Running FFXI off an iPod

[latinmonk]

Here is the deal : My friend lives with his mother one week and his dad the other week. At his mom's house he has a pc with FFXI, but at his dad's house they share a laptop. Now, he told me he can only play every other week because the laptop at his dad's place doesn't have enough space for FFXI. Now, if I recall correctly, I had a friend who ran World of Warcraft off his iPod, and another friend who ran all sorts of games from his iPod. Now, my friend who can only play once a week does have an iPod, and I told him we might be able to do this, however, I only have a nano so I can't test it out myself.

So is it possible to run FFXI off an iPod like other (most) pc games, and how specifically would I go about doing that?

[Wise Donkey]

Re: Running FFXI off an iPod

My only guess would be to use the iPod as an external HDD, though I am not sure of the finer details - I have a Zune. I don't even know the POL/FFXI software well enough to know if that is even feasible.

[Kailea]

Re: Running FFXI off an iPod

that all depends, but the main problem would be that both computers would need to have the registry's info on them to work right

[Nandito]

Re: Running FFXI off an iPod

You can run WoW off an iPod?!

Holy shit what can't technology do these days...

[Feba]

Re: Running FFXI off an iPod

As an external hard drive. Not running it USING iPod's power. iPods are way too weak for that, as are pretty much anything that small with the exception of two or three UMPCs.

And yes, the main problem is registry info. You should be able to install it to Z:/Ipod/FFXI or whatever on both systems with few problems; but honestly your effort would probably be better spent buying a new hard drive.

[Duncan Idaho]

Re: Running FFXI off an iPod

Like Feba said, a new hard drive would be the way to to. Get a usb/firewire/eSATA external hard drive (which ever port both computers have). FFXI I think will take up at least 10 GB of space, so unless he has an ipod that has a lot of room he will be sacrificing a lot of storage on it. Another thing to think about is how fast it can provide data consistently, it may be usb 2.0 compliant but how does it do transferring data for 2 hours+.

So possible.....probably, preferable.... probably not.

[Feba]

Re: Running FFXI off an iPod

I was referring to an internal hard drive for the laptop.

[Ameroth]

Re: Running FFXI off an iPod

iPods play music and movies. They're not specifically built to run apps and games like FFXI. I won't say it's impossible, but it seems far-fetched. I would just stay at my mom's (in your case) house if I really needed/wanted to play FFXI so much that I had to resort to playing it on a 2.5" screen monitor with shittier graphics than my first Windows 3.0 computer.

[Murphie]

Re: Running FFXI off an iPod

Either you didn't understand the question, Ameroth, or you're just having a laugh. I can't honestly tell.

[Feba]

Re: Running FFXI off an iPod

I'm going to guess that he's high.


Which would mean both.

[Lunaryn]

Re: Running FFXI off an iPod

Pteryx ran FFXI off an external HDD for a while in a shared computer situation, so it's quite possible. You might experience an increase in load times, but it's not enough to impact playability in any significant way, as I recall.

Main thing is if you want to use the external HDD install on more than one system, some steps have to be taken. If you look on the forum of a certain common third-party utility, there's a thread about how to get a copied FFXI install hooked into the system properly. Alternately, you could just install FFXI onto the drive twice, once from each system.

Keep in mind that FFXI is big, and getting larger. You'll want to have at least 15 if not 20 GB of available storage to work with.

[latinmonk]

Re: Running FFXI off an iPod

hmm, well since iPods can act as external hard disks, how would one go about running FFXI off an external drive? Can you just copy the PlayOnline folder from Program Files to the external drive and run POL viewer from there, or do you have to do something extra? I have a week to figure this out for my friend (I want him to be able to play with me) but I can't test it for myself as I don't have a drive that big. Somebody mentioned registry information....I recall that if you just copy the World of Warcraft folder from program files to the drive, it hooks the registry info onto the system automatically the first time you load the game on then new system, do you think FFXI does this or are they installed during the actual game installation? I'm that not tech savvy, but I appreciate help from anyone who is.

[Icemage]

Re: Running FFXI off an iPod

hmm, well since iPods can act as external hard disks, how would one go about running FFXI off an external drive? Can you just copy the PlayOnline folder from Program Files to the external drive and run POL viewer from there, or do you have to do something extra? I have a week to figure this out for my friend (I want him to be able to play with me) but I can't test it for myself as I don't have a drive that big. Somebody mentioned registry information....I recall that if you just copy the World of Warcraft folder from program files to the drive, it hooks the registry info onto the system automatically the first time you load the game on then new system, do you think FFXI does this or are they installed during the actual game installation? I'm that not tech savvy, but I appreciate help from anyone who is.

FFXI uses the Windows Registry for a number of things, including telling the software where all the files are installed. Best bet would be to connect the iPod and have it registered as a specific drive letter (X: for instance) and then do the full install to that drive.

Moving the files can have unexpected, possibly disastrous, results.

I just checked my registry entries and there's three separate entries under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/PlayOnlineUS/InstallFolder. In theory you could move the files and modify these three entries to match the new location, but I really don't recommend trying it. If you (or more specifically your friend) has no idea what any of the above means, then definitely don't try anything funny; just install to the iPod's storage.


Icemage

[Nuriko]

Re: Running FFXI off an iPod

Might it be better to get a USB drive instead, and run it from that?

[latinmonk]

Re: Running FFXI off an iPod

Might it be better to get a USB drive instead, and run it from that?

ok but how would I run it off that?