Talk:Operating system compatibility
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I need a review here and maybe move the Pocket ACE (bottom) and VGAPlanets at multiple locations to the VGAP in a USB page
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[edit] Vista
I've not found any problems installing it under Vista. The only problem is Raceview 2 on Vista 64. I've VGAP installed on two computers and it works fine in both of them:
- Home (Vista 64)
- Work (Vista 32)
[edit] VM Ware
If you have problems in Vista you can try to use a Virtual Machine under VMWare, but the machine won't run smooth. Vista needs a lot of resources and running a Virtual Machine (win xp with 256 RAM) will eat too much resources in your computer.
Running VMWare Player under Vista with the following setup turned the game unplayable by turn 15+:
- Host computer
- Vista 64 4GB RAM (DDR2 1066)
- Dual Core 2.8
- 1GB DDR3 Graphic Card (should free some ram for dx)
- Guest (virtual machine computer)
- 256 RAM (switched to 512 later to look for improvements but got none)
- 3GB HDD
Around turn 15/20, with much more objects than the start of the game, the game was getting unplayable. Every time you introduce an order in VGAP Client it writes it to gamefiles (disk access) and this is an overload for the Virtual Machine.
NOTE: Need to add instructions for a full install of VGAP in Vista under VMWare
[edit] VMWare PocketACE (VGAPlanets in a USB)
If you're thinking about having VGAP on a USB and think that Pocket ACE (VMWare) will be your solution, don't try it. Pocket ACE adds a great penalty on the host system running it, even if you use Windows XP most of the times the Pocket ACE virtual machine wont work fine.
[edit] Planets 4 at multiple locations
[edit] Introduction
I need to provide more information, but currently I've managed to get the WAR, Quickbuild, Map Notes and VidiVici data synchronized in my two computers via robocopy (windows vista/xp XCOPY) across USB.
NOTE: Please provide correct English information here, my computer is in spanish and the menu options are not translated correctly
[edit] Mount Your USB in a Virtual Folder
Mount your USB in a virtual folder in your Hard Disk:
- Plug your USB in the Computer
- Rigth click on My Computer
- Chose Administer NEED HELP TRANSLATING THIS
- It will ask your for admin privileges if you have UAC enabled and open a window labeled Computer Administration
- Expand Storage (at the bottom of the left tree-menu
- Chose Disk Administration
- On the right panel, you'll see your USB drive. Right click it and chose Change drive letter and access routes of the disk NEED HELP TRANSLATING THIS
- A window will open with diferent options. Click on Add...
- Select Mount in the following NTFS empty folder NEED HELP TRANSLATING THIS
- Write a PATH (create an empty folder if needed). It's important to have a path you can use in other computer
- For example, if you have two dries (C and D in one computer and only one drive C in the other one, you won't be able to mount the USB on drive D in the second computer)
- A good choice is C:\VgaPlanets USB
- Accept the changes
You will have a folder in the path you selected (for example C:\VgaPlanets USB) with the contents of the USB Drive.
[edit] Point Planets to check / store RST/TRN in Virtual Folder
Now it's time to setup Planets 4 to use the USB as TRN / RST:
- In most cases, when you plug the USB in two different computers, the drive letter asigned to it will be different at each one, so having RST / TRN path directly on USB won't work at multiple locations
- Use the folder you created in the step before as RST / TRN path
- Create a "Games" folder in your USB
- Create a folder for each game
- Map your Planets4 RST / TRN path to the game folder but not in the USB, use instead the folder that contains your USB data'
Now Planets 4 will read RST / TRN from the USB.
[edit] Synchronize your data in the USB
Now you need to sync the data across the USB:
- Create a Data folder in your USB
- Create WAR, PLANS, NOTES, and VidiVici folders in your USB
- Create two small batch files somewhere in your computer for performing the sync with the following content (Replace the sample patchs provided with your own paths)
- Copy To Disk.bat
robocopy "C:\VGAPlanets USB\DATA\WAR" C:\Planets4\War /MIR robocopy "C:\VGAPlanets USB\DATA\plans" C:\Planets4\plans /MIR robocopy "C:\VGAPlanets USB\DATA\notes" C:\Planets4\notes /MIR robocopy "C:\VGAPlanets USB\DATA\VidiVici" "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\VidiVici\Game Archives" /MIR
- Copy To USB.bat
robocopy "C:\Planets4\War" "C:\VGAPlanets USB\DATA\WAR" /MIR robocopy "C:\Planets4\plans" "C:\VGAPlanets USB\DATA\plans" /MIR robocopy "C:\Planets4\notes" "C:\VGAPlanets USB\DATA\notes" /MIR robocopy "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\VidiVici\Game Archives" "C:\VGAPlanets USB\Games\DATA\VidiVici" /MIR
Please notice that VidiVici DATA is stored in the following enviroment variable %USERPROFILE%:
- Vista: C:\Users\your_account_name\AppData\Local\VidiVici
- XP: c:\Documents And Settings\your_account_name\Application Data\Local\VidiVici\Game Archives NOTE: NEED CORRECT PATH IN WINDOWS XP
[edit] Repeat The Steps in every computer
Do the same in your other computer (remember to update the paths correctly). Use the same Virtual Folder name. You can have VGAPlanets installed in another location (for example, I've c:\planets4 at work and d:\games\planets4 at home) but the scripts should kept the copies synchronized.
[edit] Run the scripts at the correct times
When you plug your USB, run the "Copy to Disk" batch file. That will move (only new files or updated files) from your USB to your Planets4 folder, Map notes and plans included. Before unpluging your USB, run the "Copy to USB" batch file. That will move your planets DATA to the USB.
Please make a backup of your P4 and VidiVici data before trying this! I'm not responsible of any lost data!
[edit] Add more folders to your synchronized USB
If you need to synchronize more folders (Univ, ShipCalc calculations, Battles or other data), just add their correspondent line in the two scripts:
- robocopy source destination /MIR
The easiest Way is to create a folder for each kind of data you want to store.
I'll review this later. If anyone wants to review and update the correspondent pages, you're welcome ;) --Tarod 09:49, 16 April 2009 (CEST)
[edit] Vista
I have had some problems with Vista as well, not with the Rst files but rather it will screw with the start tool bar. It will cause the start button to overlap with the open window icons on the bottom row. I dont know what causes it, I realize that this doesn't help but if someone knows that would be cool too.
I've seen this many a time. But, only when I was switching back and forth running host and client at the same time. That is, when simming things I'd leave the host open, enter my orders in the client, make the RST in the client, switch to the host, run host, go back to the client, unpack RSTs, repeat ad nauseum.
What I found is that if I go to the trouble of actually exiting (closing down) host before going to the client and exiting the client before restarting the host, the toolbar (not to mention the start menu) behaves itself.
Not sure why...
It's a pain, but it beats the hassle of unplugging the laptop and removing the battery when the toolbar gets really scrambled :S
