Can we get an option to store shadercache outside the documents directory?

[Jorge Firebomb]

So recently my PC started complaining about my OneDrive nearing capacity, which I thought was weird because I don't really store much in it. Checking the directories for how much they are using revealed that Victoria 3 was using over half of my 5 GB default limit. Some of this was save files I no longer needed and cleaned up, but over 2 GB of space is used by the shadercache directory. I do not know of a clean way to tell OneDrive to not backup that directory, nor do I know of a way to tell Victoria 3 to store that information elsewhere. I can manage the problem for now, but if for example an upcoming Paradox game (EU5 perhaps) shares this same file structure, then I would have more of an issue as it would put me over my OneDrive limit and lock me out of even getting emails for the associated account.

I greatly enjoy Paradox grand strategy games, but I'm not getting a Microsoft subscription just to have enough space to keep the shader cache in my OneDrive. If I missed an option that lets me move that directory elsewhere (preferably into the game installation directory) I would love to know that.

 

[Dman1791]

I do not know of a clean way to tell OneDrive to not backup that directory

That's the neat part, you can't. OneDrive does not have an option to exclude sub-directories of a backed-up directory. It's really stupid.

 

[Helmut von Dandy]

I’m not using OneDrive on PC, but I’ve got the game installed on my Mac too and now realise it’s using 4GB of my iCloud storage because it’s in my Documents directory. This is pretty egregious. Both operating systems surely have proper ways of storing this stuff.

 

[Ilya Belkin]

I’m not using OneDrive on PC, but I’ve got the game installed on my Mac too and now realise it’s using 4GB of my iCloud storage because it’s in my Documents directory. This is pretty egregious. Both operating systems surely have proper ways of storing this stuff.

I'm on a Mac as well, and having these files in the iCloud actually causes some issues with game crashing as well. So I end up removing the Documents folder from iCloud just to avoid that:

 

[Helmut von Dandy]

I'm on a Mac as well, and having these files in the iCloud actually causes some issues with game crashing as well. So I end up removing the Documents folder from iCloud just to avoid that:

Were these the crashes caused by zooming in? They're the only crashes I've had but I hadn't seen this considered as a possible cause in the bug reports forum. I might update my post to mention this. Turning off iCloud for Documents is a non-starter for me, but I mostly play on PC so I'd rather uninstall the game. Thankfully I have enough iCloud storage that it's not an issue yet.

 

[Niko92]

If you go into Victoria 3's launcher folder (Steam\SteamApps\common\Victoria 3\launcher), you can change the documents folder to be something else.

There is a file there called launcher-settings.json (you can open this with Notepad++ or VSCode), and in the file you can change the game's data path to be something else. I've had to do this to HoI4 because one of my local mods takes up too much space on the drive. Below is what the line looks like by default.

"gameDataPath": "%USER_DOCUMENTS%/Paradox Interactive/Victoria 3",

Change the path to something else, and everything in the documents folder should change location. Do note that if there ever is an update to the game (or you verify files through Steam), it will reset the path, meaning you have to do it again.

 

[L-Histidine]

Shader cache (unlike, say, saves and settings files) feel like it really ought to go into AppData or other-OS-equivalent instead of Documents.