And another question about memory in general. If I open the game twice from different directories, do all the files get loaded twice in memory or can it load certain files once and use them for both?
I can answer this one to the best of my knowledge (which is not that much). It basically depends on the app, and how it's coded.
If a program is using
shared libraries, they will be loaded only once in memory. Unfortunately, too many apps (especially on Windows and OSX) tend to avoid shared libraries because they can be
very difficult to get right. Most users care more about ease of installation over performance, and as a result programmers tend to bundle all the libs in the executable, so the user gets all the binaries she needs at once and the app becomes easier to run.
Now I read that modern OS are able to deal with duplicate static libraries in an intelligent manner. I cannot find the link I read, if I do, I'll copy it here. OS don't rely on file names or file size to determine duplicates, but rather on some sort of
signature comparison. I think.