Moving BF3 to HDD

[SinOfLiberty]

Hello guys,

Not a big question this time, just to check if i am doing everything correct.

I want to move BF3 from SSd to HDD though uninstall, install process. My game saved data is in C/Users/My Documents, it also contains every game folder(for each game i have installed on my PC) with all of my profiles from those games. I Before re installing BF3, I plan to create a copy of my BF3 folder and reserve it, in case of all the files would be deleted during re installing process.

Assume, if all bf3 files were deleted is there anything else i need to perform except to delete a newly created folder in "My documents" and paste the one i have reserved?

Thanks,
SOL

[LessThanDan]

Leave alone the Save-data that's kept in your My Documents folder. 99% of the time, the gamesaves you find in that folder are never stored/removed by the game's installer. Rather, that data is actually generated when you run the game itself. When you boot up a game for the first time, it places config files and userdata there... that sort of thing. The core program files/binaries will be kept in the programs folder though (obviously).

If you uninstall BF3, I'm guessing it won't remove your gamesaves unless there's a specific option too. BUT... you should probably back them up just in case anyway.

As for moving the game itself: I'm at work right now, so I don't have Origin running. But I think it's just a matter of:

1. Copying over the main BF3 program folder to the place you want it

2. Uninstalling BF3 through Origin

3. Install BF3 again, but change the install directory to the new location where you moved the program files.

Origin should automatically recognize the program files already stored there, and it will complete the install process within a few seconds (much faster than if you were to re-download the game completely). I hope that helps.

Source: I reinstalled Windows on my SSD a few weeks ago, but kept BF3 stored on a secondary HDD. I re-install Origin and simply pointed it to the pre-existing BF3 files to get it working again.

[Keeper]

You guys (Well, for just right now, only Lessthandan) find a performance bump with the PC overall re the SSD? I want to instal my O/S on it.. And probably a few "Core programs. Aside from windows booting in 4.2 seconds..... Do games (Which will be on my regular drive) get a bump? I would imagine they would as SO many "things" must be coming from the OS when playing a game.

[TakeNoPrisoners]

Games will only load faster if you have them installed on the SSD. Otherwise they will not be affected by the SSD.

[LessThanDan]

Originally Posted by Keeper

You guys (Well, for just right now, only Lessthandan) find a performance bump with the PC overall re the SSD? I want to instal my O/S on it.. And probably a few "Core programs. Aside from windows booting in 4.2 seconds..... Do games (Which will be on my regular drive) get a bump? I would imagine they would as SO many "things" must be coming from the OS when playing a game.

Absolutely. My PC cold boots in about 20 seconds (as in, 20 seconds from the time I press the power button, to when I can open up a web browser). Applications like Photoshop and Premiere open in ~2 seconds.

Unfortunately I can't tell you much about game performance. My Steam library is huge, and it's not very economical to install games on my tiny 60GB SSD. Instead I have a 2TB HDD that's pretty much dedicated to Steam games.

As the post above me mentions, SSDs only affect load times. Load times in video games aren't a big deal to me. I have no background applications or bloatware hogging up HDD readtimes, and I'd say the majority of my games load up nearly instantaneously anyway. I can think of very few games that would actually benefit from an SSD. The game I have with the longest load times is - coincidentally - BF3.

[SunnyD]

No reason to uninstall anything really. Just do what I do when I want to relocate something...

We'll call it "GameX" just to be generic.
- "GameX" is installed in, let's say C:\Games\GameX
- We want to move it to D:\GameX

Step 1 -> Make a directory on D: called "GameX"
Step 2 -> Copy the contents of C:\Games\GameX to D:\GameX
Step 3 -> Rename the folder C:\Games\GameX to C:\Games\GameX-Backup (just in case)
Step 4 -> Open a command prompt window with Administrator rights
Step 5 -> In the command prompt windows, change to the C:\Games directory
Step 6 -> Type in the following command: mklink /d "C:\Games\GameX" "D:\GameX"
(Note, I highly suggest putting each path in quotes, as if you don't and a path has spaces in the name it will likely mess things up.)
Step 7 -> Open up Explorer (windows explorer, not IE) and browse to the folder "C:\Games\GameX". The folder icon should look like a shortcut, but should have everything that's supposed to be in it in it when you open it.
Step 8 -> Run GameX and make sure it starts up and runs okay.
Step 9 -> Assuming GameX works fine, go ahead and delete "C:\Games\GameX-Backup"... you're good to go!

After this, GameX physically will reside on D:\GameX, but the OS thinks that it's still on C:\Games\GameX. It will actually LOOK like it's in both locations, but that's because C:\Games\GameX actually just points to D:\GameX. Don't worry, it doesn't take up drive space on C: because it's physically on D:.

I've done this with several titles, and in fact I just added a second SSD to mess around with to my machine and copied all 20GB of SWTOR from a hard drive to the SSD, and everything works fine. No reinstalling ANYTHING necessary. And here's the kicker - I install ALL of my games to C:\Games\... C:\Games is actually a symbolic link (mklink /d) to D:\Games. SWTOR was moved from D:\Games\Star Wars-The Old Republic to G:\Star Wars-The Old Republic. The OS and original install still thinks it's installed to C:\Games\Star Wars-The Old Republic, and is happy as a pig.

[Homer Simpson]

Bf3 loads much faster on a ssd. And to simplify the above post, just download steam mover. It does all that command line stuff for you. I have steam and origin default installs on my hdd since they take up about 400gb of space and use steam mover to move over the games I currently play regularly to a ssd drive.

Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using Tapatalk 2

[Keeper]

Interesting replies. Thank you all.

So an SSD really seems like a waste of time for me. I boot my PC up, walk away. Do a bio break. Let the dog out. Grab a red bull. And GAME ON.
Booting up Windows in 3.2 seconds is not that big a deal for me.
Here I thought with the O/S being crazy snappy, basically everything would see a boost.


You guys just saved me 2 large. (Micro center had a nice one on sale)

[pugh]

Agreed. Go with steam mover. Very simple program.

[SinOfLiberty]

Thanks guys, worked like a charm