C:\Users\\AppData\Local\UnrealEngine\Common\DerivedDataCache\4\8 "Filling Up my C Drive!"

anonymous_user_606c7caf · February 25, 2019, 8:36pm

Hey Guys,

Ok, my C Drive is getting chewed up with Space getting taken from something in the editor that is usinghe above path…

I did a search and found this type of path.

In each one of these directries it’s at least 46MB on up least 100M…and there are hundreds of the following paths and files…

C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\UnrealEngine\Common\DerivedDataCache\9\0
C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\UnrealEngine\Common\DerivedDataCache\7\1

My DerivedDataCache Folder is 47.7GB!!!

and the list goes on…

It seems to be Shader Cache…or something…

How can I changed this path to put it on another drive so it won’t hit the C Drive and take up all this space?

Thanks,
.

Raildex · February 25, 2019, 8:51pm

anonymous_user_606c7caf · February 25, 2019, 8:54pm

Thank you so Much!

This made my day!

Regards,
.

anonymous_user_606c7caf · February 25, 2019, 10:01pm

Quick Update for anyone that moves the path to the Derived Shader Cache, it has to compile everything.

When i launced the Editor after the change, it said "58 Plus Thousand Shaders to compile.

I see that my Level is missing all kinds of things, it’s filling back slowly as the compile proceeds…

No casue for Alarm, just be prepared for that…

Regards,
.

anonymous_user_606c7caf · February 26, 2019, 12:18am

Guys, I just had a Huge Scarey moment…

While i was compiling 58+K Shaders, after moving the location of the DerivedDataCacheShader Cache path in the editor, everything froze up and then my extra large drive that i had moved it to disappeared, and I was in a Ghast.

Then I realized there was so much heat, i raced over and put the laptop in the freezer…waited for a few moments…said a few things :rolleyes:

Then booted back up and low and behold the drive was back…

I was very glad that I was backing everything up to a external drive…but I was very gratiful that the drive came back…

Lesson learned…

i am going to place theDerivedDataCache Folder on the external Drive…

Now, I am going back to Level Design…***. ***

Regards,

anonymous_user_2709d010 · February 26, 2019, 5:12pm

There is also this article which I used to move the cache to another drive. I don’t know if both solution are the same though with the one in the preference window writing the data in the ini file I edited by hand and the access through the editor being a newer way? Does anybody know that?

Elleclouds · April 16, 2021, 3:44pm

Is it possible to delete the folder on the c drive and start a new one on an external or do I need to copy the older folder to my external and then point unreal to that exact folder?

ixicalibur · April 17, 2021, 1:39am

You can delete the folder and start a new one, but your projects will have to recompile all the shaders again. It will take them time to launch and will look like it’s frozen, just let it go. This is also the only way to clean out shaders from old projects no longer being worked on, I really wish epic would store them in subfolders for each project in the folder we choose.

YsiausBS · October 17, 2021, 9:35pm

Now that UE5 is launched, i have the same problem, but I cant find the “DerivedData” setting, so I have no clue how to change the location. How can I do that?

Thanks,
Finn

Oreolabs · December 28, 2021, 9:01am

You should search in editor preference. Not in project settings

Kakarotdrv · January 9, 2022, 9:15pm

Hi @ ildex,

Even after changing the Derived Data Cache Location in editor preferences and deleting the folders from the default location i.e. C drive, When I am staring the engine its Shaders are being stored again in the C drive only and not in the updated location and the LDDC & SDDC location fills is also coming blank in the editor preferences.

softyoda · May 6, 2022, 8:48am

Hi, UE5 is still pain in the ■■■, and we don’t use it for game in our studio, but for tiled photogrammetry visualization. The recomputation of the entire levels takes around 30h on our workstation. Why wouldn’t it be possible to copy past the %appdata% ddc to the new specified location ? Why recomputing everything is needed, even to generate pak? It crashed after 13h when I tried to make a .pak compiled ddc to share to collegues.

Vuemaster_2020 · March 25, 2023, 5:38am

MY

My, HD. was down to 38 GS. 175 Gegs , of trash was eating it. I have my Engine , and Cache folder on a 3TB. drive, and I think the DERIVED data , is being generated during the light, build process, And is linking to SWARM function, and is stupid on Epic’s part. In any event, after deleting over a million files, I have my HD back. Thanks for your Share.