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[MMad]

Maybe we can persuade Toady to drop a quick init line for enabling/disabling log writes, but the new version won't be out for quite a while anyway...

Assuming it wouldn't mess up the game and be off by default (I don't really know what it does), that sounds like a good idea.

If you don't want to risk severely limiting the lifespan of your drive you could just cut the folder off the drive, play, then put it back onto the drive when you're done. 

This sounds good in theory, but in practice I found it lead to increased hassle, not to mention endless frustration when I forgot to copy my saves back onto the drive when I was done. Of course, for less scatter-brained fortress overlords, mileage may vary.

[Draco18s]

Hundreds of millions? You're off by a few orders of magnitude there.

My mistake, I though the number was absurdly large, but finite (under a billion, over 10 million).

[Vugor]

using a USB flash drive has worked perfectly fine for me for the last year that i have played Dwarf Fortress

it is possible that is is extremely alittle bit slower but not noticably

[PTTG??]

Yeah, it works great. Just make sure that it's plugged in. I once had a game running, hibernated my computer, removed the drive, and then un-hibernated it, and the game was still working. Then I tried to save.

But I believe Toady One is working on a solution to that bug.

Dwarf Fortress does not need any files while running, I think. It stores all the files it needs on RAM.

I meant the bug of being unable to save to a drive that's not connected to the computer. I'm sure he'll figure out a way to transmit the data anyway.

[Reasonableman]

I've run it off a flash drive, but it (the drive) was fairly old: it (the game) ran fine, but saved and loaded slooooooow.

[kcwong]

If you don't want to risk severely limiting the lifespan of your drive you could just cut the folder off the drive, play, then put it back onto the drive when you're done. 

This sounds good in theory, but in practice I found it lead to increased hassle, not to mention endless frustration when I forgot to copy my saves back onto the drive when I was done. Of course, for less scatter-brained fortress overlords, mileage may vary.

Then make a batch script, AutoHotKey script or write a tiny program to automate the process for you. You execute the program on your thumb drive, which copies DF and your save to harddrive, runs DF, waits for DF to exit, and copies everything back into thumb drive.

You can even throw compression into the mix and compress the data before copying, to make the transfer faster. Might take a while to compress it though.

[MuonDecay]

Reporting back from someplace that is not my house 

The game runs just fine from the thumb drive, like many of you said 

Unfortunately it took some effort to make my friend's !&%^ing Vista machine to recognize the drive, but once it did DF ran smoothly.

I've done this, and the game runs fine. As long as the computer you're using has enough RAM that the game doesn't have to swap, you'll be okay. I think saving takes a little longer than normal, but that's it.

I noticed that as well. Saving to the drive took a long time, especially since I plugged into a USB 1.0 hub. I should try the 2.0 ports in back and see if that helps.

If you don't want to risk severely limiting the lifespan of your drive you could just cut the folder off the drive, play, then put it back onto the drive when you're done. 

I wasn't aware of that, but it doesn't really concern me, thumb drives are a dime a dozen and the one I'm using isn't even my favorite one. If this one ever quits on me I'll have two others to replace it by then, which I'll probably have gotten for free.

I wouldn't give that kind of abuse to an Ironkey, but I think a 256mb stick I got for free is fair game for that kind of treatment.

[awdball]

The absolute worst case scenario I've run into when running on a flash drive was, when the drive filled up. The game didn't notice the corruption until the second save so I lost a lot of game time, and gave no option to recover. If you like to run with autosave on season changes then make sure you have enough space.

AWDBall

[Jay]

For the record, Vista (with no viruses/rootkits/whatever bogging it down) is no worse about a brand new (as in first time you've plugged it into the machine) flash drive than ANYTHING else.
Your friend has probably just accrued a massive amount of viruses.
For that matter, putting a 2.0 device in a 1.0 slot doesn't want to work well anyway.

[Philosophical Gamer]

I wonder if you could get DF running in Puppy Linux.  I was dirt poor for a bit and had a $50 computer, puppy linux runs like a modern OS on a Pentium 200, with fully featured web browsing, word processor, etc, running without any lag whatsoever.

I guess the question is kind of moot since DF won't run on a slow processor, but man did I miss gaming when I had that Puppy computer.

Of course I didn't even have a hard drive in the thing, only RAM, mobo, CPU, CD-Rom drive.  'Bout as cheap a computer as you can get while running at full speed. Mmm hmm.

[Jay]

I wonder if you could get DF running in Puppy Linux.  I was dirt poor for a bit and had a $50 computer, puppy linux runs like a modern OS on a Pentium 200, with fully featured web browsing, word processor, etc, running without any lag whatsoever.

Yay improper use of the word lag.
Lag refers to packet loss and/or slow sending of packets.
In other words, it refers to sending/receiving stuff to/from a server IE internet gameplay.
DF does not use the internet.  No lag is possible.
Slow-downs, yes.  Lag, no.
(Just a pet peeve of mine)

Hasn't this thread basically served its purpose?
...And yeah, considering that DF hardly runs well on a $250 (even by today's standards) retail computer, there's absolutely no chance it could run on $50 from whenever that was.
And of course, DF has no way of knowing you've filled up a flash drive (or even your own HDD, for that matter...) so if you do fill it up while playing, it's your own fault...
You can get an 8GB flashdrive for $10 or so now.
8GB is more than enough for even 8 copies of DF...

[Philosophical Gamer]

Yay improper use of the word lag.
Lag refers to packet loss and/or slow sending of packets.
In other words, it refers to sending/receiving stuff to/from a server IE internet gameplay.
DF does not use the internet.  No lag is possible.
Slow-downs, yes.  Lag, no.

I know    No sleep makes finding the right descriptive word difficult.  The OS runs at the same speed as a modern OS on a Pentium 200. 

I thought that since we were discussing things to do with running stuff from pen drives, people might be interested in the pup, or have personal experiences with getting games running on it.  And the thread was last posted on at 8pm yesterday...

[Tormy]

I wonder if you could get DF running in Puppy Linux.  I was dirt poor for a bit and had a $50 computer, puppy linux runs like a modern OS on a Pentium 200, with fully featured web browsing, word processor, etc, running without any lag whatsoever.

Yay improper use of the word lag.

Many people call that "hardware lag" actually.

[Jay]

Many people call that "hardware lag" actually.

So jumping off a cliff is perfectly fine if a lot of people do it, then?

[Footkerchief]

Many people call that "hardware lag" actually.

So jumping off a cliff is perfectly fine if a lot of people do it, then?

That is how language works, yes.