmDrive so I am only going on what I can find on its website. I would question the prudence of trying to use an MO managed game through a RAM drive. MO will use a fair amount of memory in setting up the VFS it needs and trying to then duplicate into an entire fake HDD that exists in memory seems to me like a reason to be worried.

 

Secondly, in reading your post I feel this might actually be better answered if asked on a forum that specialises in DimmDrive. I get the impression that what you are actually wanting is more related to that tool's use than MO's.

[GSDFan]

@GrantSP, Dimdrive allows those of us that spent the money on copious amounts memory to spend even more money to make use of said memory. I can afford a 50 GB ram drive and still have 15 GB left for the system.

 

@thetommartowseries, sorry to say I could not reproduce your problem. I would try redoing your DD over again. I also would not actively mod the game in DD, just run the game from it. I would also ask if you had MO running while DD was doing its thing. Maybe MO caught the Symlinks being created.

[GrantSP]

 

 

I can afford a 50 GB ram drive and still have 15 GB left for the system.

     

 

Ahh... desktops systems, how I long for the days.

[thetommartowseries]

Hey guys.

 

I have everything shut off before I start to load anything off DimmDrive and only play the game when it's in the drive. For some reason the Skeleton XM32 (something) folder loads into DimmDrive but never effectively turned back into a normal folder, making me have to manually change it.

 

@GSDFan - Yes, MO is catching the symlinks and adding to RAM directory mods into the MO, but with the way Symlinks are, the ones already checked should be in the RAM, they're just symlinks.

 

I've updated the first post with a few pictures of MO with DimmDrive on and off.

[GSDFan]

When you set up the DimDrive, did you select the main MO Mods folder or the individual mods? I do not see anything like the third picture.

[aremann]

Hi, i have been using DimmDrive from quite some time now, but somehow its not liking MO very much over here.

 

i got DD working with MO the first time i tried by adding DD to MO and starting DD from within MO, then using the "add new" button inside the apps tab, that way DD would see the finished modded files.

as i said, it worked the first time i added my modded folder, after a week or so without trying to use DD with Skyrim i noticed that the folder i did set up didnt update my new modded files that MO handled.

i have tried starting everything in admin mode, removing and adding skse to DD again (that actually didnt find my MO handled files at all, esp's bsa's and other files that was in the old entry of DD could not be found again and not all the new MO handled files either)

 

would love for someone to get back to me about the best way to use these two, it worked once for me doing it this way..... yet now it wont at all.

 

 

in other notes, yet we could use DD to add the mods folder for MO but that folder is a mess alot of the time as many many of the files are not even used and with limited space of a ramdisk its a problem.

 

 

--------------------

DimmDrive have mostly gotten traffic since it launched on Steam and with Skyrim getting slower and slow with alot of mods it might be needed from some even if you have an SSD. 

 

they got the Steam Hub they keep up to date alot here and ofc the Official site of theirs aswell.

[Tannin]

MOs behaviour is to be expected, it picks up all directories in its "mods" directory as its pool of mods.

DimmDrive simply copies each directory to its ramdrive then creates symlinks in the original directory after renaming the original folder to xyz.dd.presync

this means each dimmdrive'd directory exists twice from MOs pov.

 

It's a very specific problem, especially since DD isn't all that useful (ramdrives have been available since the times of dos and have never seen much use because they're usually not worth it. Especially in times of SSDs)

 

Otoh this should be very easy to fix, I could introduce a workaround to let you set patterns that MO should ignore in the mods directory. You could then set an ignore pattern "*.dd.presync" and MO would ignore those. Might be useful in other situations as well.

[GSDFan]

Hi, i have been using DimmDrive from quite some time now, but somehow its not liking MO very much over here.

 

i got DD working with MO the first time i tried by adding DD to MO and starting DD from within MO, then using the "add new" button inside the apps tab, that way DD would see the finished modded files.

You are running DD from MO? Why would you do that? Do your modding from MO without DD running and only use DD, launched external to MO, when you want to play the game.

 

Use DD to rebuild the ram drive new each time you want to play the game. This way all the files you select will be copied to the ram drive and the will be fresh. I have not seen any problems running it this way.

 

I am lucky enough to have a large amount of ram to play with so I can DD the whole Skyrim folder along with MO, about 50gb of data. Not seeing much difference as Skyrim is on an SSD. I was only doing this as a test and to try to answer questions about MO/ DD interactions.

 

Can you give me some specifics?

like where Skyrim is install.

MO is installed.

How much ram you have.

How big DD is, what files / folders are selected. method used to do this - More Ram or less ram options.

 

With this info and my own experiences I can try to put together a guide.

[aremann]

well the reason i try to start DD with MO as a launcher is so the files handled by MO is seen by DD, its so all the extra files that isnt being used will not be seen by DD.

 

and yes you have to rebuild the DD every time you are changing anything with mods in MO, the good thing with DD is the ease of usage and safety it has. it always has a safe backup of the files as folders are only renamed and linked, new and edited files are written to the origin drive right away so if you crash for some reason its safe on your SSD and such.

 

i also find that i get better loading speeds and alot better assets streaming with huge ugrids with speedmult. 

 

as for specs here;

Size of DD: about 24GB, sometimes more, sometimes less depending on what my PC is using ATM

Total Amount of RAM: 32GB

 

my Skyrim Game and MO Mods folders are both located on my SSD's  (that is having performance problems i think, always been slow for me :/)

 

for what files i load into DD its mostly folders inside my mods folder that i know will get loaded like large texture packs and such, would be better if DD saw the MO folders after they have been handled tho so we can load only the files that is being used. 

[GSDFan]

Thanks, Tim, the author of DD has apparently put a lot of thought into DD with all of the features it has. I can't for the life of me figure out why mine works and your and the OP don't. What version of Windows, MO are you using?

[aremann]

hmmm im using Windows 8.1 Pro with MO v1.2.14 with the steam version of DD.

 

im going to try reinstalling DD maybe that works, too bad i have to reboot for that :/

[GSDFan]

I have win 8.1 with MO 1.2.17. So when you build a DD outside of MO can you see all of the files in Windows file explorer and the DD? Another question, is MO inside the Skyrim folder and do you have the skyrim data folder included the DD?

 

@thetommartowseries, nice catch. Aremann did you see that?

[aremann]

well with DD you can always see the files you can see with Windows Explorer but not the virtual folders handled by MO. would be better if we somehow got it to work like Bodyslide, Tes5Edit and many other programs work so DD only will use files that is used by MO and not all that is skipped or overwritten aswell. 

 

i also found that it would deselect empty folders and such if there was none like stated.

 

 

ofc by getting MO to work with DD flawlessly it would need to use links twice as one for MO and one for DD at the same time, not even sure how that can work as MO has no folder to host these in.