Can you run a pc game from a usb stick?

aliasojo

Got an Acer Aspire netbook and a 8GB & 16GB usb memory stick. Is it possible to load a game onto the stick to play on the netbook?

Probably something like a football manager type game, nothing too graphic or memory intensive.

Marty_J

When installing the game, you should be given the option of selecting where the files will be installed to. If you're using Windows, the default is usually your Program Files folder, but you should be able to select any location.

samhale

I'm guessing it'd be slow, if a standard USB stick.

-TangleFoot-

Software installers usually operate on the assumption that what your installing isn't going anywhere after it's been installed, so installing on a removable drive is usually a Bad Idea. In some cases it'll work, but only if the application doesn't rely on anything stored on the same drive as the operating system - like the Windows registry.

You could use a SD card to extend your primary storage device by up to 16GB, but only if your system came with Linpus pre-installed. If you're running Windows, you'll be limited to games which either don't have an installer or don't make any serious alterations to the system.

Here's a list to get you started.

Lum

So long as you don't intend to then plug that USB stick into a different machine and expect the game to still work, and so long as you ensure that the USB stick is assigned the same driver letter next time you plug it in (USBDLM is good for this.) then it'll work. a USB stick is ultimately just an external drive but with flash memory rather than platters and read heads.

There's also a program called "Thinstall", not sure if it's free or not, that lets you package up an app or game into a single executable that will run on any computer without installation. This may be worth looking into.

gaming_guy

also, some games add registry entries so my not work when transferred to another pc.

if the game has copy protection that may be set off as well preventing the game from launching

aliasojo

Thanks for the advice (& links) everyone, very helpful. :beer: