How should i download all the images?

[hurric9]

Hi all,

I'm new to the game and also new to forge. I want to know how can i download all images for the cards. I'm running 1.4.7 and i don't think forge is downloading images for me. Should i download the image files from somewhere and put it under user data dir?

[spr]

Cheers,
Steve

[moomarc]

Please note that at this point cards will not be downloaded for M14 or Theros via the set download as those images are not yet available on out image server.

[hurric9]

Thank you guys for helping, already started downloading.

[spr]

Please note that at this point cards will not be downloaded for M14 or Theros via the set download as those images are not yet available on out image server.

moomarc, please could you explain what the difference is between the "Download LQ Pictures" and "Download LQ Set Pictures"? And why would you use one over the other?

Cheers,
Steve

[friarsol]

Please note that at this point cards will not be downloaded for M14 or Theros via the set download as those images are not yet available on out image server.

moomarc, please could you explain what the difference is between the "Download LQ Pictures" and "Download LQ Set Pictures"? And why would you use one over the other?

Set Pictures contains 1 picture for each set a card was printed in. LQ Pictures contains 1 image for each distinct card.

[spr]

If I am new to Forge (and perhaps also MTG) which one should I use - I don't care (or even understand) at this point how or where the images are stored, I just want pictures? Or should I use both? Wouldn't it be clearer and less confusing to have a single download option?

Cheers,
Steve

[friarsol]

If I am new to Forge (and perhaps also MTG) which one should I use - I don't care (or even understand) at this point how or where the images are stored, I just want pictures? Or should I use both? Wouldn't it be clearer and less confusing to have a single download option?

 
If you're new to Forge, you may notice we have a lot of options to adjust for many personal preferences. There's no right or wrong answer here. The primary difference is that the set pictures take longer to download, but in exchange for that lengthier download you get more art from across the history of Magic. If you'd like to see more than one different art for each of your basic lands, definitely go with the set download. If you just want to see art in general, grab the LQ pictures. I would suspect a majority of users grab the set pictures, but there's no scientific proof behind this.
 

Additional material added:

There are two other issues that can become important to some people.

1. Disk Drive space

Those with limited disk drive space may want to consider only downloading the LQ pictures. You do not need to have the set pictures downloaded to play the game. Netbooks, some laptops and those who run a portable setup of forge on USB drives may find that they have limited drive space available.

2. Internet Connection speed

Some people have a slow connection speed or can only download a limited amount of data. These people may want to consider only downloading the LQ pictures and not the set pictures.

[LordHelmchen]

Maybe just add a small explanatory sentence to the two download buttons? "Download LQ Pictures\n(smaller download: only one image per oracle cardname)" and "Download LQ Set Pictures\n(larger download: seperate images for all printings)" might make the two options more self-explanatory...

[Chris H.]

I added some additional info to Sol's response.

[spr]

Just to follow up with my own specific numbers based on Chris H's addendum above which I think would be useful as reference.

At the time of writing, the total space taken when using the "Download LQ Card Pictures" is 564 MB (13,377 files, 1 folder). When using the "Download LQ Set Pictures" this increases to 605 MB (20,609 files, 112 folders). I think I have most of the High Quality sets and these take approx 3.7 GB of disk space (22,170 files, 115 folders). This is on a Windows 7 PC (NTFS), other OS filesystems may or may not be more efficient.

Cheers,
Steve.

[Chris H.]

I have manually downloaded the pictures. Where do I save them so that they are visible to Forge?

 
Go to the Content Downloaders view and click on the Import Data button.

Navigate to the directory that contains the pictures that you downloaded. This should allow you to import the pictures and have them moved to the appropriate directory.
 

[plato]

Months later I am unable to download JOU or (now) M15 cards. To be clear, I'm not complaining - I LOVE Forge and what you guys are doing. I'm just not sure how to resolve this.

Please see the attached image that I see after downloading images through LQ. Thanks for your help. I'll keep poking around the forums in the meantime, but I keep wondering if there's some type of caching issue or something. Unsure...

[Chris H.]

See Forge Frequently Asked Questions number 11.

[manight]

It seems I'm struggling with card pics not showing.
I just discovered Forge (shame on me). I downloaded latest version for Windows forge-gui-desktop-1.5.38
I downloaded both HQ and LQ versions and copied them in both
C:\Users\**MyUser**\AppData\Local\Forge\Cache\pics\cards
and
C:\Users\**MyUser**\AppData\Roaming\Forge\pics\cards

I also tried with the import tool but this only recognize 21 default 16 set specific, 51 card tokens and 105 quest specific images from the 3609 in the folder.

Folder structure I have inside pics/cards/ is
10E/...16 pics here
icons/...some here
tokens/....tokens here
and then all the card images.

I downloaded both HQ and LQ images from this topic: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=468

Thanks in advance