Fixing swtor performance on G73 (and other computers)

Swtor is now running on my computer how it should have been running in the first place…

At the moment hard drive data caching for the game is the source of large performance issues all around. The solution is creating a RAMDRIVE to hold the data caching. This essentially makes your RAM act as a high speed SSD. No more slowing down the longer I play. No more high lag and lag spikes in warzones.

3 easy steps (assuming you have 6GB or RAM or higher):

- create the folder "C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\BioWare\Star Wars - The Old Republic\swtor\retailclient\settings" in order to save your settings properly.
- Install ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver Tools and utilities for Windows
- run the following batch file code with admin rights each time you restart your computer (right-click -> run as administrator):

(this assumes the default install location on the C:\ drive. If you installed swtor in a different location, you will have to update the batch file code manually.)

Code:

@ECHO OFF
:SETVARS
for /F "skip=2 tokens=4" %%i in ('reg query "hklm\software\bioware\star wars-the old republic" /v "Install Dir"') do set installloc32="C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\BioWare\Star Wars - The Old Republic"
for /F "skip=2 tokens=4" %%i in ('reg query "hklm\software\wow6432node\bioware\star wars-the old republic" /v "Install Dir"') do set installloc64="C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\BioWare\Star Wars - The Old Republic"
IF DEFINED installloc32 IF DEFINED installoc64 GOTO ERRinstloc
IF NOT DEFINED installloc32 set installloc=%installloc64%
IF DEFINED installloc32 set installloc=%installloc32%

:COPY
IF NOT EXIST "C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\BioWare\Star Wars - The Old Republic\swtor\retailclient" (xcopy "%localappdata%\swtor\swtor\settings" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\BioWare\Star Wars - The Old Republic\swtor\retailclient" /E /I && ren "%localappdata%\swtor" swtor-orig)

:MKDRIVE
IF EXIST t:\ GOTO MKFOLDER
imdisk -a -s 2G -m T: -p "/fs:ntfs /q /y"

:MKFOLDER
IF EXIST "t:\swtor\swtor\retailclient" GOTO MKLINK1
mkdir t:\swtor
mkdir t:\swtor\swtor

:MKLINK1
IF EXIST "%localappdata%\SWTOR" GOTO MKLINK2
mklink /J "%localappdata%\SWTOR" "T:\SWTOR"

:MKLINK2
IF EXIST "T:\swtor\swtor\settings" GOTO MKLINK3
mklink /J "T:\swtor\swtor\settings" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\BioWare\Star Wars - The Old Republic\swtor\retailclient\settings"

:MKLINK3
IF EXIST "T:\DiskCacheArena" GOTO LAUNCH
ren "C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\BioWare\Star Wars - The Old Republic\swtor\DiskCacheArena" DiskCacheArena-orig
mklink "C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\BioWare\Star Wars - The Old Republic\swtor\DiskCacheArena" "T:\DiskCacheArena"

:LAUNCH
:set installdrive=%installloc:~0,2%
:%installdrive%
:cd %installloc:~2%
:start "" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\BioWare\Star Wars - The Old Republic\launcher.exe" /MIN
GOTO EOF

:ERRinstloc
@ECHO ON
@ECHO "Hmm, you seem to have two installation folders. Better post in the SWTOR forum!"
@ECHO OFF
PAUSE
GOTO EOF

:EOF

This essentially creates a T: drive on your computer and moves the swtor cache file there, which is what is causing a performance bottleneck. The T: drive is a drive that exists on your stick of RAM, which has a much higher speed than a hard drive.

Original thread with full explanations: STAR WARS: The Old Republic - [HOWTO - RAMDRIVE] Increasing SWTOR System Performance


Also, I didn’t know swtor has a high res texture issue with some video cards that cause floors to not be shiny, so this will help fix that issue:
SWTOR Trick to Improve Graphic Performance ~ Star Wars The Old Republic | SWTOR