Nightwalker on 13/5/2016 at 19:40
Fantastic! I still prefer Darkloader to FMSel so an updated version would be very much welcome. :)
ValmontPhl on 13/5/2016 at 19:56
Quote Posted by Albert
This will perhaps sound like a strange idea, but I've been wondering about the possibility of using RAM disk storage for FMs/campaigns. On systems with enough RAM and processing power, it would potentially make for a non-trivial method of keeping the HDD space used up by FM collections low. Admittedly, this idea would probably be good only for large FMs/campaigns, and I don't know how easy it would even be to implement such a storage management system.
I looked into this some years (and Ram chips) ago. TG and T2 would have to be installed on the RamDisk since the FM resources go into the install folder with DarkLoader. FMSEL, I think, puts them in the FM Zip folder which would require much, much more space. Let us know if you tinker around with it, but I think it'd be best to put it on a new post.
FireMage on 14/5/2016 at 00:06
I may say, that's no that bad! :)
The best could be to do an interface similar to the game with metal frames but I know how it is hard to code such a thing in C or C++ so don't mind about this idea if it's too hard to do! ;)
The most you could is to do like FMSel (by modifying DarkInst.cfg or Install.cfg) to make sub-directories for the fan missions instead of extracting it directly in the main directory. It could set something more clear as FMSel and why not placing in this main directory all stuff that cannot be placed elsewhere (as the LUA scripts).
I obviously don't know how DarkLoader is coded or what are you limits in matter of coding but if you think you can do this, do it with no hesitations! ;)
Ho! And last thing: Could you add it a function for TDS FM ? Because GarrettLoader don't works properly with non-english speaker games...
ValmontPhl on 14/5/2016 at 04:08
Quote Posted by R Soul
Enough of this RAM disk talk; it's nothing to do with what NewDarkLoader is being written for.
It's not nothing. Getting resource heavy FM's to load and run quickly on starts, reloads and ingame, etc. Is worth a consideration. Flash/solid state storage is much quicker and less stressful on disk drives. Functionally, an FM loader could zip sav files in a prefixed/paired bundle for future use next to the source FM.zip before finalizing FM un-installation. I'm no developer either, so don't take offense: this ought to be more than the GUI of surrogate decompression.
bob_doe_nz on 16/5/2016 at 09:16
Not too bad.
Quick question:
How is the Release Date determined? Is it taken from the readme or the zip file modification date?
Yandros on 16/5/2016 at 11:47
I would assume the timestamp on the ZIP. Trying to accurately parse a release date from a txt or rtf or html readme wouldn't be very much fun to code.
Renault on 16/5/2016 at 14:30
This looks great R Soul - when might we get our hands on it? Love the filters idea, btw.
Also, maybe this is for down the road, but is there anyway to control the activation of mods with this? The ability to turn on/off the EP or t2water or whatever else on the fly would be great. There's also the bit about missions like Chalice of Souls and Wooden Box needing a separate script file because of the way FMSel works - can that be fixed with NDL?
R Soul on 16/5/2016 at 16:09
Yandros: It uses the last modified date of the readme, which is the first .rtf or the first .txt file found. I think that's what Darkloader does. I think the readme file is the most likely to be changed on the day of release because the author will be typing in the correct release date. Ironically there are for too many different ways of writing a date in text for it to be trusted. 4/3/12 could be 4th March or 3rd April. Do html readmes exist?
Brethren: Thanks to (
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=135810&page=8) tolsen64, it's now possible to turn this into a .dll that replaces FMSel, so yes, it can disable mods per FM. I'm not sure what you mean by 'separate script file', so I'll have to look in to that.
One of the differences between Darkloader and FMSel is that DL has all FMs for all games presented together. It works out what game each FM is for and uses that to install it in the correct place before loading that game. With FMSel, you have one copy in each game's folder, so it assumes the player has put the FM archive in the correct place.
Some poeple have asked me to have FMs separated by game using tabs, and this has made me wonder if people just accepted Darkloader's system because that's what was offered.
