VirtualPDrive

A Virtual file system designed to make building ArmA 3 mods requre signifigantly less hard drive space.

Setup

Console Runner

1. Get the latest runner from the Releases page.
2. Enable the Windows Projected File System on your machine. Information about how to do that can be found here
3. Open up PowerShell (or another terminal of your choice) and run VirtualPDrive.Runner.exe from the command line. The arguments can be found below:

Argument	Description	Usage
ArmA 3 Path	The path to your ArmA 3 folder.	VirtualPDrive.Runner.exe '/path/to/ArmA 3'

Option	Long Option	Description	Usage
-m	--mod	Add a mod to the parameters. Specify none to load all workshop mods.	VirtualPDrive.Runner.exe -m @ACE -m @CBA -m @Another_Cool_Mod
-o	--output	Output folder for ProjFS	VirtualPDrive.Runner.exe -o /arma3/pdrive
	--no-mods	Forces the application to only load base arma and local files.	VirtualPDrive.Runner.exe --no-mods
-l	--local	A local directory to copy file names from into the virtual folder.	VirtualPDrive.Runner.exe --local /dummy_files
-e	--extension	Add an extension to the allowed file read whitelist.	VirtualPDrive.Runner.exe -e .sqf -e .bin
	--load-whitelist	Add a file to the allowed file read whitelist.	VirtualPDrive.Runner.exe --preload-whitelist config.bin --preload-whitelist myScript.sqf
-p	--preload	Forces the runner to preload all whitelisted files before starting.	VirtualPDrive.Runner.exe --preload
	--no-clean	Skips the step that cleans the output folder before starting.	VirtualPDrive.Runner.exe --no-clean
	--init-runners	Set the number of concurrent file load operations are allowed to occur.	VirtualPDrive.Runner.exe --init-runners 4
	--no-purge	Skips the step that cleans the output folder after ending.	VirtualPDrive.Runner.exe --no-purge

Example Call (PowerShell):

.\VirtualPDrive.Runner.exe "D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Arma 3" -o "output" -m "@212th Auxiliary Assets" -m "@3AS (Beta Test)" -m "@ace" -m "@CBA_A3" -m "@Last Force Project" -m "@Legion Studios Base - Stable" -m "@Just Like The Simulations - The Great War" -m "@Kobra Mod Pack - Main" -m "@Operation TREBUCHET" -m "@WebKnight Droids" -m "@327th Brokkrs Workshop" -m "@91st MRC - Auxilliary Mod" -m "@DBA CIS" -m "@DBA Core" -m "@DBA Republic" -l "dummy_files" --preload --preload-whitelist config.bin --init-runners 4

Example files are found in the Examples folder shipped with the Console Runner. You can also read about them here

API

1. Get the latest API from the Releases page.
2. Enable the Windows Projected File System on your machine. Information about how to do that can be found here
3. Run the API Application - its now listening on http://localhost:9127. You can change that in the appsettings.json file.
4. Make a request to the API - full documentation on the API can be found here

Example files are found in the Examples folder shipped with the API. You can also read about them here

Credits

A big thanks to the people at ProjFS-Managed-API who built the example file system provider that this is based off of. Furthermore, they maintain the ProjectedFSLib.Managed.API that this project utilizes to properly create a virtual environment. As such, make sure you check out their LICENSE as well!