Can I move my Rockstar folder to a new drive?

I'm almost out of space on my OS spinner. I'm thinking of getting an SSD just for games. I really, really don't want to reinstall GTA4 as it took me the better part of an afternoon to getting it running. I have Macrium Reflect Pro so backing it up is not a problem.

My concern is whether or not it installed objects into the Windows directory that would cause errors. Also, do games in general install into the Windows dir? If so, I'm thinking of just getting a bigger SSD and moving everything onto it.

Any tips are appreciated.

You could, but you'll probably (read very very likely) need to reinstall the game anyway because all the registry keys will be pointing to the current location the game was originally installed to.

Of course you could also change the location in the registry, if you knew where the strings were, but I'm thinking it would be easier to just reinstall the game.

As for suggestions - my setup is a 256SSD drive for OS and base programs, and a 2TB, with a 600GB partition just for games. There really isn't any significant performance difference between SSD and spinner drives when it comes to gaming.

My two cents.

I'm on an i7-920 stock w 12G RAM, GT250. Game runs fine. Problem is, I need to access the computer while the game is running so I have to kill the game. When I come back it takes about 40 secs to load (total). I was hoping an SSD would speed this up.

I realize that running programs wont see any difference. I just want faster loading. I guess I'll just do a complete disk swap.

BTW, I saw a video where some one was running GTA on one screen and something else on the other screen. Anyone know how to do this as it would solve a lot of problems for me.

smarteyeball said:

sygnus21 said:

There really isn't any significant performance difference between SSD and spinner drives when it comes to gaming.

GTA IV is one of the rare games that does benefit ingame from being on a SSD. Any game that requires a lot of drive access will.

Yeah I'm sure some of my games would benefit as well, but how much is the question. And is that performance gain worth using up SSD space in lieu of other programs needing the space.

On the flip side, if you got the room for one or two games, go for it, it can't hurt.

For me, though I've got plenty of room for a few games on my SSD drive, I prefer to keep all my games on my spinner drive. In this case a performance drive like the Western Digital Caviar Black.

bobland said:

I'm on an i7-920 stock w 12G RAM, GT250. Game runs fine. Problem is, I need to access the computer while the game is running so I have to kill the game. When I come back it takes about 40 secs to load (total). I was hoping an SSD would speed this up.

Yes, the game probably would benefit in loading times being on the SSD drive.

BTW 40 seconds seems kind of slow, even on a spinner drive. You sure there's nothing else going on???

bobland said:

BTW, I saw a video where some one was running GTA on one screen and something else on the other screen. Anyone know how to do this as it would solve a lot of problems for me.

smarteyeball would be the one to answer this as he runs multiple screen setups with gaming :)

BTW 40 seconds seems kind of slow, even on a spinner drive. You sure there's nothing else going on???

Since I upgraded my RAM to 12 GB it seems to be running slower. Doesn't make sense but the RAM was supposed to be optimized for my mobo.

Well if the RAM isn't set up correctly or is mismatched, it would cause problems. You might want to look into that.