Call of Duty®: Black Ops Cold War

Call of Duty®: Black Ops Cold War

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How to delete Black Ops Cold War cache from C disk
By FIRUIN
Solving the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War issue that has been haunting players since the game's release and hasn't been resolved even with the game's release on Steam.
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The essence of the problem
If you have Windows installed in a typical C drive, you will most likely notice that the disk suddenly has significantly less space. This is because of a "feature" of the Black Ops Cold War caching system - the game will ALWAYS install the cache on the system disk.

The cache size can easily exceed 10 GB:



Unfortunately, this "feature" of the game cannot be changed in the settings or by changing the conditional ini file.
Solution to the problem
If you have another SSD (if you don't, get one, no joke), you can move this shader folder to that other SSD.

But it's not enough to just cut and copy this folder, because the game will still look for the exact location on the disk where Windows is installed. So the solution is as follows:

  1. Delete the existing "shadercache" folder, which is most likely located on the following path:

    (Windows disk):\ProgramData\Activision\Call Of Duty Black Ops Cold War\shadercache
    C:\ProgramData\Activision\Call Of Duty Black Ops Cold War\shadercache

  2. Create a folder "Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War" and a subfolder "shadercache" in it (preferably a second SSD)
    (second SSD disk):\path to your folder\Call Of Duty Black Ops Cold War\shadercache
    B:\Games\Cache\Call Of Duty Black Ops Cold War\shadercache

  3. Run the cmd command line (as administrator)



  4. At the command prompt, enter the following command, the logic of which is as follows:

    mklink /J original-location-shadercache your-new-location-shadercache

    Personal sample (may differ from yours):
    mklink /J "C:\ProgramData\Activision\Call Of Duty Black Ops Cold War\shadercache" "B:\Games\Cache\Call Of Duty Black Ops Cold War\shadercache"

Check that both paths have quotes on the sides and press Enter.



As a result, you should see the message "Junction created for ..." and the corresponding original shadercache on the C drive should have an additional icon on the folder.

After that, you can launch the game... Of course, you will have to download the entire cache again, but this method will work until you reinstall the game or update your video card drivers (confirmation required).



The problem has been reported since the Black Ops Cold War beta and hasn't been resolved yet. And it is unlikely to be resolved at all.
12 Comments
K4lashn1k0v 21 Apr @ 11:11pm 
Interesting but pretty pointless unless you have a really and I mean really small C drive. For me the total space it takes it's 598 mb which is pretty much nothing so I don't see the point of messing around with the game files for no reason.
Xterain 22 Jan @ 9:50pm 
Thanks for this guide, it saved me big time! sorta annoying going through hoops XD but simple and straightforward :steamhappy:
biz 9 Jan @ 9:13am 
when im ingame my c drive storage goes down but when i close the game it returns to normal, is it supposed to work like that?
MDiggity 9 Jan @ 2:08am 
This is very useful if you need to compile shaders for multiple platforms. ie. battle.net/steam . Much appreciated.
Koban 13 May, 2023 @ 3:31pm 
Ще не грав, але дякую за попередження. Слава Україні!
4ER0RR4 4 May, 2023 @ 12:40am 
hi guys i have issue
my game not work at all
give me fatal error
Error code : 0*0 (0*c2143BD4)N
Purplox 1 May, 2023 @ 11:41am 
i dont have a programdata file. help?
Venom106 29 Mar, 2023 @ 9:09am 
@Kaz - Thank you!
JF 20 Mar, 2023 @ 1:42pm 
If you can't find ProgramData then make sure to show hidden files.
Kaz 20 Mar, 2023 @ 10:19am 
@CaptainV64209 - You can use TreeSize Free or WinDirStat (which is used in that screenshot) to do that, very handy tools.