Save Games

[Twinfire]

Hi All!

 

I tried to change the save games path in oblivion.ini.

 

Didn't work.

 

The game goes thru the motions of saving, but when I exit the game nothing has been saved.

 

So how would I tell Oblivion to save my games somewhere besides my C:\ drive?

 

I thought .ini files contained, you know, *optional* stuff.

 

TF

[Switch]

This fits in more in Technical Support methinks. Moving...

[Marxist ßastard]

Is Oblivion installed on an NTFS partition?

[Twinfire]

Is Oblivion installed on an NTFS partition?

 

No. But I am running Widows 2000 Professional, not Windows XP.

 

I changed this line in oblivion.ini: SLocalSavePath=Saves\

 

I replaced the =Saves\ with =H:\Oblivion\Saves\

 

As before, the game went thru the motions of saving...showing the "autosaving" message and, I think,

"save successful" or whatever it really is.

 

But when I looked in that location it was empty.

 

I created the location before testing the change.

 

And when I re-started the game there was no "continue."

 

I tried it with and without quotes.

 

Perhaps no ending "\"?

 

Also, with the change, the oblivion Mod Manager crashes when I select "Save Manager"

 

It tells me the path format specified is not supported.

 

Sounds to me as if the settings are simply hard coded. Or I need XP for it to work?

 

Edit(1): I discovered bUseMyGamesDirectory=1 and changed it to bUseMyGamesDirectory=0, and now the Save Manager part of Mod Manager does not crash, but recognizes an empty directory. Before it worked, though, I had to create a Saves directory in my Oblivion install location. I don't know yet if any other kind of change will work. With any luck, my save games will no longer be on my C:\ drive, where they don't belong.

 

Edit(2): The above change is not enough. There also needs to be an oblivion.ini file in my Oblivion install directory. I copied it from the MyGames directory.

 

Edit(3): I take it all back. Evidently, Bethesda is bound and determined to force us to use MyGames on the C:\ drive. I have discovered that none of my mods are loading from the Mod Manager, just vanilla Oblivion. Doesn't work using the Bethesda desktop shortcut either. Back to square one, unless someone here can provide a textbook explanation of how to do something as simple as changing where to put save games. So far it has taken me two or more hours to decipher, but no luck.

 

TF

[Marxist ßastard]

Yeah, that didn't work because the path for saves needs to be relative to the per-user Oblivion folder. As for all your additional INI tinkering, just revert all of that -- it's counterproductive. If Oblivion were writing your saves to an NTFS partition, you would be able to just hardlink to somewhere more sensible, but it isn't, so we'll have to commit some hackery. Change SLocalSavePath to "..\..\..\" and enter the following into a DOS (DOS being God's righteous punishment for sinful people such as yourself who deny the light of lights that is UNIX) prompt:

 

mkdir h:\oblivion
mkdir h:\oblivion\saves
mkdir "h:\oblivion\saves\my documents"
mkdir "h:\oblivion\saves\mydocu~1\my games"
mkdir "h:\oblivion\saves\mydocu~1\my games\oblivion"
copy "%USERPROFILE%\mydocu~1\my games\oblivion\*.*" "h:\oblivion\saves\mydocu~1\my games\oblivion"
move "h:\oblivion\saves\mydocu~1\my games\oblivion\saves\*.*" h:\oblivion\saves\
copy con "%USERPROFILE%\desktop\obliv.bat"
@ECHO OFF
SET USERPROFILE=H:\OBLIVION\SAVES
CD C:\PROGRA~1\BETHES~1\OBLIVION
OBLIVION.EXE

 

...Then press ctrl+z, followed by another return. From now on, launch Oblivion using the "obliv.bat" icon on your desktop. Rename it, move it, or create a shortcut to it if you'd like. If Oblivion is installed to a directory other than "C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion," you'll need to modify the second-to-last line.

 

As for your mod manager, you're SOL there. You could try adapting that batch file, but it'd probably be a waste. Oblivion recognizing "..\..\..\" as a valid path is good luck, but were the programmer of that mod manager to not only do the same, but also avoid making the all-too-easy assumption that all users' home directories are on the same drive would be no less than a miracle. Either you edit the program's source code, or you convert the partition to NTFS and do a hardlink