Change 'Dolphin Emulator' Directory Location

[euthqt]

Okay guys, this seems to be a general problem for me. I have all my ROM files on my secondary hard drive, and running my emulator from my main one. If I play like that, my games get short hangs every once in a while, but if I put both my ROMs and my emulator on the SAME hard drive, there's no lag.

Now, I don't have space on my SSD to put all my ROMs on there, so I wanted to put my dolphin emulator on my secondary hard disk. Problem is, when I run it, it creates the "Dolphin Emulator" folder in My Documents on the main Hard drive. I'm not sure how to change that but could I just find a way to remap that to automatically create on my secondary hard drive?

Thanks guys!

[Shonumi]

You can do this two ways. The first is to edit the registry like so: https://dolphin-emu.org/docs/guides/controlling-global-user-directory/#Choose_the_Location_of_the_Global_User_Directory

This will change the Global User Directory for all of your Dolphin builds.

The second way is to just create an empty file called portable.txt, which will disable the Global User Directory for that revision of Dolphin (see the link above, just scroll down to the next section).

[euthqt]

Okay I see, the second version seems like it'd be good because I don't like changing the registry. But the file I want to move isn't the one if program files, so it doesn't have a launcher in it. Could I just put it into "D\Emulators" and leave it there or do I actually need a user file?

[Shonumi]

You could put the Dolphin executable (along with its files and folders) in D:\Emulators, just remember to make a blank text file called portable.txt and that should work.

[euthqt]

So does that mean I would have to put the "dolphin emulator" folder in the same area ALONG with the executable or what? It's a tad bit confusing. Also, what exactly would I type?

[Shonumi]

If you're using 4.0.1 (which you shouldn't, it's old and slow, try the latest development revisions), you just copy+paste the Dolphin Emulator folder in My Documents to wherever you want (say D:\Emulators), then copy+paste the Dolphin executable from Program Files (or wherever it was installed) into the Dolphin Emulator folder (in D:Emulators\Dolphin Emulator). Create a blank text file called "portable.txt" (in D:\Emulators\Dolphin Emulator, right next to the Dolphin executable you just copy+pasted) and then you're done. The thing is you now have to launch the executable sitting in D:\Emulators\Dolphin Emulator. It's easy enough to make a shortcut for your desktop though (google it, I can't remember atm).

If you're using one of the development builds (this is highly recommended these days), you just extract the archive to wherever you want (D:\Emulators) and next to the Dolphin executable, just create a blank text file called "portable.txt", and launch this executable.

[delroth]

TBH your whole reasoning is wrong anyway. Just because putting your games on SSD helped does not imply in any way that putting your emulator on your slow hard drive will help. In fact, I pretty much guarantee that it is going to have no effect at all, since the only time we write to the User directory is when saving, and the only time we read is when loading.