Managing PTS and update 1.6

Caroloces · January 2015

I've already put this into tech support page, but I thought I'd post this concern on forums to see if exp players have insight into this. I installed ESO on 256 Gig SSD (along with my OS) primarily because I wanted the game to run as efficiently as possible. For the most part, this has worked very well (I have a 3 TB data drive, also). Now, for the first time, I'm interested in testing out 1.6 on PTS because it's such a major update, and I'd like to give my two cents on these changes.

The concern I have is that I have 98 Gigs free space on my SSD, and I'm thinking that downloading PTS client, plus downloading this huge update might put my SSD dangerously close to its limit, thereby jeopardizing the integrity of the game itself, as well as system resources.

For those of you who have experience in doing PTS, does it significantly add to drive space? I know that the size of the update itself is unknown, but I'd appreciate any feedback on this particular concern. One of the things I was wondering was whether the PTS client could be placed on my data drive, as well as the update, where I have plenty of room (probably unlikely!)

Sharee · January 2015

PTS is a separate game installation. So it doubles the space the game takes, at least.

I suggest you copy the whole zenimax online directory to the 3TB drive, and do the PTS stuff on the copy(it will work fine).

MissBizz · January 2015

I redownloaded and installed the entire game on my hard drive (I'm also rocking a ssd for the actual game(. It will let you select where to install. Do not add launcher to the desktop (it will overwrite the original icon. Head to the folders afterwards and create the desktop shortcut yourself.

ZOS_GaryA · January 2015

Hey there @Caroloces,

As others have mentioned in this thread, PTS is an entirely separate installation of the game, so it'll take up a bit more space than the initial installation of the game because it will contain Update 6.

To keep them separate, our best suggestion is to create a new folder on your 3TB drive called ESOPTS or Zenimax Online, install the launcher from the account website (account.elderscrollsonline.com) to that folder, enable PTS, and allow it to install from there. This means that you'll have two different launchers, one on the SSD for live and one on the HDD for PTS, but the installations will remain separate.

If there's any other way we can help, please let us know!

Caroloces · January 2015

Thanks to all for helping me! I greatly appreciate it.
Now to check out 1.6!

Taonnor · January 2015

ZOS_GaryA wrote: »

Hey there @Caroloces,

As others have mentioned in this thread, PTS is an entirely separate installation of the game, so it'll take up a bit more space than the initial installation of the game because it will contain Update 6.

To keep them separate, our best suggestion is to create a new folder on your 3TB drive called ESOPTS or Zenimax Online, install the launcher from the account website (account.elderscrollsonline.com) to that folder, enable PTS, and allow it to install from there. This means that you'll have two different launchers, one on the SSD for live and one on the HDD for PTS, but the installations will remain separate.

If there's any other way we can help, please let us know!

Thats a great suggestion. I did it on the same way.

Randactyl · January 2015

Here's my solution from an old thread with a similar question:

Alternately, you can use symbolic links and retain the convenience of using a single launcher.

1. Download and install Link Shell Extension and it's prerequisite - http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/linkshellextension.html#download
2. Move your already installed PTS folder (presumably in C:\Program Files (x86)\Zenimax Online) to your 1TB drive.
3. Right click on "The Elder Scrolls Online PTS" (Which you should have just moved to its spacious new home) and click "Pick Link Source"
4. Go back to your ESO install directory (again, presumably C:\Program Files (x86)\Zenimax Online)
5. Right click in the empty space and choose "Drop Link As -> Symbolic Link"
6. Open the ESO launcher and go about your business as normal.

This strategy can be used for the live version of ESO as well as any of your other games from Steam, Origin, etc.

If you don't have space to install the PTS in the first place, try this order:

1. Download and install Link Shell Extension and it's prerequisite - http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/linkshellextension.html#download
2. Create a folder named "The Elder Scrolls Online PTS" on your target storage volume.
3. Right click on the folder you just created and then click on "Pick Link Source"
4. Go to your ESO install directory (presumably C:\Program Files (x86)\Zenimax Online)
5. Right click in the empty space and choose "Drop Link As -> Symbolic Link"
6. Open the ESO launcher, start the PTS install, and go about your business as normal.

