Backup Zipping and Background Saving

[chucksabr]

Two things that occur to me as I'm waiting:

• I like the idea of backing up a game, but when it does it, the backup is the same size as the original. Games can balloon to several gigs, and that can pose a challenge to the remaining free space on your machine. How about backing it up through a zipping utility like WinRAR that is built into the game? When I ZIP my saved games through WinRAR, it compresses to something like 25% of the original size. That could be a huge space saver.
• When I do back up or otherwise save a game, the game locks up and doesn't allow me to do anything else. When you're backing up a game that has bunches of almanacs, that can take a long, long time. How about allowing for backing up and saving in the background while the game lets you continue on to other things?

[The Game]

Originally Posted by chucksabr

Two things that occur to me as I'm waiting:

• I like the idea of backing up a game, but when it does it, the backup is the same size as the original. Games can balloon to several gigs, and that can pose a challenge to the remaining free space on your machine. How about backing it up through a zipping utility like WinRAR that is built into the game? When I ZIP my saved games through WinRAR, it compresses to something like 25% of the original size. That could be a huge space saver.
• When I do back up or otherwise save a game, the game locks up and doesn't allow me to do anything else. When you're backing up a game that has bunches of almanacs, that can take a long, long time. How about allowing for backing up and saving in the background while the game lets you continue on to other things?

a solution to keeping you file size smaller. This may not work for all leagues. Make a ew folder on your desktop, label it the same as your league/backup and copy & paste just the .DAT files into it then ZIP it. This will chop the size my 2/3. It seems that BB cards, images and uniforms take up most of the space in a backup.
I make 3 backups per season January which is complete since this is when I make uniform changes. Opening day which is just .dat files and start of offseason which is also just .dat files.
The only problem with doing it this way is that if your league fails you will have to put in all uniforms , logos and parks again. Works easier for MLB leagues since the game will find the logos and uniforms again from the main OOTP folders.
I agree with both your points and suggestions.

[Cryomaniac]

Any efficiency improvement is always a good idea. Not really glamorous to get much attention usually though.

[Garrett67]

Originally Posted by The Game

a solution to keeping you file size smaller. This may not work for all leagues. Make a ew folder on your desktop, label it the same as your league/backup and copy & paste just the .DAT files into it then ZIP it. This will chop the size my 2/3. It seems that BB cards, images and uniforms take up most of the space in a backup.
I make 3 backups per season January which is complete since this is when I make uniform changes. Opening day which is just .dat files and start of offseason which is also just .dat files.
The only problem with doing it this way is that if your league fails you will have to put in all uniforms , logos and parks again. Works easier for MLB leagues since the game will find the logos and uniforms again from the main OOTP folders.
I agree with both your points and suggestions.

So, I can just move the .dat files back and forth between machines ? I'm copying my league folder now and its going to take at least an hour.

How many .dat files are there to copy?

[The Game]

Originally Posted by Garrett67

So, I can just move the .dat files back and forth between machines ? I'm copying my league folder now and its going to take at least an hour.

How many .dat files are there to copy?

16 in mine. Might differ by 1-2 per league. Also if you do need to restore, it is actually easier to create a new folder name it blank.lg or whatever then put the .dat files in there and then load it from Load Game vs restore. I have not tired to restore using just the .dat files. Migt work but i am guessing it might have issues. I would say every now and then do a full backup. I have no clue how the almanac factors into .dat files. i stopped using almanac as it was taking 7+ hrs to do a backup.

[Garrett67]

Don't you lose news stories and mail?


I'll have to play with it. My iMac is fast (using Windows) but I'm copying a folder from my laptop , which is an average speed pc and it is taking a couple hours to copy a 1.2 Gb file on to a thumb drive. I tried zipping but that only doubles the agony.

And I have yet to copy to my iMac.

Sent from my iPad 4 using Tapatalk 2

[The Game]

Originally Posted by Garrett67

Don't you lose news stories and mail?


I'll have to play with it. My iMac is fast (using Windows) but I'm copying a folder from my laptop , which is an average speed pc and it is taking a couple hours to copy a 1.2 Gb file on to a thumb drive. I tried zipping but that only doubles the agony.


Sent from my iPad 4 using Tapatalk 2

I dont keep them past 2? seasons. It has been 3 since I restored the way I described.

[Garrett67]

Originally Posted by The Game

I dont keep them past 2? seasons. It has been 3 since I restored the way I described.

What I mean is if you play on one machine and transfer , you're not taking current stories with you. I'm of course assuming they're not in the .dat files.

So, if you play on computer A for 3 days then go to computer B, you're missing 3 days of news and mail.

Again, assuming they're not in the dat


Sent from my iPad 4 using Tapatalk 2

[The Game]

Originally Posted by Garrett67

What I mean is if you play on one machine and transfer , you're not taking current stories with you. I'm of course assuming they're not in the .dat files.

So, if you play on computer A for 3 days then go to computer B, you're missing 3 days of news and mail.

Again, assuming they're not in the dat


Sent from my iPad 4 using Tapatalk 2

Actually I thought they wree in the dat files but someone else would have to confirm/deny that. i do see what your saying, if that is the case then yeah your gonna want to do a full backup.

[Garrett67]

Took me all day to find this and after I did, I found that there was a thread about it in 2011.

Orcin explains it better than I could, so here is the post.


http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...686-post1.html