Culling Downloads, Part 2

Thanks to a combination of Delphy's Download Organizer, DJ's Compressorizer and grunt work my downloads folder is a nice slim 2.01GB. I am not done culling downloads, there are still a few more files that I need to delete, mostly duplicates and things that I need to view in-game before deleting.

Now I'm on a mission for faster load times. In spite of culling my downloads, my load time has crept back up to almost 15 minutes. It may not seem like a lot, but when you only have an hour to play, you want every minute to count. Also, 15 minutes seems so long now since I've installed TS3 and can start playing within 5 minutes. Then again, I don't have any downloads for TS3 besides some store items :P

My Sims 2 Folder is 3.62GB, so over half of it is downloads. I have moved on to other ways of decreasing the load time.

1. Remove photos from the Storytelling folders periodically. Currently I move photos from the neighborhood storytelling folder to another folder on my computer after each simyear. I might start doing this after each playsession. I have never moved the photos from the overall storytelling
2. Remove the Testing Hood that I created. I have no need for this hood anymore since I use my building hood to test items now.
3. Remove items from my Saved Sims folder, especially my own recolors.
4. Remove unused terrains from the SC4Terrains folder from 47.2MB to 19.3MB
5. Remove unused lots from the lot catalog

This has lead to a slight decrease in loading time.

For comparision, my game, without the downloads folder, loads in 5 minutes from bootup to the neighborhood.

With the downloads folder included, the load time is 13 minutes from bootup to neighborhood splash screen.

Obviously my downloads folder needs to be whipped back into shape as 13 minutes is still a bit too long.

My ideal time would be somewhere about 7 minutes, which means that if my downloads adds an additional 8 minutes of load time, then my computer loads about 0.251GB every minute and that I still need to get rid of 1.5GB to get my ideal time. My bodyshop downloads alone are 1.0GB!

Yikes, back to the drawing board about decreasing my load times...I guess I could always try and revert to the barest of downloads and see how I enjoy that (I doubt I would enjoy it very much). Maybe a more realistic ideal load time is 10 minutes, which means cutting about 0.75GB of downloads.

My next plan of action is simply removing my clothing downloads folder (over half of the bodyshop downloads folder space) and then adding outfits-ONE AT A TIME-per sim preferences, not mine. Since for the most part my sims tend to wear the same things day after day :P

Ugh, it's either that or upgrade the computer...

Culling Downloads

I've been on a mission to cut down on custom content as much as possible. Why?

1. I happen to like maxis style items.
2. I need my load times to be quick so I can get more play into my busy schedule.
3. I tend to declutter in RL as well, so of course it's going to happen to my game as well.

So how am I cutting down on custom content?

1. Download ban for two-three months during the process. I can still download, but the downloads may not enter the game.
2. Mercilessly delete duplicate recolors, I don't need 7 shades of white.
3. Mercilessly delete poorly made recolors, I tend not to use it anyway, so why let it take up space.
4. Mercilessly delete recolors that I don't use frequently.
5. If I like a texture, but don't want to use the custom mesh, then I will move the texture to a maxis mesh. This is mostly for paintings and rugs and the occasional seating item.

I do have a plan for deleting object items.

• I'm deleting duplicates of recolors, poorly made recolors and recolors that I don't use frequently item by item. Yes, that means going through the catalog and shifting through each and every item and deleting recolors.
• This obviously can quickly becoming tedious, boring and overwhelming, so I of course broke it down into smaller tasks.
• For the initial pass I will go through the following subcategories within six months: Comfort, Surfaces, Decorative, Plumbing, Appliances, Electronics, Lighting, Hobbies, Miscellaneous, Community Lot-Only.
• For maintance, I will go through the catergories once a month just to make sure I am not shifting through a ton of unnecessary custom content.

My plan for deleting body shop items is very much the same.

• I'm deleting duplicates of recolors, poorly made recolors and recolors that I don't use frequently item by item. Yes, that means going through the catalog and shifting through each and every item and deleting recolors.
• For hairs, I will only allow two shades of the same color family for each mesh. Ie, a nouk curly mesh can only have two red recolors,
• This obviously can quickly becoming tedious, boring and overwhelming, so I of course broke it down into smaller tasks.
• For the initial pass I will go through the following subcategories within six months: Hair, Adult Clothing, Elder Clothing, Children Clothing, Teen Clothing, Toddler Clothing
• For maintance, I will go through the catergories once a month just to make sure I am not shifting through a ton of unnecessary custom content.

