Usage of Whdload without Zip files

Hi there!
First of all thanks for this great project!
I'd like to ask if it is possible to use an already unpacked Whdload game directory directly in the Gamebase instead of using the Zip file which will be unzipped to the "rezip" folder.
Thanks in advance for your help.

Tom

[eLowar]

Short answer: No, that's not possible.

Slightly longer preview of a long answer: Anything's possible, of course, but it would take quite significant changes to the existing scripts and database.

Edit: Is there a specific reason you want this behavior? Maybe the desired effect can be achieved in some other (easier) way.

Ok thanks for your answer.
And why do I want to do this:
At the moment I have to use the zip files, put them into the special folder...the game is extracted to the "GBGame" folder what means I need space for both files because the Zip file is still there. I don't know exactly the logic how save games are kept in this temp folder but anyway: Is it maybe possible to change the target directory for the zip file extraction? This would help as well.
Thanks in advance again.
Tom

[eLowar]

Originally Posted by buehlert

At the moment I have to use the zip files, put them into the special folder...the game is extracted to the "GBGame" folder what means I need space for both files because the Zip file is still there.

It is worth nothing that GameBase is supposed to delete the contents of the GBGame directory regularly (since that's a GameBase-internal thing, I can't tell you exactly when it does that), so it should normally never take up more space than a few games (and especially not end up with a full copy of your zipped games).

Originally Posted by buehlert

I don't know exactly the logic how save games are kept in this temp folder but anyway:

Actually save games are not kept in there at all. After WinUAE exits, WHDRun checks which of the files in there changed, compresses only the changed files (usually tiny), and puts them in <PathToGameBase>/GameBase Amiga/whdrun-data/. When the game is started again, they're merged with the extracted original game data. That's why it's safe to delete the GBGame directory periodically (or let GameBase delete it).

Originally Posted by buehlert

Is it maybe possible to change the target directory for the zip file extraction? This would help as well.

I actually don't know if GameBase has that option and at a quick glance I can't find it either. If you're using Windows Vista, you could achieve this by turning GBGame into a symbolic link to another directory. If you are using Vista and don't know how to do this, I can provide instructions. On Windows XP/2000, it may be possible with NTFS junctions, although that's less straightforward and somewhat risky business, so I'd recommend against it (symbolic links on Vista on the other hand should be perfectly safe).

[eLowar]

Oh, actually you could also just change the script, as GameBase's %gbgamepath% is just passed to WHDRun, which will use whatever it's told to use. Note however that then the target directory will not be automatically purged, ever.

You can edit a script by clicking one of the scripts at the top of the GEMUS menu. Look for the following line (relatively far down):

Run_Program(%dbpath%\whdrun.exe||%gamepathfile% %gbgamepath%\rezip\%gamefilenoext%/ "%emupath%\winuae.exe" "%dbpath%\WHDLoad.uae" "%dbpath%\WHD\s\user-startup||nowait)

You can change %gbgamepath% in the highlighted part to something else. Unfortunately I'm not 100% sure how GameBase handles quoting paths (as you can see, some are quoted in the script and some are probably quoted automatically), so it could be messy if your path contains spaces.