Portable FFXI

[Kingofgeeks]

I am never in one place at one time. I usually just bring my laptop to places i go to but I'm slowing realizing how much of a pain that can be. Everywhere I go has multiple computers I have access to so it got me thinking...

Is there a way to make ffxi portable so that i can carry it around with me on an external hard drive or ipod like device?

I have seen information on using Virtual Machine software like MojoPac. Has anyone ever tried this? what are some things i should look out for before i waste my time downloading and installing stuff?

BEFORE YOU COMMENT! please realize I am fully aware that:
-you cannot simply copy and paste on an external hard drive and expect it to work
-If you run a game such as ffxi on a virtual machine it will be slow
-the supporting computer must be able to play ffxi
-this will not work on anything but a PC (not stupid enough to plug into a 360 and expect it to work)


I hate to sound patronizing, i just want a serious and intelligent discussion on this matter.

[Greatguardian]

FFXI can be run on a Netbook if you want something lighter than a standard laptop (though on extremely low settings), and it can be run from a USB drive but only if you have installed it on every computer you want to use it on with the game files set to the USB drive's volume.

You wouldn't be able to just plug and play on any random computer because the computer's registry would be lacking necessary entries. It might be possible to create a batch file or something similar to create the registry entries as if you were installing FFXI without having to deal with extracting/copying the game's files (since they'd already be on your USB drive), but I haven't heard of it being tried.

[Kaida]

I have a back up of my ffxi with batch files to quickly reinstall. Tho every time i have to install POL no idea why never been able to work around it

[slakyak]

Don't know what region you're in but could you keep it on the laptop and use a 3G network?

Feel free to blow this one out of the water but I figured that with the age of the game it wouldn't be too data hungry and therefore not stupendously expensive to run off a 3G dongle. Depends on signal and speed etc but it'd be interesting to know if anyone does this?

[Greatguardian]

I'm fairly sure FFXI caps, or at least used to cap, at 56 kbps so yeah it's not too bad.

[Arcon]

Friend of mine used to play it via remote desktop. I know it's not quite the same, and requires a really extremely fast/stable connection to play efficiently, but if you mostly do it to farm or just chat with people, it may be one way to solve that problem.

[Aliekber]

You wouldn't be able to just plug and play on any random computer because the computer's registry would be lacking necessary entries. It might be possible to create a batch file or something similar to create the registry entries as if you were installing FFXI without having to deal with extracting/copying the game's files (since they'd already be on your USB drive), but I haven't heard of it being tried.

You should just be able to export a .REG file to hold all of the FFXI registry information, and install it on any computer you want to play on. I can't imagine that there is much more going on in the FFXI install than copying files and adding the registry information, so mimicking an install should be pretty straightforward.

[Kingofgeeks]

playing off a netbook would be awesome, especially with a 3G card.

I suppose a possibility would be to install ffxi on a host, then delete the playonline folder so that the registry is still preserved, and ffxi could just run off of the hard drive. This would be very useful since you don't have to deal with virtual machines but it would just be mostly portable, not completely portable.

This method will solve my issue, seeing as though there is a finite amount of computers i could possibly play ffxi on. I think, however, it would be nice to know if there was a way to make the game completely portable, without having to modify anything on the host computer

[rog]

You should just be able to export a .REG file to hold all of the FFXI registry information, and install it on any computer you want to play on. I can't imagine that there is much more going on in the FFXI install than copying files and adding the registry information, so mimicking an install should be pretty straightforward.
You also need to register the .dlls, but otherwise, yeah, it is pretty straightforward, and takes no more than 30 seconds.

[Aliekber]

I think, however, it would be nice to know if there was a way to make the game completely portable, without having to modify anything on the host computer

Unless you can hook into the executable and hijack POL/FFXI's attempts to read the registry, and redirect them to an .ini file or something you've rigged up, probably not possible. You need the registry information there for FFXI to function.

Edit: And overall, it seems like a lot more effort than running a .REG file (unless you don't have admin rights on the destination computer, I suppose).

[Kingofgeeks]

hmm quick thought:

what about updates? what gets modified on ffxi updates? just DAT-like files right? I don't wanna run into an issue that ffxi will not be able to update because the registry is on the computer and the files are on a hard drive.

[rog]

hmm quick thought:

what about updates? what gets modified on ffxi updates? just DAT-like files right? I don't wanna run into an issue that ffxi will not be able to update because the registry is on the computer and the files are on a hard drive.
The only thing in the registry is various settings.

See http://wiki.windower.net/guides/move_pc_without_reinstall for instructions.

[Anethia]

I have a friend who plays on 360 but had to go without Internet for about a week. He used the hotspot feature on his phone and was able to play over a cellular data network by turning his phone into a wireless internet connection (not a very good one, but it worked). Not saying this will solve your particular problem but I thought I would bring it up as a point of discussion.