DISR, DCS World Install Size Reducer Utility

I've been thinking about this for quite a while, seeing some of the threads in recent months about the sizes made me finally do it. I wanted to make it just for my self all along, but then why not share it with the community.

This is not meant for everyone, just those really capped by space for various reasons. In my case, I've had quite a year of problems with my PC with some sata ports and newer HDDs not working good with my older motherboard, replacing everything would be too costly currently so I had to make up a setup that would work without BSODs, I came to one working setup where I use an older 128GB SSD for DCS, it's too small for all the maps and modules, so I hope I can get some new modules up by cutting down on some liveries for the modules I don't have.

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This is an initial release, but it is a stable and fully working one, I just ran out of time a bit toward the end and it isn't as polished cosmetically and a few other bits of messaging and analysis improvements. So all the feedback is appreciated in the meantime, I'll probably be back in weeks or more with a more polished version including any bugy you guys find, give or take.

As I don't have as many modules, but even the ones I have, the paid module specific assets aren't well covered, they don't take as much anyway and it's mostly cockpit which is something everyone definitely wants to preserve.

Be aware that I have used the future proof term of "Reducing" because more stuff might possibly be added where it is a lot more complicated than a simple delete, and even the existing assets could be partially ommited, such as "bare metal" liveries for some. Anyhow, the REDUCTION is about PERMANENT DELETION and there is, at least with this utility, no way to revert. You would need repair the DCS installation.

REQUIREMENT: .NET FRAMEWORK 4.7.2 Runtime

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4054530/microsoft-net-framework-4-7-2-offline-installer-for-windows

Tested only on Windows 10. But I'd be happy to fix any Win7 problems, I still use Win7 as well on another boot device, but a bit less these days (if didn't had all the hardware problems)

I also have to mention I totally ran out of time even running DCS with everything reduced, even tho I planned to do one quick run just before posting this, but didn't work out.

There's no way I'd be able to test it good today, it would have taken weeks so proceed with caution, and ofcourse please report where and which reduction cause issues or even a crash, textures are usually safe, there's no models being removed so I think it shouldn't crash.

DISR_InitialRelease_V09.zip

1. So your tool basically deletes textures from disc without backup, right?

2. They come back with next update or DCS repair?

3. Do removing textures result in any crashes or errors in game?

4. How does object without textures look like? Standard orange "missing texture" texture?

I was thinking about it as a performance tweak for some object heavy missions. I have got 16GB RAM but my card is 2GB, so if the VRAM is the issue, removed textures could be a savior :)

1. So your tool basically deletes textures from disc without backup, right?

2. They come back with next update or DCS repair?

3. Do removing textures result in any crashes or errors in game?

4. How does object without textures look like? Standard orange "missing texture" texture?

 

I was thinking about it as a performance tweak for some object heavy missions. I have got 16GB RAM but my card is 2GB, so if the VRAM is the issue, removed textures could be a savior :)

1. Yes. At least currently with the initial release.
   
2. No, normal updating may not bring them back. After I removed everything I've installed Mig21, M2000 and AJS37. They all downloaded, installed and activated successfully but the missing textures were not re-downloaded, which is correct (as this is friendlier on modding and this is expected behavior)
   
3. You'll have to check for your self in depth, there's way too many cases for me to pre-test and I didn't want to hold back the release for weeks or even longer. So I just removed everything and will play it as normal to see, however sometime later. I had the time this morning to do an initial test of Mig21, AJS37 and M2000 running one or two quick missions (which weren't populated by a lot of stuff) and there was no crashes, all of the external models were also looking even weirder because of the light objects and afterburner exhaust being white blobs including other glitches when you have light sources enabled, but it wasn't affecting much of anything else, the cockpits were fully operational, I did a cold start with AJS37 from ground to airborne, I fired missiles with M2000 and shot down some F-5E's. However I just noticed in Mig21 I couldn't put GEAR UP, not sure if that's an existing bug or what, I didn't bother setting up controls, but I verified it was G but it wouldn't bring up the gears, or down too. I'm new Mig21 owner so I have no idea, maybe someone else will clear that up, or go ask the MiG21 forums.
   
4. Yes objects with missing texture will use the engine default "military camoflague" with the "MISSING TEXTURE" written on.
   

I wanted to avoid making any performance claims or any suggestion that this utility is for performance improvement, as I had made no tests of any kind, nor I do want to encourage the use of this utility for such a purpose, I don't want to create an environment where people will start relying on this to run DCS below minimum specs and then have conflicts with official support. The only thing I can say right now is that it may improve the preview time in Mission Editor when you select/place a particular aircraft for the first time, as usualy there's a freeze with some aircraft before their model appears and is selected, that may be due to the engine having to parsing/loading a lot of liveries and such. The multi-threading improvement could well be things like this which separate the GUI off so it doesn't freeze, there's many room for improvement besides just peak FPS when it comes to CPU core utilization.