Portable FFXI

[Howie Roary]

I was looking at an old thread from 2008 in my search for how to run FFXI at work, it mentioned modifying the registry files which I don't know how to do

What would I need in order to

1) have a USB or Flash drive that could run FFXI fast enough without any lag, and

2) modify registry files or set up the installation in a way that would make it be able to function?

[Narbzilla]

You talking about this? http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.htm...37895217382813

[Spicyryan]

How well does a new Surface run the game?
Pretty portable.

[orinthia]

XI really doesn't like being a "portable" install, as in you can't just plug/copy it over and expect to play it without some crap happening. You'll need to register a number of its dlls with regsvr and put in entries into the registry, essentially mimicing an install process. It does work as I've done this in the past, though that was years ago and I no longer have that install nor the files I used to make it happen (just a couple small .bat and .reg files you'd run in the ffxi folder). Here was an old thread detailing some of this: http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.htm...37895217382813 There's probably a few more posts about this here on bg somewhere.

add: although that makes me think someone could probably sandbox it, like I've seen some programs get turned into portable apps by isolating them with sandboxes. Seems more than possible to do this, but have 0 desire to really look into it. You could also try running it in a virtual machine, essentially just copying the VM's vhd, setting up the hardware profiles, and giving it a go. Most don't tend to deal with 3d-acceleration well but game is pretty damn old and will probably need virtualization to even run in the future.

[Howie Roary]

You talking about this? http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.htm...37895217382813

at first I thought no, since my concern isn't about copying it but then I saw he mentioned registry files editing so then I thought it might be. The short answer is I don't know enough about the techie side of it to know if that's what I am looking for.

I want to be able to run it off of a USB key ideally, barring that, some external device that can be connected via USB

[Howie Roary]

XI really doesn't like being a "portable" install, as in you can't just plug/copy it over and expect to play it without some crap happening. You'll need to register a number of its dlls with regsvr and put in entries into the registry, essentially mimicing an install process. It does work as I've done this in the past, though that was years ago and I no longer have that install nor the files I used to make it happen (just a couple small .bat and .reg files you'd run in the ffxi folder). Here was an old thread detailing some of this: http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.htm...37895217382813 There's probably a few more posts about this here on bg somewhere.

add: although that makes me think someone could probably sandbox it, like I've seen some programs get turned into portable apps by isolating them with sandboxes. Seems more than possible to do this, but have 0 desire to really look into it. You could also try running it in a virtual machine, essentially just copying the VM's vhd, setting up the hardware profiles, and giving it a go. Most don't tend to deal with 3d-acceleration well but game is pretty damn old and will probably need virtualization to even run in the future.

oh god, more options to research

[orinthia]

Yeah, if you're looking for ffxi to be completely portable, drop and run, you're going to go through some pain to achieve it. Otherwise, you modify a reg and bat file, and run them on whatever machine you intend to play xi on with the usb stick or whatever drive attached. Since nothing else actually relies on the install to do anything (just playonline and xi), windows won't care if the things you put in the registry are there or not.

This reg and bat file approach isn't very hard, mostly you just need to get the registry entries ffxi makes when you fully install it normally and then modify it to point to where you put your POL/ffxi install folder. The bat file can be something really simple, I think mine was just one line (from that thread: FOR /R %%G IN (*.dll) DO regsvr32 /s %%G , but you may need to mess with this a little bit). You save this bat file in the base folder, like \PlayOnline\SquareEnix, in there, and run it from there. It's a command that goes through all subfolders and attempts to register all .dll files with windows, which is how POL knows you have xi installed.

Play with this a bit, you'll get the reg/bat to work eventually and it's the most straightforward to get working fast on new machines.

[SnickySnacks]

I use Crossover to run FFXI on my work laptop. Drawback is no windower or anything like that, but it otherwise runs fine.

Main benefit is that it's completely self-contained (runs off SD Card which, when removed, doesn't leave any traces).

Of course this is on OSX, not sure what the equivalent would be for windows.

[The Stig]

I understand the desire to have it portable, but with the amount of possible pain associated with achieving it (if you don't have a Mac like SnickySnacks mentioned) I highly recommend purchasing any bog old 10.1/11/12 inch laptop and using that to play it, unless you multi-box.

How much space does FFXI need nowadays? One of those shitty HP Stream books (http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computi...etailer_Clk_PT) should do the trick, 32gb onboard, probably 15~ free after Win8. POL says it wants 9.5gb

Unsure how FFXI would react to Intel HD 4400 (it didn't play nice with 4000 when I tried)

Also, regarding Virtual Machines, I thought it wouldn't work as they cannot do 3D graphics?

And finally @Howie, what do you plan to do while at work? As you're playing at work and unless you're at a job that can afford a lot of free time, I don't think you'll be doing anything very active or time intensive (i.e. group activities) So, I guess you're intending to just solo/farm? People have gotten FFXI to work by streaming it and mapping a controller to it, if you want to consider that. (Again, not very fun to do). The delay would probably be rather horrid too.

[orinthia]

Some VM software does support some 3d stuff, like vmware. Feed it windows xp, enable 3d, and give it a go. Probably slow as molasses though if it even works, but xi runs like crap on modern 3d hardware anyway. Was gonna mention the fact that something like WINE would make it portable, but that's for linux/mac. There is wine on windows, but it looks like a pain to setup.