Separate Installs of the game

Guys

Id like to install 2 versions of the game as separate installs, one for 1.5.4 and one for 1.5.7. Is that possible to do on the same drive and if so can someone point me in the right direction...I had 1.5.4 installed but after the latest drivers installed it was messed up so I'm going to re install game fresh. I appreciate any help. Thanks guys in advance for the advice.

Guys

Id like to install 2 versions of the game as separate installs, one for 1.5.4 and one for 1.5.7. Is that possible to do on the same drive and if so can someone point me in the right direction...

Yes, its posible to have several different installs of DCS on the same drive (subject to space constraints, I'm assuming you do have enough space on your drive).

Each install needs two folders: one for the program itself (for example: /DCS/v1.5.4/ ), and one for the user configuration (on User/<user name>/Saved Games)

Once you have installed the game, before you run it for the first time, do the following:

In the DCS root folder, create a text file called "dcs_variant.txt" with the one word suffix you want to use for your save folder i.e.

If "dcs_variant.txt" is

openbeta

the save folder will be called "DCS.openbeta"

If "dcs_variant.txt" is

test

the save folder will be called "DCS.test"

If the save folder with the .suffix doesn't exist, it is created when DCS is run.

All the Installs store the registration of each module on the Windows registry, so if you have them currently activated, they should remain activated on the new installs.

Best regards.

Can I name the folder DCS.154 and then leave the other as is. I'm sorry but I'm a little confused, I'm sorry this is all new to me. Any pics you can post to show me what you mean would be great...Thank you!

Can I name the folder DCS.154 and then leave the other as is. I'm sorry but I'm a little confused, I'm sorry this is all new to me. Any pics you can post to show me what you mean would be great...Thank you!

As I said, each install of DCS makes use of two main folders: one for the program, and one for your user configuration ... the first one can be put wherever you like, the second one must go under the folder username\Saved games

For example, lets say that I want an install for DCS 1.5.6 and want it located on my drive J:\ under a folder called DCS ... I will name this new folder v1.5.6 ... like its on this figure:

Where did I get the contents of the file? ... well, that's one of the nice things of DCS: you can just copy whatever other install of DCS you have on your PC or on one of your backup drives ... only if you dont have any current DCS install you then must resort to downloading an initial installer from ED's website.

On this particular example, I just copied my current DCS install (that's actually on my drive C) onto this new drive, just to show that it can be done ... you can have as many DCS installs as you want, limited just by your drive available space.

On the figure you can see that I created (using windows' notepad) a text file called dcs_variant.txt (be aware that some windows dont show the file's extensions by default ... change this behaviour in order to be able to see the full name of the files)

This text file contains the name that I want for the user configuration folder that DCS will create on the "Saved Games" folder the first time that I run the game ... on this case I wanted to use "1.5.6"

I run the game, and we can check on its main menu that the version is indeed 1.5.6:

and here is the folder that the game created to hold my user configuration:

We can see that the game disregarded my desire to use points and rather than 1.5.6 it named the folder "DCS.156" ... well, that's good enough :)

I now have a DCS install with the version 1.5.6 ... to create a new install we only need to create a copy of the previous install on a different folder .. on this case I will use the folder v1.5.4 ... like this:

As with the previous case, I have edited the dcs_variant.txt file .. so that the saved games folder will be 1.5.4 and not clash with the config folder of the previous install.

Well, obviously the files that I copied are actually those from my 1.5.6 install ... so I need to update this version to 1.5.4 ... I do this using the DCS_Updater command, that must be run on a command prompt windows opened with Admin privileges, like this:

we must navigate to the bin folder of the DCS install that we need to update, and then I use the command DCS_Updater Update <version> ... this will initiate a download from ED's Servers, of those files that are different on the version that we requested, which are less than the files a full install would need:

Once the updater finishes, we run the new DCS install and can check that it indeed has the correct version number:

We can also see that the game has created the DCS.154 folder on "Saved Games":

You will have to create manually the shortcuts for starting each install, these are the parameters for each:

usually, the shortcut points to the DCS_Updater exe, but doing that would nag you to update each time you run the program, so it's much better to point to the DCS exe ... as we dont want to update these version specific installs

Hope now this makes more sense and you are able to set up DCS just the way you need.

