[Feature Request] Prefetch Profiles - GUI Support

Suggestions around PrimoCache
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daemonjax
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[Feature Request] Prefetch Profiles - GUI Support

Post by daemonjax »

What I want out of primocache:

1) I would want to have a separate cache for each game I play and I would manually switch between them as needed through the primocache gui.
2) I want no existing cache auto-started upon windows startup -- I'd manually do that myself through the primocache gui (I guess this can be _almost_ accomplished in a clunky way by leaving it paused -- can we get an auto-pause at shutdown checkbox? -- but it doesn't release the ram).
3) I want to be able to have custom names for the multiple volume caches I'd create so that I can identify which game(s) that cache is for when manually starting/switching to it.
4) I want to be able to do this without rebooting (there's no way to load a .pf1 without rebooting, and I don't think there's any technical reason why it couldn't do that).


Primocache can't really do the above, especially not through the GUI -- but most of it can be done in a really clunky way:

1) Create and train the L1 cache as usual.

Then, when you eventually want to train a different cache for the same volume:

2) make a backup copy of the .pf1 file (let's call this backup .pf1 a "prefetch profile")
3) In the GUI, right-click and reset the cache content of the _volume_ (btw: do NOT _ever_ delete the volume or cache task)
4) Train the new L1 cache as usual.

Then, when you eventually want to switch back to another prefetch profile that you already trained:

5) Make a backup copy of the current .pf1 file (creating a new "prefetch profile")
6) Overwrite the current .pf1 file with the one from the other prefetch profile
7) set the .pf1 to read only
8) reboot (?!)
9) set the .pf1 to allow writes
10) you're done

Like I said, that's clunky and I think it should be in the GUI. To be fair, I guess I could make a batch file (or java or c# if I wanna be fancy) to do some of these steps, but it'd still be clunky as hell -- even if I made my own separate gui I'd still have to use your gui to reset the cache if I wanted to train a new one and (correction: I can use the cli command "rxpcc clear" to clear a cache) I'd still have to reboot to load the another .pf1 file.

This seems like a great feature and I'm surprised it's not already in the GUI because switching caches for a specific set of apps that live on the same volume seems like a really obvious workaround for the volume limitation -- we just need a way to do it through the GUI (or at the very least the cli) without a reboot and this software is golden.
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Support
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Re: [Feature Request] Prefetch Profiles - GUI Support

Post by Support »

Thank you very much for your suggestion!
We do consider a similar feature like yours. It's on our plan list. :)
daemonjax
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Re: [Feature Request] Prefetch Profiles - GUI Support

Post by daemonjax »

support wrote: Tue Aug 06, 2019 3:51 am Thank you very much for your suggestion!
We do consider a similar feature like yours. It's on our plan list. :)
Great! Looking forward to seeing what you guys cook up.

I have some other ideas, and I'll make another post about it.
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Jaga
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Re: [Feature Request] Prefetch Profiles - GUI Support

Post by Jaga »

We've requested the ability to "force specific content" (i.e. folder structures and/or files) into a cache task before, and Romex definitely heard the request. It brings the software one step closer to what you're thinking of doing (I believe).
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