Auto move games to SSD

[jacks897]

Hi, I have thought of an idea but I am not sure whether it would be possible to implement. The idea is for LaunchBox to automatically move the most played games to fast SSD storage.

The idea is that every time a game is launched, LaunchBox counts the number of times played. If the number of times played hits a threshold then the game is moved to an SSD storage for faster loading times. Think of it as a software version of an SSHD drive. This way the most played games are on SSD, perhaps after a few weeks of not playing they are automatically moved back to the slower HD.

What do people think of this? Would it be worth putting in a feature request?

 

[Rlad]

You can kind of do that with this plug-in, although it copies the game rather than move it.

 

[neil9000]

Also loading games from a SSD actually makes very little difference. Having launchbox itself on a SSD is a good idea, but its not needed for roms, i have all of mine on a 5400rpm mechanical drive and i never even notice loading times.

If you feel passionate about it though hit the "help and support" tab at the top of the website and hit the request a feature link.

[jacks897]

Thanks I'll check out the plugin. Yes this is more useful for windows games than it is for roms etc

[bbweiners]

21 hours ago, neil9000 said:

Also loading games from a SSD actually makes very little difference. Having launchbox itself on a SSD is a good idea, but its not needed for roms, i have all of mine on a 5400rpm mechanical drive and i never even notice loading times.

If you feel passionate about it though hit the "help and support" tab at the top of the website and hit the request a feature link.

I've noticed Wii roms on Dolphin will actually stutter a bit here and there when you're playing them on slower drives. I had mine on a mechanical 5400rpm drive and that was the case. When I moved them to an SSD drive the stuttering went away.

I'm not positive, but I think the same thing happened with PS3 roms using RPCS3.

[neil9000]

1 minute ago, bbweiners said:

I've noticed Wii roms on Dolphin will actually stutter a bit here and there when you're playing them on slower drives. I had mine on a mechanical 5400rpm drive and that was the case. When I moved them to an SSD drive the stuttering went away.

I'm not positive, but I think the same thing happened with PS3 roms using RPCS3.

Interesting, i have never noticed that issue with Dolphin at all on my system, i can't speak to PS3 though as i don't emulate that. Bear in mind that depending on the settings you have set in Dolphin you could be caching shaders as you play, and that does cause stutter, RPCSX3 and CEMU do the same thing as well, so it could be shader compilation you are seeing and not actual disc access issues.

[bbweiners]

That's true with the shaders. But, it definitely was the drive. I tried playing the same part of the same game on both drives multiple times. After about three playthroughs on each, the mechanical one stuttered every time and the SSD didn't at all.

Also, the mechanical one was 5400rpm and USB. I'm not sure if the combination of both just made it too slow.

[jacks897]

The main selling point of this is wouldn't it be amazing if the next time you load a large windows game etc it loads very quickly because it has been moved automatically by LaunchBox.

This would give LaunchBox a USP above even Steam or other launchers, because it would manage load times of games and storage based on what you are actually playing. Nothing else does that. Not even Windows. People would buy LaunchBox even for their Steam or Origin libraries just for the software SSHD functionality.

Moreover, I don't even think this would be hard to achieve. It would need a background application that would manage the safe caching of games and a new field - cache-able to exclude game folders that are not moveable.

Some games are over 100gb now, if a software application managed the efficient use of expensive SSD based on what is played it would be amazing! (and very niche and fitting to the moment with SSD being expensive and HD's at 12tb) I believe this is relatively easy to develop, it is the database and indexing of what can and can't be moved for Windows that would be the barrier but that could be easily achieved by the community. Also launcher compatibility, would symbolic links work?

Maybe LaunchBox would keep the original copy where it is and if a game does not load after being moved then LaunchBox would automatically revert back to the original or the user could specify the game did not load and it would revert.

Edited August 19, 2021 by jacks897