Wish me luck!

I've Tasted and Now I'm Addicted

For some reason my game went from loading in 10 minutes to taking over 20 minutes to load. With a full doctoral course load and research responsibilities, I didn't have time to wait that long for a study break. I took out the download folder and everything loaded in 5 minutes. It's by no means the 1-2 minute load times that I've heard around the community, but 5 minutes is a pretty sweet number in my book. I know that I won't get to 5 minutes since I will use downloads, but to have a less than 10 minute load would be nice.

I know that I have gotten my download folder bloated and needed to cull it, but my piece meal effort of ingame deletion wasn't working. So what did I do? Start anew.

I took all the downloads out and redownloaded or moved over the files that I knew that I needed to play my game-things like skintones, signature hairstyles and genetics like eye color.

My Downloads folder is organized as follows:

Downloads>
--Buy Mode / creator / object
--Build Mode / type / creator
--Body Shop / type / creator
--Hacks & Mods / creator
--MAXIS
--Temporary / unopened & currently testing

My next step is deleting downloads with multiple recolors, like some of Piggi's object recolors or Fakepeeps clothing since I don't need multiple shades of blue for a nightstand and I don't need ten recolors of a dress that only three of my sims will wear. This part is more tedious. I don't know how much space I'll free up and if it will matter, but at least I won't have to shift through the recolors during gameplay.

To be honest, sometimes I wonder if this is a case of diminishing returns, more work on culling downloads to shave off a minute or two with load times...is it really worth it?

How Big is Yours?

Ok, round up! Time to compare!

How big is your download folder?

Yep, that little folder that we shamelessly fill to the brim with goodies for our simmies. Please note if you used some great program-like the compressorizer, or keep additional files in your download folder that would help other simmers out.

Cleaning Up

Been doing some cleaning up in Apple Valley. Got the downloads folder down to 1.99 GB. I noticed that my Sims 2 folder is 2.90GB, so over half of the space was the download folder.

My downloads are sorted by the following:
Downloads/
-Body Shop
---Accessories -> Type
---Beards
---Clothes -> Male/Female/Mesh -> Age Group (Adult/Child/Etc)
---Eyes / -> Default
---Eyebrows
---Hair/-> Creator
---Make-up/-> Type
---Skintones/ -> Default
-Build Mode ->
-Buy Mode -> Creator
-Hacks and Mods -> Creator
-Temporary (all files being tested)

Once I realized that most of my Sims 2 folder was devoted to downloads, then I got on the clean up vibe pretty quickly-amazingly it also spilled over into real life so I'm multi-tasking by cleaning the house, blogging and loading up the game. :)

So far I culled it from 2.28 GB to 1.99 GB, but you won't believe what actually took up the most space! Those lot packages that you have to click and then they load. Well, you better delete those things afterwards since those lots are now in your game. Those files were HUGE! I'm talking thousands of megabytes! Then the next largest is a MAXIS file from the EA Store. That's right-one file! It's a hefty 10,000 KB !!! Yikes!

My goal now is 1GB for downloads. That would mean I will have to be pretty harsh when it comes to downloads and subsequent storytelling. Those themed lots-like Fish & Chips resturaunt, might have to be conveyed via Maxis objects. I'll also have to stay away from all those beautiful websites with WCIF info on yummy objects!

Speaking of yummy objects, what CC is a MUST keep for you? I vote for my blakeboy modular seating and a very beautiful modern chair from Bella Forum-I think.

Does anyone know how big the Sims 2 is without any CC, saved sims or uploaded lots? Basically the memory stats for the game only. I guess that's not quite true since I also deleted the shipped neighborhoods (Pleasentview, Strangetown, etc).

How does that reflect on game time. I have a very basic desktop-Compaq Presario with 1GB of memory, 250GB Hard Drive and AMD Athlon processor.

13 mins for game to load to start-up screen

1 min to load neighborhood of choice

slight lag of 4 min when click apartment lot and for family choice to load (not sure if this is because I'm on the net at the same time)

3 min to load family

So about 20 minutes to load and start playing. Not bad since it used to take a good 35 minutes to load. I want to get my load time back down to 10 minutes, I downloaded something recently that really lags the system. I have some clues as to what it might be, so I'm off to cull some more.