Does Size Matter?

[Sarisin]

OK, I'm running low on with disk space and looking for things to remove. I remember having a lot of older versions of Civ4/BtS mods and decide to get rid of them. For example, getting rid of Fall Further Plus saved me 1 gb.

Anyway, I had a look at the size of the 5 mods I play. Here they are:

Fall From Heaven 2 840 mb

Fall Further 051 935 mb

Orbis (latest version) 1 gb

Wild Mana (latest version) 1.01 gb

RiFE (the latest with patch) 1.54 gb

So, being a dope when it comes to all things programming, etc., why is RiFE so much larger than the rest?

Any way to trim the size down? I'm guessing no.

And, I hate to ask, but I will. Any guess as to how big the new version will be?

Thanks

 

[Valkrionn]

RifE is so much larger because we took the FF base (already large) and have added quite a bit of art to it, and some music. The next version will honestly be much larger, as we'll be using the Orbis music...

 

[odalrick]

I looked through my RifE folder and saw that 312 Mb are taken up by a debug dll. It's possible that I downloaded it specifically for some reason and forgot about it, but it could have been accidentally included in the installer or even needed for the mod to work. Have to see what Valkrionn says.

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If you're willing to do a little sleuthing, hardlinks could help.

Download Duplicate cleaner, install it and point it at your civ mod folder. Enter a lower limit for file size to compare and the scan will be a little faster and skip tiny files that make no difference anyway.

Use the selection assistant and press remove files. You'll have the option to create hardlinks.

From then on, any changes to one of the hardlinked files will change all of them. So installing a patch for one mod might change another. Not likely to be a problem if you're a little careful.

• Don't hardlink any xml files; any that are identical between mods are unlikely to be large enough to have an effect anyway.
• mp3 files should be harmless, even if they do change.
• The biggest savings will be FFPak051.FPK , which is identical across probably all Fall From Heaven mods and a solid 500 Mb.

Link Shell Extension will enable an overlay on any hardlinked files, as well as add some more options to use hardlinks.

Note that the reported size for the folders probably wont change, I don't think Explorer includes the heuristics to properly calculate the size. Keep an eye on free space instead.

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Hardlinks work on mac too. You're on your own in finding out how to use them though.

 

[Valkrionn]

I looked through my RifE folder and saw that 312 Mb are taken up by a debug dll. It's possible that I downloaded it specifically for some reason and forgot about it, but it could have been accidentally included in the installer or even needed for the mod to work. Have to see what Valkrionn says.

That should be just in the testers version; No debug dll in the released one. I WILL be removing the DLL source from the main mod folder for the next version, it's unneeded except by modders.

If you're willing to do a little sleuthing, hardlinks could help.

Download Duplicate cleaner, install it and point it at your civ mod folder. Enter a lower limit for file size to compare and the scan will be a little faster and skip tiny files that make no difference anyway.

Use the selection assistant and press remove files. You'll have the option to create hardlinks.

From then on, any changes to one of the hardlinked files will change all of them. So installing a patch for one mod might change another. Not likely to be a problem if you're a little careful.

• Don't hardlink any xml files; any that are identical between mods are unlikely to be large enough to have an effect anyway.
• mp3 files should be harmless, even if they do change.
• The biggest savings will be FFPak051.FPK , which is identical across probably all Fall From Heaven mods and a solid 500 Mb.

Link Shell Extension will enable an overlay on any hardlinked files, as well as add some more options to use hardlinks.

Note that the reported size for the folders probably wont change, I don't think Explorer includes the heuristics to properly calculate the size. Keep an eye on free space instead.

FFPak051 is only identical between FF and RifE.

 

[Seven05]

That should be just in the testers version; No debug dll in the released one.

The main download does include all of the C++ intermediate files (obj, etc), and I'm pretty sure there was the debug dll in my download too (not the test version either).

 

[Valkrionn]

The main download does include all of the C++ intermediate files (obj, etc), and I'm pretty sure there was the debug dll in my download too (not the test version either).

Debug DLL shouldn't be there. In any case though, it adds maybe 6mb. The issue is more the entire CvGameCoreDLL folder, which adds ~481mb.

 

[odalrick]

Debug DLL shouldn't be there. In any case though, it adds maybe 6mb. The issue is more the entire CvGameCoreDLL folder, which adds ~481mb.

The Debug folder in CvGameCoreDLL is about 300 Mb.

But there's no need for the CvGameCoreDLL folder is there? It looks like it's just the source and a few libraries, useless unless you plan to compile the dll for yourself.

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Another thing to do, if you're like me and turn off music in games the moment you can move the mouse cursor, is erase all the music. Saves about 250 Mb.

Either Civ IV just ignores missing music like it does most other missing stuff, or replace them with a short bit of silence.

 

[Valkrionn]

The Debug folder in CvGameCoreDLL is about 300 Mb.

But there's no need for the CvGameCoreDLL folder is there? It looks like it's just the source and a few libraries, useless unless you plan to compile the dll for yourself.

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Another thing to do, if you're like me and turn off music in games the moment you can move the mouse cursor, is erase all the music. Saves about 250 Mb.

Either Civ IV just ignores missing music like it does most other missing stuff, or replace them with a short bit of silence.

The folder itself, yes; The Debug DLL is only 15 Mb (The other size is the regular DLL, I was wrong there. ).

Like I said, the problem is the entire folder; Unnecessary unless you're a modder. Next version won't have it.

Also, you'll likely be happy with the next version then; Going to merge the Orbis music, so we'll have a separate installer for music/video (combining it with the movie pack).