Size of the CoreMods folder - 18 GB ?

Hi,

Just wondering about the size of the CoreMods folder (18 GB - Stable and OB) for mostly modules/stuff that are not installed

:dunno: Is that really necessary ?

My Open Beta installation is :

* Basic (Caucasus)

* F/A-18C

-

Size is the same in my install.

And yes, it is necessary. CoreMods contain the AI stuff of ALL modules - so you can fly together with them, even if you don't own the module.

CoreMods contain the AI stuff of ALL modules - you can fly together with them, even if you don't own the module.

Hi,

ALL modules ?

A-10C, helicopters, FC3-modules are missing and we can fly together with them

To be honest, most of the Core Mods size is the liveries. 3rd party modules contain plenty of high resolution liveries and you need them on the HDD in order to fly the missions containing these aircraft as AI, even if you don't own them.

Also some of the High quality AI units are there (like Stennis carrier or China Asset Pack).

Hi,

 

 

ALL modules ?

A-10C, helicopters, FC3-modules are missing and we can fly together with them

Basically all modules. Some older modules, like the ones you mentioned, are part of the base install of DCS. ED started to use CoreMods only after those were already in the sim.

But you still have all the AI stuff for those as well, but just so nicely separated into one sub-directory.

To be honest, most of the Core Mods size is the liveries. 3rd party modules contain plenty of high resolution liveries and you need them on the HDD in order to fly the missions containing these aircraft as AI, even if you don't own them.

 

Also some of the High quality AI units are there (like Stennis carrier or China Asset Pack).

Yes but 4 GB for ONE MiG21 skin... Come on this is too much.

I think the first module to use the CoreMods folder structure was the Mig-21bis.

It's not that big of a deal size wise, DCS just takes a whole 256 GB SSD for it self, it's simply the standard, even tho I wanted to do something about this long ago, I have come to a weird situation where I would need the extra few GB on this occasion. I decided to do it one step more than just manually.

But not done yet, it'll be in a couple of days.

Somebody should take a second look at this. 6GB just for Mig-21 is way over the line compared to other liveries. Reminds me of saving family pictures in bmp format and pushing it through email.

Somebody should take a second look at this. 6GB just for Mig-21 is way over the line compared to other liveries. Reminds me of saving family pictures in bmp format and pushing it through email.

Do you want to be proactive and drop a thread in a thread in the Mig21 section then, or add an entry to their public bug tracker?

Do you want to be proactive and drop a thread in a thread in the Mig21 section then, or add an entry to their public bug tracker?

Yes I do:

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=228118

This may help in the meantime https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=3748292

3 months later the size of the CoreMods folder has now increased to 28Gb!

HB's F-14, as magnificent as it is, takes up 5Gb on its own?!

I'm not sure we'll be able to keep up at this pace...

I agree that the price of big HDs is not an issue for desktop configs but customers having invested in a SSD for speed (or laptop users) are probably not keen on moving DCS back to a HD to store liveries they barely see on their monitor.

I understand people would like to have (and keep) very detailed textures for their favourite addon but I think it's about time to start giving users more choice here.

- A batch tool that reduces (halves) the size of all the texture files found in a specific folder would be a great help for example.

- A way to use a single livery as placeholder for all the other liveries would be another way to drastically reduce the footprint.

eg. if you need to display a Tomcat on my screen, always use the Pukin' Dogs livery and delete all other liveries from my SSD.

What do others think about this quick growth nowadays?

Regards,

Sylvain

What do others think about this quick growth nowadays?

I dont mind, it's the price for having additional content .. 10 years ago we had a single Module (Blackshark) and a single Map, now we have 4 Maps and 25 Modules (Counting all the FC3 as just one) ... obviously it requires more storage space.

I used to have a single 256 GB SSD drive for Windows plus Saved Games plus DCS .. now I just added a 2nd 256 SSD drive, for about 50 bucks .. it doesnt seem excessive to me, specially compared with items like GPU or CPU or even RAM; in fact the storage is the less expensive part of my rig.

.

Could use symbolic links to move some things out to hd

Some kind of standardized max texture size would be nice indeed.

Due to my work/life situation I don’t get to launch DCS a lot on my desktop when I’m at home.

These days, I get to enjoy and use DCS much more when I’m on the road on a laptop.

Unfortunately, storage is a concern on a laptop as more HDs or SSDs cannot be add due to the internal space constraints.

My biggest issue with the actual system is probably that I have to reserve more and more storage for (liveries of) aircraft addons I’m not actually interested in at all...

With release of F-14, the game became unplayable until I downsampled all F-14 liveries. 130MB per livery (15MB only for helmets) is way too much.

Hi Nikola,

I would appreciate it if you could quickly explain how you managed to downsample the liveries.

I’d like to do the same... :thumbup:

Thanks!

Sylvain

What would be cool is if they had lesser quality skins (of the same ones) in the coremods, but when you bought the modules, you then get the full fidelity skins.

That's not good idea. Someone may not want HD skins even when owning module...it would be better as "HD liveries DLC".

That's what you get when you purchase the module. If you want the option to show them or not, all the better.

3 months later the size of the CoreMods folder has now increased to 28Gb!

HB's F-14, as magnificent as it is, takes up 5Gb on its own?!

I'm not sure we'll be able to keep up at this pace...

