Can I play FFXI from a flash drive?

[LakshmiToralyn]

I dont want to install FFXI on my work computer, so I HAD it installed on a seperate USB drive when I traveled I could still play and didnt have anything but the registry settings on my work computer. Long sotry short myd rive failed, and I am going to need something new. Could I just get a 16 gig flash drive and install everything on it or is there something I would need that a complete seperate corded usb drive would provide?

[Zosi]

Should work just fine. I'm not aware of any reason why a Flash drive would make it fail to work, although you may have slightly different performance.

[LakshmiToralyn]

Does anyone have an aprox size of FFXI with all expansions. is an 8 gig enough or do I need a 16?

[The Stig]

16gb would be your best bet, to future proof it.

Approx size I believe was like 9gb?

[Charismatic]

The total size should be larger than 8 gigs if I remember correctly (can't check now, I'm @ work)

[LakshmiToralyn]

bah figured thanks!

[Wintermute]

My POL folder shows up as 8.65Gb Size (8.73Gb Sze on Disk).

[Blabj]

Could always buy an ipod with a broken screen. I use my old 40gb with a smashed screen as a portable HDD with linux on it xD

[Avanarius]

I got ff on my 8gb drive, but it required me to delete intro movies, and some music/sounds to make the game fit. Surprisingly the game doesn't freak out if you do this.

[xopher]

I don't see how it would work since you can't move FFXI between computers without tweaking the registry a lot.

Unless you're familiar with how to do that, don't expect it to work.

[thunderlips]

I don't see how it would work since you can't move FFXI between computers without tweaking the registry a lot.

Unless you're familiar with how to do that, don't expect it to work.

Just tell the installer to use a folder on the USB drive for the install path [USBDriveLetter:\FFXI], and it will work fine.

Only thing to watch out for is that some cheaper USB drives seem to have poor sustained read speeds which can cause some zone with a lot of models in them to lag, but its not a massive lag, more of a minor annoyance.

Then again with Vista and ReadyBoost anything that says its compatible with RB would work fine.

[Zosi]

I don't see how it would work since you can't move FFXI between computers without tweaking the registry a lot.

Unless you're familiar with how to do that, don't expect it to work.

1) It's not really that hard unless you're computer-illiterate.
2) OP specified that he knows how to handle the registry entries and has been playing it off a USB drive already.

[Elesirdur]

This thread piqued my interest since I've got some old games at home I wish I could install on a jump drive and use on my work PC. However, I'm amazed that you have a work computer where you can actually get into the registry.

[Zosi]

This thread piqued my interest since I've got some old games at home I wish I could install on a jump drive and use on my work PC. However, I'm amazed that you have a work computer where you can actually get into the registry.

Depending on how old they are, DosBox Portable works wonderfully. Some newer games have unofficial no-install patches, Fallout 2 comes to mind as one I saw recently. If you have specific games in mind, feel free to post and I'll see what I can find.

[The Stig]

Fuck fuck fuck I feel like buying a portal hard drive or USB stick now (I have a 128mb one I brought years ago that I use to carry documents, nothing bigger....).

[thunderlips]

If you need to install the games to get them to work its not a big deal if you have an external USE HDD or memory stick and run the mojopac program on it. It costs like $30 I think but you are able to use the host computers resources but actually created your own guest environment and are able to install and play games, surf, etc and all the registry keys, temp files, install files, etc are kept on your external storage only.

There is no trace of what you were doing on your host PC at all. I used to play FFXI like this and it worked pretty well, just saved an old 4200rpm laptop hdd from the trash pile and bought a $25 or 30 case for it.

[Shadowrunner]

So this has hit my interest too. Is it possible to install windower, FFXI, and this mojopack on the same 8gb USB drive? or is it just worth it to go to 16GB (wonder how much those cost nowadays anyways). What files would need to be deleted to make it fit? Hell I could play it with no sound considering it's at work as well, but is it possible to delete the sound files, set FFXI to not play any sound, and then still load it without crashing? I remember when one of my sound files for the Necropolis got corrupt and I simply couldn't enter the zone without it disconnecting me.

[thunderlips]

So this has hit my interest too. Is it possible to install windower, FFXI, and this mojopack on the same 8gb USB drive? or is it just worth it to go to 16GB (wonder how much those cost nowadays anyways). What files would need to be deleted to make it fit? Hell I could play it with no sound considering it's at work as well, but is it possible to delete the sound files, set FFXI to not play any sound, and then still load it without crashing? I remember when one of my sound files for the Necropolis got corrupt and I simply couldn't enter the zone without it disconnecting me.

Go for the 16GB FFXI on my PC already takes near 9GB not including windower, room for screenshots or other add-ons; and mojopac does require the same space on the HDD/Flash drive as a Windows install so you'd need another 2-3GB for a windows XP install. I don't think I pointed it out but to install mojopac you will need a copy of windows XP (or w/e your OS of choice is) to get the drive up and running.

I didn't bother deleting any FFXI files but if you wanted to junk the opening movie that could free up some room. I think someone else said they did this and FFXI still played fine.

Newegg had 16GB models from $30-$118 (ignoring the $400 model with the super encryption on it) so that’s not to bad cost wise. They also have 32GB models starting @ $65 so there’s another size option. Just make sure you read reviews on your memory stick so you don’t get a slow model otherwise the performances will be shit and you'll end up wasting money.

I will say even on an old HDD I was able to play FFXI, use my windower macros, and have media player running all through mojopac. It’s all based on the speed of your external drive and really how good of a CPU your host system has. Think the laptop I used for a host was a 1.6 GHz Turion64 with an ATI shared memory gfx card and it worked pretty well.


To disable the sound you can always go into the FFXI Config file and uncheck the enable sound box and that would stop FFXI from playing sounds. Also I think the windower's gui launcher has this option as well so you have a few ways to disable the sound.

[Shadowrunner]

well i have a large external (750 GB usb, probably teh suck). But if I could fit it on a flash drive I'd find that to be much more.. useful. Though I suppose I do lug around my bigger HD often enough to warrent usage. hmm...

[Shadowrunner]

So here's my resolution.

How would I go about flashing a 30GB Ipod and installing it all on that. Speed too cruddy?