Guide for faster loading

[bk3000]

First off this is only practical for those with far more RAM that they actually need. If that does not describe your system then you might as well stop reading here.

I'll show you how to setup a RAMdrive and load Kenshi into it. Although you could do something similar with any game, games like Kenshi that often require loading different areas really benefit the most.

1. Download ImDisk here http://www.ltr-data.se/opencode.html/#ImDisk and install it.
2. It places a control applet in your Control Panel. So open your Control Panel and open "ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver."
3. On the bottom click "Mount New."
4. The a few options here we need to touch. Ignore everything but what I tell you. For "Drive Letter" just pick a letter - I choose R (for RAMDisk).
5. For "Image file access" choose "Create virtual disk in physical memory."
6. For "Device type" choose "Harddisk Volume"
7. For "Size of Virtual Disk" choose enough space to fit your Kenshi Folder and no bigger (as I write this 3.6 GB is sufficient). Then click "OK"
8. Windows may bug you to format the disk. Agree. Otherwise you need to manually initiate the format by right clicking on the drive and choosing "Format." Just make sure the "File System" is "NTFS" and click OK. You can close everything now.
8. Open up your Kenshi folder In my case it is "C:\Games\Steam\steamapps\common\Kenshi" but then again I changed the default installation path of Steam which I believe would be "C:\Program Files(x86)\Steam" so you may need to look there instead.
9. You are going to copy that folder into the RAMdrive but there are a few things that need done first. Leave the Kenshi folder window open though.

1. Open up a command prompt. You can do this by hitting the Start Button and typing cmd into your start menu.
2. The stuff I am about to type in is based off the drive letters and locations I have chosen. If you have chosen something else, you will need to just change this to fit your situation. Type the following

R:
md Games\Steam\steamapps\common\Kenshi\
cd Games\Steam\steamapps\common\Kenshi\
mklink /d save C:\Games\Steam\steamapps\common\Kenshi\save

3. You can close the command prompt now.
4. Open up a separate folder window and navigate to Z:Games\Steam\steamapps\common\Kenshi\ which at the moment is totally blank.
5, Click on the folder window that contains your Kenshi installation. Select everything there except the folders that say "_CommonRedist," "dependencies," and "save." Right click on one the items you have selected and choose "copy."
6. Click on to the folder window for the RAMdrive. Right click and choose "paste." Everything you need will copy.
7. You don't need "_CommonRedist" or "dependencies" past install so I see no reason to copy them. You may be wondering why I didn't have you copy the "save" folder... I had you set up a symbolic link to the save folder on your actual hard drive and Kenshi will seamlessly use it like this. I have a good reason for this. RAM is volatile. When your computer is turned off or rebooted - you loose everything. I don't want you to potentially loose your saved game progress... and like this you won't (excluding problems from in-game bugs, hard drive failure, etc).
8 Double click on kenshi_STEAM.exe from within the RAMdrive. It should load faster than you are used to (yes even if you have an SSD). The load times when moving around between areas will be dramatically cut down as well. Although much of the loading time will also depend on your processor speed etc.

[bk3000]

Now to some this may be too difficult or too much hassle. To those people you might consider putting $30 towards DIMMDrive on Steam. it does much the same thing as all this but it does everything for you. It should work with any game(in theory). It would be more convenient as well as easier. But you have to pay $30 for this and my solution is free. Your choice.

There are two very big difference in the implementation of DIMMdrive versus my solution (I could be slightly incorrect since I haven't used it yet but may buy it later). First, I believe DIMMdrive copies the entire directory to RAM and that may include the save folders(unless the game saves outside it's own folder).

It does not know which folders may contain save data so eventually it has to write the entire folder back to the hard drive or the save progress would be lost(my solution does not involve any disk writes except writing the save files themselves). If you had the computer crash in the mean time or power lost before it wrote back to the hard drive then your save progress is lost(although your old save prior to loading would still be there).

The second thing (I believe but could be mistaken) is that DIMMdrive will need to copy your game to RAM every time you open the game. It would take the same amount of time my solution took to copy into RAMdrive, but it will take that much time every time you run the game. So that means if your game crashes and you have to reload it you get to wait again. That could get annoying real fast. My solution requires the folder copied only 1 time - until you turn off/reboot - which you then need to do this over. Personally I hardly ever turn off nor even reboot my computer so that is not a problem for me.

[Butta]

I don't have DIMMDrive myself, but according to the reviews Steam will always show you as playing DIMMDrive and you can't invite your friends (if you want to use it for some more games) to play with you and some other minor problems. Soo.. think twice buying it.

[NeoCat]

Or just get yourself a 50 gig SSD, Lable it "Frequently used" and install any game that you play frequently on it.

[bk3000]

I don't have DIMMDrive myself, but according to the reviews Steam will always show you as playing DIMMDrive and you can't invite your friends (if you want to use it for some more games) to play with you and some other minor problems. Soo.. think twice buying it.

Apparently they have fixed that problem. But I think you have to load it like 5 minutes before loading your game (so really just leave it running LOL) if I remember what I read correctly. I don't have it either, but I am considering it. For now doing things the free way is good enough for me.

Or just get yourself a 50 gig SSD, Lable it "Frequently used" and install any game that you play frequently on it.

A simple solution for sure. But the best SSDs are still about 20x slower than RAM. Certainly SSDs are much faster than magnetic disks anyhow.

[Ironfist]

Or you program your software correctly.
this is putting the issue to the end user, instead of producing a proper product.

[Blxz]

Or you program your software correctly.
this is putting the issue to the end user, instead of producing a proper product.

Totally commenting now just because I am seeing your name attached to almost every one of the top threads.

My name is far better, involves much less complaining and I need to keep my post count up anyway.

[Ironfist]

Or you program your software correctly.
this is putting the issue to the end user, instead of producing a proper product.

Totally commenting now just because I am seeing your name attached to almost every one of the top threads.

My name is far better, involves much less complaining and I need to keep my post count up anyway.

well we all have goals in our life.
who am I to comment on your noble goal to have post counts

[Blxz]

who am I to comment on your noble goal to have post counts

I dunno. Frankly I wish you would do less of it though.

[breeze]

Wanted to make a little addition to original author's post since the game grown up to almost 12 gigs now and running it from RAM really boosts up the loading speeds, so people with lots of RAM may find this useful. Here is the exact .bat file commands you need to set all this up without doing too much research. Just remember that you need 24+ gigs of ram for this to work properly, and imDisk installed - that's all.

SET KENSHIINSTALLDISK=C:
SET KENSHIRAMDISK=K:
SET KENSHIINSTALLDIR=%KENSHIINSTALLDISK%\Steam\steamapps\common\Kenshi
SET KENSHIRAMDIR=%KENSHIRAMDISK%\Steam\steamapps\common\Kenshi
IMDISK -a -s 12G -m %KENSHIRAMDISK% -p "/fs:ntfs /q /y"
MD %KENSHIRAMDIR%
MKLINK /d %KENSHIRAMDIR%\save %KENSHIINSTALLDIR%\save
ROBOCOPY %KENSHIINSTALLDIR% %KENSHIRAMDIR% /E /XD dirs %KENSHIINSTALLDIR%\save

[Surprisekitty]

Wait, so this actually offers a noticeable improvement in loading times? It legitimately works?

Because if so, I might just have to add an extra 8GB of RAM to my paltry 16GB I have currently. If only Kenshi wasn't 11GB