should I back up my data?

[Order 66]

I only use this PC for gaming, so in the event that something happens to my data, all I lose is time (reinstalling games and launchers) should I back up my data?

 

[Order 66]

Yes Original , But I had only installed 3 maybe 4 times. Point is mute now with remastered out no more limit cap.

speaking of the original Crysis, why was it so hard to run? I have seen people say a range of things from it was unoptimized to it was built with ever-increasing clock speeds in mind.

 

[USAFRet]

I would love to back up my data if some of the games (looking at you EA) didn't have restrictions on how many devices you could install it on.

"backups" don't have to be an "Install".

 

[Order 66]

"backups" don't have to be an "Install".

Please clarify, I don't have any experience backing up data. everyone says back up your data but I still don't know how to (for free).

 

[stonecarver]

speaking of the original Crysis, why was it so hard to run? I have seen people say a range of things from it was unoptimized to it was built with ever-increasing clock speeds in mind.

To see run Crysis even today on a gen or two old GPU on Ultra. I think back than on a good GPU medium was a good smooth gaming experience.

 

[USAFRet]

Please clarify, I don't have any experience backing up data. everyone says back up your data but I still don't know how to (for free).

Well, before Macrium did away with their Free tier, that would have been the goto free option.
There is a 30 day trial, and then to purchase, $80.
(still worth it IMHO)

 

[Order 66]

To see run Crysis even today on a gen or two old GPU on Ultra. I think back than on a good GPU medium was a good smooth gaming experience.

you're saying that even a 1080ti for example would struggle at ultra?!

 

[stonecarver]

speaking of the original Crysis, why was it so hard to run?

you're saying that even a 1080ti for example would struggle at ultra?

Last time I tried it the game got glitchy like trees would turn white, parts of a bridge would just disappear, game would micro studder but sound would freeze and game crashes. That's just what happed to me others might be different. Turn the game to High and perfect.

 

[hotaru.hino]

speaking of the original Crysis, why was it so hard to run? I have seen people say a range of things from it was unoptimized to it was built with ever-increasing clock speeds in mind.

The second reason is the most likely one. Assuming CryTek started development shortly after releasing Far Cry, the expectation back in the day was Intel was going to be pushing the clock speed envelope, claiming that they would have a design that would hit 10GHz by 2011 (Prescott was supposed to hit 5GHz). So, naturally, single core performance was going to be king.

And even then, when dual-core CPUs came out and started becoming mainstream, the likely design choice for PC game developers was to remain on a single core. The second core could handle all of the background tasks and whatnot.

It really wasn't until the 2010s when developers started designing games around multithreading.

Also I hate claiming something is "unoptimized" or whatnot without being able to look at source code. It's easy to point that the original Crysis is "unoptimized" because it doesn't properly multithread, but uh, in the context of the time, there was little reason to do that because multi-core CPUs in the hands of consumers was a brand new thing.

Like did we ever consider Super Mario 64 in its retail state to be unoptimized? Probably not until someone found out Nintendo released it with the debug flags on.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

Please clarify, I don't have any experience backing up data

for the game's data itself many times you can just copy & paste the entire game folder to another location, maybe zip it up and save some space.
then when you want to reinstall, place it back in the game provider's installation path and choose to verify files.

 

[falcon291]

I only use this PC for gaming, so in the event that something happens to my data, all I lose is time (reinstalling games and launchers) should I back up my data?

As the games backup are already in Internet, and you will lose nothing but time if the drive fails, no I don't think you should backup your data.

 

[hotaru.hino]

As the games backup are already in Internet, and you will lose nothing but time if the drive fails, no I don't think you should backup your data.

That depends on the client and whether or not the game itself has cloud save support.

A good number of games I own on Steam that were released before 2010 and didn't get any recent updates (e.g., Doom or Quake being recently updated) don't have cloud save support.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

i still don't think the OP has actually mentioned if it's save/config data or the games themselves that they're interested in backing up.

both options have been provided and don't think they have responded regarding that element of the question.

 

[Order 66]

i still don't think the OP has actually mentioned if it's save/config data or the games themselves that they're interested in backing up.

both options have been provided and don't think they have responded regarding that element of the question.

Sorry, must've forgotten to mention that it would be nice to essentially have a copy of both the games and the data so that in the event of loss I could simply just transfer them back to the main drive.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Sorry, must've forgotten to mention that it would be nice to essentially have a copy of both the games and the data so that in the event of loss I could simply just transfer them back to the main drive.

To back up your games
Go to the launcher's library folder and copy it elsewhere. When you want to restore the game from say a fresh install of the client or to reinstall the game, copy the game back into the library folder and tell the client to install it. Assuming everything goes right, the client will discover the game exists, verify the files, update the game if necessary, and do the whole "first time launch" thing.

Make sure to update your backup regularly. I had DOOM 2016 backed up before Bethesda removed the DRM on it, so if I used that copy, the client basically redownloads the game.

To back up your save files, settings (if any), and mods
If your mods lived in the same place as where the game was installed, then the above should back that up.

Otherwise to back up the other data, it typically lives in one of the following locations that you just need to copy from:

• C:\Users\[username]\Documents
• C:\Users\[username]\Saved Games
• C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming
• C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local

And to restore them, just put them back where you found it. While you can copy AppData wholesale, I don't recommend it since it contains data you don't really need and Windows tends to throw a fit in some cases. It's safe to ignore that, but it could complain about a lot of files.