[Jackho]

Hello,

Please point me to the right forum if I'm not posting in the right place.
Today I decided to make a backup of my fs2 folder with all mods installed in case I have to reinstall the game (or whatever happens that makes me do a fresh install so I don't have to download everything again). while I was waiting for the backup to finish - it's 27GB  - I was visiting the directory tree to learn a bit about how it's all put together and maybe have my own clean install of every mods, I saw some files that perhaps are not usefull at first, like those in 'cache' folders which are recreated. And then I stumble upon these ones in mission folders named 'Backup.xxx' where xxx is like 001, 002, etc until 009. They look like mission files but it seems I don't see them in the mission list ingame and some of them were created long before I installed the game. So I wonder what really are those file? can I safely remove them? My guess is they were forgotten when the mod was released.

thx in advance for enlightening me

  A+
Jack H

[zookeeper]

Don't remove cache files: yes, the game will recreate those when needed, but that takes time. Generating cache files for retail fighters and such probably only takes a few seconds (if that), but hi-poly ships can take a long time.

Mission file backups are useless of course (unless you need the backups... duh) so they can safely be removed, but obviously they're really small files so it's hardly worth the effort.

[Mongoose]

Not that it'll save you much space, because they're all very small, but there are a number of retail-installed files in the main FS2 directory that can be safely deleted as well.  I'll leave it to someone more knowledgeable to put together a proper list though.

[Jackho]

Thx

Obviously it won't earn me any more space, but well... I have this fussy part of me that needs a reason why the things are how they are. It's hard to explain and also totally subjective but I'd feel a lot more comfortable if there're no useless files lying around. Keep it simple, cleaner!

A+
Jack H

[karajorma]

Don't remove cache files: yes, the game will recreate those when needed, but that takes time. Generating cache files for retail fighters and such probably only takes a few seconds (if that), but hi-poly ships can take a long time.

If you're backing up the game though, it might be worth a slow start up the first few times you play in order to save yourself space.

[Dragon]

Don't remove cache files: yes, the game will recreate those when needed, but that takes time. Generating cache files for retail fighters and such probably only takes a few seconds (if that), but hi-poly ships can take a long time.

Mission file backups are useless of course (unless you need the backups... duh) so they can safely be removed, but obviously they're really small files so it's hardly worth the effort.

Speak for yourself. If you never got your mission file corrupted, well, the good for you, I suppose. I don't know if "undo" command uses them or some other method, but I can tell you the backup files are a lifesaver if, for whatever reason, you need to recover your work on a mission. I only resorted to them once or twice, but I'm really glad they're in there.

[zookeeper]

Speak for yourself. If you never got your mission file corrupted, well, the good for you, I suppose. I don't know if "undo" command uses them or some other method, but I can tell you the backup files are a lifesaver if, for whatever reason, you need to recover your work on a mission. I only resorted to them once or twice, but I'm really glad they're in there.

Of course I was speaking in the stated context of someone just managing their files, not a modder. A modder will want to keep their backup files, but they're useless to the audience.

[Jackho]

Of course I was speaking in the stated context of someone just managing their files, not a modder. A modder will want to keep their backup files, but they're useless to the audience.

That's what I am so far, a simple user. I made 2 backup archives, one with the retail install which is free of any modification whatsoever, the second one with all the mods I downloaded and installed properly, I mean with good mod.ini file where it lacked one. And that's when I saw lots of files like cache files and .bak and .00x files which are backup files I didn't create myself, I would have never let these files in a publicly released archive so I removed them. But I understand it's good not to remove files created in the 'cache' folders.

I don't mind losing mission files as I always reset campaigns, however I do care about player files! anyway the progress one makes are stored in the player file, not in any mission file aren't they?
I'm only doing it so that I can have a very clean directory tree should something go wrong with my install that would require me to start over with a fresh one... OK this feels kind of maniac.
  A+
Jack H.

[niffiwan]

  Yes progress is stored in the player files, not in the mission files.

[Kolgena]

Don't remove cache files: yes, the game will recreate those when needed, but that takes time.

For the most part, you won't notice the extra loading times it takes to generate those cache files on demand. The most notable exception is the PVI Karnak. Can take up to 15 minutes first time its cache file is created. First time I encountered it I thought the model was corrupted or the game was broken lol.

[qwadtep]

Don't remove cache files: yes, the game will recreate those when needed, but that takes time.

For the most part, you won't notice the extra loading times it takes to generate those cache files on demand. The most notable exception is the PVI Karnak. Can take up to 15 minutes first time its cache file is created. First time I encountered it I thought the model was corrupted or the game was broken lol.

I seem to recall the Typhon taking a while to cache, too.

[Dragon]

Recently made hi-poly models in general are known to do that. Karnak is just the oldest example, but every recently upgraded large ship in Mediavps will load forever if the cache isn't present.