Best /quickest way to duplicate old Daz install in new (Windows) machine...?

diane.duane_e7fa2315d1

(waving at everybody) Hi folks!

Have just replaced a ten-year-old desktop Windows (7...!) machine with a new, so-much-faster W11-running one. In an Asus "Republic of Gamers" laptop, which has been my main graphics machine until now, I've got a happily-running install of DS 4.15 (and 4.21...) that I want to keep. I've just installed DS 4.21 in the new machine, along with a fresh install of Download Manager that correctly sees all my purchased assets.

My problem at the moment is that the version of DIM in the new machine is continually throwing "Download failed!" errors on everything when I try to pull stuff down into the fresh install. Truly, I'd be just as happy offloading all the downloaded content in the laptop install to a portable drive and sticking it into the new machine. Is it possible there's a tutorial on this process lurking in here somewhere? If so, can someone point me at it? (As the install in the ROG machine has been customized as to storage destination, it not having a ton of room in ts boot drive. The new machine has a 1T SSD for booting, which'll do fine for the time being, I think...)

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can give me. :)

--DD

SofaCitizen

Hi there! You can transfer your assets from an old machine to a new machine easy enough.

On your old one, go to Smart Content -> Content DB Maintenance and export your metadata (to save any category customisations you may have made). This will export an extra file in your primary Product Library.

Then copy your Daz Studio Base directory(ies) to your new machine in their entirity and add the copied base directory as a base directory on the new install. Then go back into Smart Content -> Content DB Maintenance on the new install and check "Process Metadata" and "Import Metadata" - this will then scan through all your base directories and read the config files. In the next dialog it is safe to leave everything checked and then click the button to start the import. Depending on your hardware and amount of assets this will take several minutes.

When that is finished you should have all your old assets on your new install. In DIM if you update the config to include the new base directory it should now also show that everything is installed on the next re-launch.

 

EDIT: Just re-read and noticed that you wanted to use an external drive instead of copying the files directly to the new computer. The process is the same anyway tho as the shared drive will just be the base directory that you add to the new copy of Daz Studio and DIM.

diane.duane_e7fa2315d1

SofaCitizen said:

Hi there! You can transfer your assets from an old machine to a new machine easy enough. ...

Thanks so much! The hubby and I are out running some errands at the moment, but I'll give it a shot as soon as I get home. (I've got this really unhealthy desire to start a complicated render going in both machines at once and see how much faster the new Nvidia card is.) :))))

Best -- DD

 

SofaCitizen

diane.duane_e7fa2315d1 said:

Thanks so much! The hubby and I are out running some errands at the moment, but I'll give it a shot as soon as I get home. (I've got this really unhealthy desire to start a complicated render going in both machines at once and see how much faster the new Nvidia card is.) :))))

Best -- DD

Haha! Sounds like a good way to test your new machine and warm up the house a little too :)

diane.duane_e7fa2315d1

SofaCitizen said:

diane.duane_e7fa2315d1 said:

Thanks so much! The hubby and I are out running some errands at the moment, but I'll give it a shot as soon as I get home. (I've got this really unhealthy desire to start a complicated render going in both machines at once and see how much faster the new Nvidia card is.) :))))

Best -- DD

Haha! Sounds like a good way to test your new machine and warm up the house a little too :)]

(chuckle) It'll be interesting to put a thermometer in the room and see if there's a bump. (The only thing likely to interfere with the data is the fact that there's a woodburning stove in the same room. We're in the depths of rural Ireland and we're having a bit of a cold snap at the moment.) ...But it'll also be interesting to see how much of a bump, if any. The new machine (this one from Scan in the UK:  https://www.scan.co.uk/products/scan-gamer-rtx-intel-core-i7-12700f-16gb-ddr4-12gb-evga-rtx-3060-1tb-m2-ssd-win-11) is almost absolutely silent except for the tiny, tiny whine of the RTX 3060's fan: only to be heard when it's actively rendering. I did a render in Terragen 4 before we stepped out this afternoon, and a render that once took an 8- or 10-hour overnight run on the predecessor machine's AMD card took about 15 minutes on this one. So I have high hopes. :) --DD

SofaCitizen

diane.duane_e7fa2315d1 said:

(chuckle) It'll be interesting to put a thermometer in the room and see if there's a bump. (The only thing likely to interfere with the data is the fact that there's a woodburning stove in the same room. We're in the depths of rural Ireland and we're having a bit of a cold snap at the moment.) ...But it'll also be interesting to see how much of a bump, if any. The new machine (this one from Scan in the UK:  https://www.scan.co.uk/products/scan-gamer-rtx-intel-core-i7-12700f-16gb-ddr4-12gb-evga-rtx-3060-1tb-m2-ssd-win-11) is almost absolutely silent except for the tiny, tiny whine of the RTX 3060's fan: only to be heard when it's actively rendering. I did a render in Terragen 4 before we stepped out this afternoon, and a render that once took an 8- or 10-hour overnight run on the predecessor machine's AMD card took about 15 minutes on this one. So I have high hopes. :) --DD

Yeah, I'm catching some of that weather over in England altho not in a rural area so I imagine it's not as cold as you have it. The room with my PC in it does tend to be one of the warmer ones in the house so this time of year does sound like a good time to crank out those complicated renders :)