client_settings.ini - Virtual Files - Issue

Here are my observations from using ISBoxer and SWTOR... I'm only using 2 accounts, I like it simple as you'll see from this post.....

This is where all the *.ini files are stored :- c:\users\[User Name]\AppData\Local\SWTOR\swtor\settings

What I like to do is run 2 accounts when leveling and messing around and then I switch to just running 1 account without ISBoxer/Inner Space for raiding.

My issue is that I've been trying to get the ISBoxer accounts to use less resources (lower ingame gfx settings) and keep my raiding settings higher but this does not happen and I have to manually change the settings each time.

So, from what I can tell when I run ISBoxer, it looks like it reads the client_settings.ini file everytime I start my SWTOR profile through inner space and then it copies it for each of my characters in the set and renames that file and then saves it. Let me say that again, everytime I start my SWTOR. BUT and here is the kicker, when I change my settings with the Inner Space clients it will also updates the main client_settings.ini file. So I end up with a loop that changes all the files everytime.

I'm not sure if it updates all 3 files at the same time or if it updates just the main client_settings.ini and then just copies and renames them again, but whatever it does I can't have 2 different sets of client_settings.ini files.

Can you change the way Inner Space/IS Boxer creates / reads these virtual files, do a IO.FileExists check when starting the clients and if the virtual files already exist then do not over write them ?

Or am I totally wrong on how these files work with SWTOR ?

[lax]

TL;DR: What you're asking me to implement is the correct behavior and current design of the system.

So, from what I can tell when I run ISBoxer, it looks like it reads the client_settings.ini file everytime I start my SWTOR profile through inner space and then it copies it for each of my characters in the set and renames that file and then saves it. Let me say that again, everytime I start my SWTOR. BUT and here is the kicker, when I change my settings with the Inner Space clients it will also updates the main client_settings.ini file. So I end up with a loop that changes all the files everytime.

The only way client_settings.ini should get modified is
a) if it is actually not virtualized for one or more Characters
b) if the game is using an API that Inner Space does not currently support (this is entirely possible for new games and new APIs... but probably not for SWTOR)
c) if some other program is interfering somehow that breaks this feature (haven't heard of this happening, but possible)

By design, if the file is virtualized, the original file should not be modified at all. The reverse should also be true: If the original file was modified at all, it's probably not virtualized.

Can you change the way Inner Space/IS Boxer creates / reads these virtual files, do a IO.FileExists check when starting the clients and if the virtual files already exist then do not over write them ?

Overwriting them every launch would be incorrect behavior, as this would destroy your stored settings every time you launch the game instead of using them. The API Inner Space uses to copy the file is CopyFile:

Code:

BOOL WINAPI CopyFile(
  _In_  LPCTSTR lpExistingFileName,
  _In_  LPCTSTR lpNewFileName,
  _In_  BOOL bFailIfExists
);

And, as you probably guess by looking at it, Inner Space tells it to "fail if exists". What you're asking me to do is built in, so whatever the issue is, this isn't it You're not doing anything weird like creating symbolic links, etc that could possibly confuse that functionality of Windows?


So I guess I would check your configuration. I don't know how you configured them, if you used the Quick Setup Wizard and then didn't touch them it should be just fine. The virtual file should simply be "client_settings.ini", and the "Virtualize as" filenames should be something like "client_settings-something.ini". If you try to get too fancy by adding subfolders or absolute paths you might inadvertently break something. Or if your "Character" names have things that would be invalid in a filename that would be a problem too.

Worst case, let me take a look at what you've got and maybe I can reproduce the problem: HOWTO: Share your configuration for better support

I have saved the paste and you can see it here

As far as I'm aware I'm not using symbolic links or anything else, I just used the Quick Setup Wizard and let it go for it.

It should and does create the following 2 files :-
client_settings-Warrior.ini
client_settings-Sorc.ini

Maybe I just need to wipe it all clean and redo from start and thinking of that, just created this new profile from a clean start here and will try it out when I get home from work

EDIT:
Ok, tried a brand new clean start and it's still not playing ball, everytime I change the client_settings.ini when not using IS Boxer, the next time I load up my 2man team using IS Boxer it uses the settings from client_settings.ini even tho I have these settings in my virtual ini files and have them set as read only.

Code:

[Renderer]
AntiAliasingLevel = 0
Buckets = 2
D3DFullScreen = false
GraphicsDeviceId = 4225
Height = 1058
MeshLODQuality = 1
NativeHeight = 1080
NativeWidth = 1920
TextureAnisotropy = 16
Width = 1920
WindowX = 0
WindowY = 22
VerticalSyncState = false
FullScreen = false
EnableBloom = false
doShadows = false
doBlobShadows = false
AllowDepthOfField = false


[Game]
MoviesFolder = ..\..\Movies
SwtorRegKey = SOFTWARE\BioWare\Star Wars - The Old Republic

Oh and for reference this is what I have in my client_settings.ini file

Code:

[Renderer]
AntiAliasingLevel = 0
Buckets = 2
D3DFullScreen = false
GraphicsDeviceId = 4225
Height = 1058
MeshLODQuality = 1
NativeHeight = 1080
NativeWidth = 1920
TextureAnisotropy = 16
Width = 1920
WindowX = 0
WindowY = 22
VerticalSyncState = false
FullScreen = false
EnableBloom = true
doShadows = true
doBlobShadows = true
AllowDepthOfField = true


[Game]
MoviesFolder = ..\..\Movies
SwtorRegKey = SOFTWARE\BioWare\Star Wars - The Old Republic

My next step is to delete Inner Space/IS Boxer totally, do a fresh install and try it again

EDIT #2:
After doing a few more tests, mostly with the shadows as they are the easiest to see if switched on or off, it turns out that even tho the game preferences seem to be using the settings from client_settings.ini they are in fact using the settings from the virtual files.



And as we can see there are NO shadows!!!!!



TL;DR
SWTOR is displaying the settings from client_settings.ini regardless of the actual ini file used to render the gfx, Inner Space/ISBoxer is using the correct virtual file settings.

Post left intact for reference.