Content Installation Content Directory

Harlen Shelton

Hi How is the best way to install content for Daz? Should all content be installed to a separate hard drive from where the program is installed? Ex: if Daz is installed on C should content be installed on another drive? Is there a scratch disc that Daz uses for ram? What is the best safest way? How do you Pros do it? TY! appreciate any help to get this going the right way

mjc1016

Many of us prefer to use a separate drive/partition for the content, simply because it makes transferring it to a different machine easier....just plug that drive into the new computer and point Studio to that drive.

No, Studio does not have a 'scratch disk', other than the OS supplie 'virtual memory'/swap file.

SixDs

Personally, I always use a separate, physical boot drive for the operating system and applications, and one or more separate data drives for user content. The boot drives tend to be fast, smaller capacity drives (SSDs or WD Velociraptors, in my case) with large capacity drives for data (I prefer the WD Blacks, but do use others). In a couple of instances I use separate Velociraptors for swap disks. As for DAZ Studio, you can set the location for temporary files and cache under Edit - Preferences - General.

I'm not a professional.

Harlen Shelton

Thank You mjc1016. I will use separate hard drive also. How about content directory paths for Daz and Poser in Daz. I know Daz and Poser file formats work in version 4.7... not sure if Poser file formats work in 4.9. What is a good way to do the paths? Here is the default pic of the DAZ Content Directory Paths. How do you do it? :)

mjc1016

Pretty much moved the 'Defaults' to a different drive and added a few others...but not really changed anything other than location.

And yes, Poser formats still work.

Harlen Shelton

SixDs said:

Personally, I always use a separate, physical boot drive for the operating system and applications, and one or more separate data drives for user content. The boot drives tend to be fast, smaller capacity drives (SSDs or WD Velociraptors, in my case) with large capacity drives for data (I prefer the WD Blacks, but do use others). In a couple of instances I use separate Velociraptors for swap disks. As for DAZ Studio, you can set the location for temporary files and cache under Edit - Preferences - General.

I'm not a professional.

Thanks SixDs that is the good way to do it. Install the operating system on a smaller ssd hd and content and some programs on other hd' s. I did notice that the Content Directory Manager is also under Edit - Preferences. can you reccomment using the same default paths created by DAZ but swapping out the drive letters in the directory path  to point to the new location? Also can I cut and paste all installed content onto the dedicated hard drive for content? I may just have to put it onto a partition for now. (SSD) tx

mjc1016

I'd wait until I had a separate drive...

But yes, just the drive letter is all that needs to change...in both Studio and DIM (download manager).

fixmypcmike

Note:  I'm assuming most of your content is installed with DIM or manually.

Three caveats:

1) If you have custom categories/tags/metadata, be sure to Export User Data before you start moving things.  Whether you do or not, after moving the files, reset the database and re-import metadata.

2) When you change the paths in Content Directory Manager, make sure you change both Daz Studio Formats and Poser Formats.

3) DIM will still consider the content to be installed, but since the files are no longer where they were installed by DIM, it will not be able to update/uninstall them correctly.  To correct this, you need to go to DIM's ManifestFiles folder (default location is something like C:\Users\Public\Documents\Daz 3D\Install Manager\ManifestFiles) and edit all the .dsx files there with a text editor that can do global search and replace on multiple files (I use Notepad++).  You'll want to change the line that starts with

<UserInstallPath VALUE=

to the new path.  Note that the forward slash is used as the separator regardless of Operating System.

Harlen Shelton

Decided to do a clean install... with content to be installed on the other hard drive... failed first 2 times... Now on the 3rd attempt at the moment and things seem to be going fine.