Gaming can you instal gtaIV on an external hardrive

jaywilson · May 4, 2011

hey i am really intrested in getting grant theft auto IV on my laptop, according to http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/ it will work on my laptop, but i dont have the required 16gb freespace i only have on my external hardrive, will it work?

Nathan Drake · May 4, 2011

It depends. Some games require being installed to the main HDD, while others can be installed and run off of an external device. Even if it was possible, the game would most likely run much slower having to read and write from the external via a USB connection.

In the end, if you can't install it on the internal, I would say either make the space, or get a new internal HDD with more memory.

To the below: I've had games that wouldn't let me install to my external 1TB HDD. They demanded an install to the main HDD.

To the below 2: Didn't know that. Either way, I like your answer more.

Strider · May 4, 2011

I don't agree with Nathan.

You can install and run software/games basically anywhere, except for very specialized stuff.

If a game is programmed well, you will notice nothing but longer loading times. If not, well, you'll see it run like crap.

To the point: I assume you're talking about a USB 2.0 HDD. Keep in mind that you'll cap at around 29MB/s read while (e)sata will give you, depending on drive, around 90-110MB/s. So you can estimate loading times will propably be 4 times as long, if not more.

If you can, use esata. Your notebook might not have an included port, but you can use an esata expresscard to still get the full speed. A acceptable one should be around 30$ I assume. With esata, you'll not notice *any* difference in speed and otherwise.

You could even go as far as I do and not mount the external drive as a letter, but as a directory in c:\. But that's for another thread...

Edit: maybe it wanted you to install on C:, but there is no reason for that and even that can be circumvented by mountpoints. I remember games that got patches or a new installer if that was the case.

Thanks

doyama · May 4, 2011

Did you get it on Steam? You can use simlinks to kinda sorta hack your way out of it.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1461884

Gaming can you instal gtaIV on an external hardrive

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Obligations fulfilled, now I depart.

Next to the mainstream

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