 

 

I agree that the price of big HDs is not an issue for desktop configs but customers having invested in a SSD for speed (or laptop users) are probably not keen on moving DCS back to a HD to store liveries they barely see on their monitor.

 

 

I understand people would like to have (and keep) very detailed textures for their favourite addon but I think it's about time to start giving users more choice here.

 

 

- A batch tool that reduces (halves) the size of all the texture files found in a specific folder would be a great help for example.

- A way to use a single livery as placeholder for all the other liveries would be another way to drastically reduce the footprint.

eg. if you need to display a Tomcat on my screen, always use the Pukin' Dogs livery and delete all other liveries from my SSD.

 

 

What do others think about this quick growth nowadays?

 

 

Regards,

Sylvain

Simple, because for every new module there is more common shared DCS World core assets that everyone gets for free.

A 100-150 Euro 250GB SSD can get the job done quite good, remember READ performance is more important and most flash storage has most of it's issues in writing, not reading.

Yes the ultimate idea I already explained years ago is to have DCS RESOURCE PACKS or DCS SUBMODULES available for optional download through the same system you donwload your modules.

When you install DCS World core there could be another prompt in the setup with a full list of submodules/packs you could deselect (selected by default), you could deselect all the livery submodules for AI units, but leave all the liveries for user playable units selected so they be installed.

But it would look bad if you removed all the liveries for a particular unit, to solve this each unit would have one (or two) default core livery(texture) which would be tied/entangled(hardcoded) to the purchasable module/aircraft/unit and it would be outside the resourcepack/submodule system.

So when you would deselect the "A-10C Livery Resource Pack" you would not install any additional liveries except the one that ED decided to be the module-default livery, that way you can still use the aircraft.

The second part is LOCAL LIVERY OVERRIDE SYSTEM that would be needed for multiplayer and replays, if you do not have the livery that some other player has, DCS would replace it with the default one for that unit/module, and so for replays. The "system" comes from maybe in future being a more sophisitcated way of choosing an exact livery of your choice, however the resourcepack/submodule idea would also need to be more sophisticated to allow for per-livery choosing, but the worth of that might not be so much, maybe for larger modules the liveries could be grouped into a few major packs, as they have many similar liveries.

That's not good idea. Someone may not want HD skins even when owning module...it would be better as "HD liveries DLC".

I disagree, this is a simulator striving for maximum realism, quality, premium content, that's why one module cost more than the million seller "AAA" video games, perfectly understandable.

You should have a prompt to choose between LOW or NORMAL quality textures then.

Texture Quality slider in graphics options is usually meant to render the same assets at a downscaled resolution, some videogames actually do use physically different low-quality assets when selecting the lowest option but they ship/download all assets ahead, I'm not sure to what extent DCS uses actual low-quality assets, but if a space issue is a problem for some then the solution would be for DCS to support only downloading and installing the low-quality assets.

My only concern was about wasted resources when you get sth like 21bis 4GB of liveries - are they really that HiFi or is it just poor programming going on?

If they are that much better than anything before so be it.

Quality only raises (and that's good) and disk space is not really a problem here. DCS is a constant WIP but grows slower than SSD sizes and prices are getting cheaper.

Options are good but I can understand ED on this matter. Just install the game as is. It will work as intended. If you want to mess with files - be my guest, but it's your responsibility for messing up. Just imagine how mission design would work if everyone had different sets of liveries. It may have no impact if you splash it from 10 miles but it looks bad when you taxi next to it with totally wrong painting.

Options for more texture setting - that is my wish - different for cockpit, aircraft, other objects and terrain.

My f-14 folder is 14GB, and I dont even have F-14 installed. Most of it are zipped liveries. Can I delete em, does dcs download em back if it needs em? Other folders are max 2gb, most under 1gb. This is from coremods folder. I have only 4 maps right now, (caucasus, marianas, normandy 2.0 (<- ~44gb just that)  and ONE high fidelty plane+ fc3 and my dcs folder (without saved games folder) is 240gb! Is there ANY way to get it smaller, or is that just the way it is? Have OB version. The DCS folder just gets bigger and bigger. This is laughable. I just bought new 500gb ssd JUST for DCS folder was 120gb and my old ssd was only 260gb (and win10 on it too). It got just too small. Now 3 months later, Im about to get to same problem. DCS folder size has DOUBLED in 3 months (from 120gb -> 240gb) and that is only the DCS install folder, on top of that /savedgames/dcs folder wihch is around 50gb. So sry for my language but WTF ED? Why is this. Ok inside that 3 months I have installed normandy 2.0 trial, which is that ~40gb´s, and that is understandable, but where does that other data come frome.  My coremods folder only is 95,7GB ??!

1 hour ago, Wiggo said:

My f-14 folder is 14GB, and I dont even have F-14 installed. Most of it are zipped liveries. Can I delete em, does dcs download em back if it needs em?

Yes, you can, but they will be downloaded back during next update. If you see any F-14 in your mission SP or MP you'll see either default livery (if you keep one for A and B each) or default "missing texture" camo.

You're free to not update the game and not buy any more modules - that way your DCS size will stay the same. Otherwise any new module or update will increase your DCS folder size.

Neither users or developers want to keep DCS in still, it's constantly improved and it grows - deal with it your own way.