Bjossi on 31/5/2009 at 00:49

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This would be possible for most, if not all games, if it wasn't for the registry, which in my opinion should never have existed, or at the very least never been allowed to be used by 3rd parties. It is so much cleaner and simpler to store configuration files locally for each program/game. Though I will admit most games should run fine without their registry data present, I just felt like ranting. :p

Another thing that makes your idea difficult is the fact that many games and programs (and that percentage is skyrocketing) don't store private data like settings and savegames locally. Instead they dump the stuff into Documents and Settings (I fucking hate it). Though at least some programmers were kind enough to make this optional in some of the games out there, the STALKER games being one example.

Performance is a whole different matter though. . .

doctorfrog on 31/5/2009 at 17:28

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This is a bit off topic, but in one of my more pointless moments, I conceived of an external USB/SD drive with a decently long cable that sits on your desktop with two front-facing USB ports for game controllers.

It's small, has a weighted base, and two slots in the top, one for an SD card, one for a USB drive.

It's modeled to look like an old SNES or Famicom slot-top console in miniature. Or an Atari 2600, or even an old arcade cabinet, or whatever tickles your fancy.

You pop your 'cartridge' in the top, plug in a game controller in the front, and a tiny client program detects this and launches the game program(s) on the external drive, you play it. All the saves and settings and so forth remain on the SD drive, but can also be synched to your PC for safekeeping.

It could also of course function as a normal USB port and SD card reader. Actually, aside from the physical modelling of the breakout box, this whole deal could be accomplished with software.

Yep, it's a stupid idea for nostalgia people with too much money. I wouldn't be surprised if something like this existed in an overpriced form on ThinkGeek.

Back *on* topic, however, I've found that many games I play are self-contained within their own directories, or can be configured to be so. On the other hand, many rely on the registry or the user profiles directories and thus cannot be used in the way you desire. I guess it depends on what games you want to cart around.

Bjossi on 31/5/2009 at 18:26

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Of course software would need to adapt if Microsoft decided to one day block 3rd party write-access to the registry (which I worded awkwardly in my post above...). But I think Windows writes that sort of information itself to the registry, by the way; what and where software is installed on the computer.

steo on 31/5/2009 at 22:08

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Sure, for patches and stuff, fine. But games that flat out don't run without the registry entries are a pain in the arse.