Steam game caching

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shintsu
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Steam game caching

Post by shintsu »

Hi maybe to specific for this product but i have mainly steam for all my games.
Since i have a large steam library i have all my games installed on a 3TB Sata disk.
I have a ocz Revo 3 x2 as SSD and it would be nice if the software would pre buffer games (or even better during the game) to improve performance and overall gaming experience.
dustyny
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Re: Steam game caching

Post by dustyny »

Problem with precaching is the games randomly load data and Fancycache has no way of predicting what is needed next. Persistent caching has been suggested but if you play a bunch of games that cache is going to be constantly flushed out and replaced by what you played most recently.

Your best bet is to put your fav game on the SSDs (if it can fit) and keep your lesser used games on the 3TB drive.
shintsu
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Re: Steam game caching

Post by shintsu »

yeah that was my first strategy but the ssd is only 240GB and i got 500+ games the heavy duty fav games are already on the ssd but still would be nice if i did not need to micro manage it :)
ScottG
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Re: Steam game caching

Post by ScottG »

You should be able to do this with a multiple OS's..

1 OS per game (..or perhaps 1 OS per 2-3 games). (..your same OS, just "cloned" over and over again to boot into.)

That way when the OS loads-up with Fancycache, then Fancycache loads-up the SSD to that particular OS. This will take more time at boot/OS-loading presumably, but all of that built-up cache for those few games should be available.
dustyny
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Re: Steam game caching

Post by dustyny »

I'm not sure multiple OS's is going to do much good.

Shintsu it sounds like you're trying to create a solution that isn't going to benefit you all that much. You're already doing what we call best practices, you're placing your frequently accessed data on your fast storage and you're infrequently accessed data on an archival storage. There is little to no advantage in making data (in this case games) you don't use readily available.
ScottG
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Re: Steam game caching

Post by ScottG »

IF fancycache works like that (system data-load specific) - then as long as game files have been accessed (particularly those often accessed), then it should work with that "one OS to one game" format.

I'd agree though that it sounds like most of those 500 games are more for archival purposes (i.e. not in current use). In that respect a Multi-boot system is particularly useful. i.e. Move the OS/Game to your one SSD when you want to start playing it again, otherwise let it "rot" on the standard Hard Disk.
dustyny
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Re: Steam game caching

Post by dustyny »

Perhaps I'm missing something but I don't see how running one OS to one game would be beneficial. I can think of a couple reasons why I would do that but that's more I.T. oriented (server apps, security, testing, troubleshooting). Is this a steam related workaround?
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