Best regards

Thanks so very much for this, its exactly what I was looking for. Salute my friend!

Thank you, still works like a charm…needed this for my vr install…thank you.

I'm interested in downloading DCS 2.9 onto my computer, but am concerned that it may actually be a step backwards in the event all of the bugs aren't worked out yet.  It seems like keeping my current version but then also downloading the latest version as described above, may be just the fix.  Are there any downsides associated with this approach?  I'm thinking in terms of key bindings, aircraft mods, campaign progress, etc...  Any insight would be appreciated.  Thanks in advance!

35 minutes ago, 2circle said:

Are there any downsides associated with this approach?

The biggest is that it needs lots of drive space (depending on how many terrains you do have), on my PC DCS currently uses almost 600 GB, so having that duplicated is out of the question.

35 minutes ago, 2circle said:

  I'm thinking in terms of key bindings, aircraft mods, campaign progress, etc...

Well, of course having two separate folders at Saved Games means that both DCS instances would have their own bindings, mods, etc.  While you could use Windows hardlinks to share some folders (like \MissionEditor\ to keep campaign progress updated without regard for which DCS you are using), it can get kind of messy to maintain.

35 minutes ago, 2circle said:

  Any insight would be appreciated.  Thanks in advance!

I updated to 2.9 and found that on my old GPU it didnt work that great: a small fps increase in exchange for a lot less visual quality.  Rather than have two DCS installs, I simply reverted back to a prior version:

I'm aware that this is not a long term solution as when Kola gets here I will need to update DCs to use it, but it gives me more time to save the $$$ to upgrade my GPU, and more time for ED to fine tune the 2.9

3 hours ago, 2circle said:

I'm interested in downloading DCS 2.9 onto my computer, but am concerned that it may actually be a step backwards in the event all of the bugs aren't worked out yet.  It seems like keeping my current version but then also downloading the latest version as described above, may be just the fix.  Are there any downsides associated with this approach?  I'm thinking in terms of key bindings, aircraft mods, campaign progress, etc...  Any insight would be appreciated.  Thanks in advance!

Only one: disk space.

Release and openbeta installs will mantain their files in separate folders, so no problems on that front. YOU will be the problem, as you'll probably forget in which one you have a mod, a particular mission, or some config changed.

I have 3 installs: Release, Openbeta with a ton of mods to play alone, and Openbeta vanilla for multiplayer. Zero issues.

Thank you both!  Rudel_chw, you mentioned reverting to an earlier version.  That sounds like it might be the simplest option - is there any information you could share with me on how to do that (e.g. perhaps a link to another thread)?  Any considerations there in terms of losing campaign progress, aircraft mods, bindings, etc.?

1 hour ago, 2circle said:

Thank you both!  Rudel_chw, you mentioned reverting to an earlier version.  That sounds like it might be the simplest option - is there any information you could share with me on how to do that (e.g. perhaps a link to another thread)? 
 

sure:

look for "Updating or Reverting DCS World to a Specific Sub Version:"

1 hour ago, 2circle said:

 

Any considerations there in terms of losing campaign progress, aircraft mods, bindings, etc.?

you should not lose anything, since the older version will keep using the same folder at /saved games/ … HOWEVER, keep in mind that when you revert to an older version of DCS, all your dlc modules will revert too, and if it happens that the latest version of an aircraft has introduced more bindings or changed its existing ones, then the older version of the same aircraft can have issues with those newer bindings, that are referenced on your saved games folder. This happens very rarely, but it is something to be aware of … so, make a backup of your sved games before reverting, just in case.