Darlgon · January 2015

ZOS_GaryA wrote: »

Hey there @Caroloces,

As others have mentioned in this thread, PTS is an entirely separate installation of the game, so it'll take up a bit more space than the initial installation of the game because it will contain Update 6.

To keep them separate, our best suggestion is to create a new folder on your 3TB drive called ESOPTS or Zenimax Online, install the launcher from the account website (account.elderscrollsonline.com) to that folder, enable PTS, and allow it to install from there. This means that you'll have two different launchers, one on the SSD for live and one on the HDD for PTS, but the installations will remain separate.

If there's any other way we can help, please let us know!

Errr...

Say WHAT @ZoS_GaryA.!!!!!! Are you saying NOT to use the PTS in the REAL Launcher? The one that has been there since just after launch? Somehow, that does not sound right. Can we get a confirm from @ZoS_GinaBruno or @ZoS_JessicaFolsom?

ZOS_GaryA · January 2015

Hey there @Darlgon,

You absolutely can use it within the same launcher! You simply can't pick two separate installation locations from the same launcher.

If you would like PTS and Live to be on two different hard drives, you'll need two different launchers

If you don't mind PTS and Live being on the same hard drive, you're welcome to keep them in the same launcher as you always have

.

Darlgon · January 2015

Caroloces wrote: »

I've already put this into tech support page, but I thought I'd post this concern on forums to see if exp players have insight into this. I installed ESO on 256 Gig SSD (along with my OS) primarily because I wanted the game to run as efficiently as possible. For the most part, this has worked very well (I have a 3 TB data drive, also). Now, for the first time, I'm interested in testing out 1.6 on PTS because it's such a major update, and I'd like to give my two cents on these changes.

The concern I have is that I have 98 Gigs free space on my SSD, and I'm thinking that downloading PTS client, plus downloading this huge update might put my SSD dangerously close to its limit, thereby jeopardizing the integrity of the game itself, as well as system resources.

For those of you who have experience in doing PTS, does it significantly add to drive space? I know that the size of the update itself is unknown, but I'd appreciate any feedback on this particular concern. One of the things I was wondering was whether the PTS client could be placed on my data drive, as well as the update, where I have plenty of room (probably unlikely!)

@Caroloces Ok. just letting you know. SSDs have a limited number of writes. (Check out these articles:
http://www.storagesearch.com/ssdmyths-endurance.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/284064-32-limited-number-writes

or google "SSD Limited writes")

Funny thing.. games in general give us patches weekly, with sometimes hotfixes, so those writes for a game go up substantially, and run into the gigabit territory. Not to mention the writes from the game WHILE you are playing it and moving your character or interacting with the world. With that in mind, I have stopped endorsing SSDs for gaming. SSD tech is relatively new, so a lot of this is speculation, but, with the limits in mind, SSDs are bad for games until they get bigger re-write capacity.

BTW, running a defrag program on a SSD is actually detrimental to the drive, as it counts as a R/W to that data point.

Randactyl · January 2015

Darlgon wrote: »

Funny thing.. games in general give us patches weekly, with sometimes hotfixes, so those writes for a game go up substantially, and run into the gigabit territory. Not to mention the writes from the game WHILE you are playing it and moving your character or interacting with the world.

LOL

While you are correct, you're over-playing the significance of this issue, especially with newer and newer SSDs.

Every single button press and character movement is not being written to your SSD. Those are all operations carried out in RAM. If you are choosing to be paranoid about SSD write limits, you should be turning of autosave functions in single player games and only ever saving when you're about to quit the game (something modded Skyrim has trained all of us against).

Connecting this back to ESO, the game itself only ever does I/O on login, logout, and /reloadui and the operations are usually on the order of 10 - 150 MB depending on how many addons you use and how much data their saved variables may have accumulated.