Hi everyone,
Just a quick poll to get everyone's opinion. I'm thinking of changing where Dolphin store settings, saves, screenshots and things like that. Currently this is stored in the "User" directory, which is in the Dolphin directory. This means when you want to use several builds, you have to do extra stuff to have the same config, the same memory cards and the same Wii saves in all your builds.
With that change, the Dolphin settings directory would be in My Documents\Dolphin Data. This means every new build would use settings and saves from that directory.
Am I missing something that makes this change a problem or would that make everyone on Windows happier?
FWIW, this is how we do things on Linux and OSX currently, so the code supports it and it should be a pretty easy change. I'll also keep support for the current per-build User directory: if you create a "portable.txt" file next to the Dolphin executable, Dolphin will continue using the User directory (for people who want to keep Dolphin on a USB drive to use on several machines, for example).
Thanks,
I don't like the global location to be honest since I'll have yet another location to check and back-up when I plan to ghost/reinstall my PC.
I'd much prefer having a custom location I can set myself.
That said, I think it's definitely much better than what we have now.
The issue with a configurable global location is that if it's not the default, you still have to configure your new builds every time. You can symlink the directory somewhere else if you want (that's not a very common use case, imho - most people unfortunately don't backup, or they backup all of My Documents anyway).
I use different builds for almost all my games due to the special fixes and better compatibility. As long as I can "override" each install (I have one per game) without major inconvenience then I would be happy
At least it would be much less to configure than setting up everything again.
But yeah it's not a problem since I can always program it myself or simply symlink.
And yes, you're right, sadly most people just trash everything into their My Documents folder, so this would be really convenient for them.
haddockd Wrote:I use different builds for almost all my games due to the special fixes and better compatibility. As long as I can "override" each install (I have one per game) without major inconvenience then I would be happy
That's where you'll use the portable.txt file so Dolphin continues to use the User directory.
delroth Wrote:I'll also keep support for the current per-build User directory: if you create a "portable.txt" file next to the Dolphin executable, Dolphin will continue using the User directory (for people who want to keep Dolphin on a USB drive to use on several machines, for example).
(07-31-2013, 04:39 AM)delroth Wrote: [ -> ]The issue with a configurable global location is that if it's not the default, you still have to configure your new builds every time. You can symlink the directory somewhere else if you want (that's not a very common use case, imho - most people unfortunately don't backup, or they backup all of My Documents anyway).
I'm actually totally fine with that. Especially considering that I would want to have a competely different configuration for a build I would use for netplay. Also, I don't use my system drive for data storage because, if I ever needed to reinstall windows, I would have to wipe the drive. I store everything on a separate internal hdd.
Basically, per-build configurable path to the configuration is not trivial to do. You can still symlink the directory if you want, and you can use the "portable.txt" trick for specific builds that for some reason need another configuration.
Could have a "hidden" feature to change the path to the configuration using an env variable though. Might be easier than symlinks on windows.
(07-31-2013, 05:17 AM)delroth Wrote: [ -> ]Basically, per-build configurable path to the configuration is not trivial to do.
If it's not too much asked, I'd really like this to be added to Dolphin.
(07-31-2013, 05:17 AM)delroth Wrote: [ -> ]Could have a "hidden" feature to change the path to the configuration using an env variable though. Might be easier than symlinks on windows.
This sounds like a good idea and the best way to implement it.
Having been doing this for a while on Linux, it's a real joy, I'll tell you. I use quite a few revisions, and it's nice being able to just run the executable and have it pull up my settings from .dolphin-emu. The only issues I've encountered are when trying to use very old and very new revisions, which take different config values iirc for somethings. For example, some values are off when using 3.0 and 3.5, like the Framelimit (60 in 3.5+ equates to 30 or something in 3.0). Gamecube Ports 1-4 also seem to be set to "Nothing" when going from 3.5 to 3.0 and such. Though, sticking to the latest revisions hasn't presented any issues that I'm aware of.
The only thing I can think of as a drawback would be per-game .ini settings. I installed 3.5 on my system, so I don't have the latest .ini settings (although this is trivial to rectify, it hasn't been an issue). It might be a problem if someone has a global User file with outdated per-game .ini settings, although the advice would be to get the latest revision (as it is now) and update the global User file. It's not a big deal, just something I was thinking about a few months ago.
But anyway, I voted yes. No reason to leave Windows users (the majority of Dolphin users) out of the party.
I suppose generally speaking games that have notorious issues are already taken care of by their own game ini file that sets appropriate things so it may be less of an issue that I am anticipating.