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Field Researcher
#26 Old 17th Mar 2015 at 8:22 PM Last edited by Sim mania : 19th Mar 2015 at 11:16 AM.
Quote: Originally posted by Mnory
I can't make the Delphy Dashboard work.
No matter where i put it (tried: desktop. Documents. Mods folder. Package folder in mods folder) it does not show any of my cc.
It says "No packages found in any of the searched folders"
Where do you guys put this file?


You have to point Delphy Dashboard to the folder: File- Scan Folder and you choose where your package files are

Vivi e lascia vivere.
My blog Simplex Sims for more elder and teen CC.
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Lab Assistant
#27 Old 17th Mar 2015 at 9:00 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Sim mania
You have to point Delphy Dashboard to the folder: File- Scan Folder and you choosee where your package files are


OMG, thank you! :lovestruc
I'm facepalming here...
Lab Assistant
#28 Old 18th Mar 2015 at 1:06 AM
For a more serious technique; After a couple saves in one save game then create a new file. It's what I do. It makes a bunch of files in your saves folder but the ones that I don't think I'll need to use I just put in annother folder to save more space. I save every Sim night and before I do something that may fuck up my Sims like getting plastic surgery for my ugly demon spawn children or throwing a party during the day time and inviting vampires over, so excessive usage of one folder will make my Sims freeze during a step and just roll away while also lagging. Plus it can be funny to try to name them something too long and you get cut off and name a file "Kiki Bad Kandy Baby Gir" or someshit. Plus while you're saving you have free time to use the bathroom, get a beverage, or pet your cat.

It's what I do.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#29 Old 18th Mar 2015 at 1:17 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Annything
For a more serious technique; After a couple saves in one save game then create a new file. It's what I do. It makes a bunch of files in your saves folder but the ones that I don't think I'll need to use I just put in annother folder to save more space. I save every Sim night and before I do something that may fuck up my Sims like getting plastic surgery for my ugly demon spawn children or throwing a party during the day time and inviting vampires over, so excessive usage of one folder will make my Sims freeze during a step and just roll away while also lagging. Plus it can be funny to try to name them something too long and you get cut off and name a file "Kiki Bad Kandy Baby Gir" or someshit. Plus while you're saving you have free time to use the bathroom, get a beverage, or pet your cat.

It's what I do.

I actually create a new file each time I save. Too many bad experiences with corrupted saves in times past with other games that it's just habit now. Gotta clean out the folder a lot, but hey.
Lab Assistant
#30 Old 18th Mar 2015 at 2:10 AM
Every time? o_o

You cray cray. You may have 12.5 GB of CC but creating a new save file every time? You cray cray.
One Minute Ninja'd
#31 Old 18th Mar 2015 at 2:53 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Annything
Every time? o_o

You cray cray. You may have 12.5 GB of CC but creating a new save file every time? You cray cray.


I create a new save file every single save. Because I always use Save As..., not Save. Save offers you no advantage over Save As. Some games when saving will perform an incremental save, speeding return to game play, but save in 3 creates a complete save every time, compressing the entire world and world state. And if you only rely on Save, you can only "roll back" one prior save if something goes wrong. With Save As, which I do every sim night, or after major milestones I don't feel like potentially losing from some software hiccup, I can step back to multiple points if decisions I made turn out to have been ill advised.

Sure, every now and then, I open the saves folder and delete a whole slew of old save games, but it takes all of a few seconds to do that (and certainly faster than trying to manage saves through the in game selector). And I can archive several saves in an archive folder I keep for Sims stuff, so I have old save files from just about every generation of every family I've played since I decided to manage things that way, so by now I have a lot of old families stashed away. Maybe I'll never do anything with them, but they're there if I want to.

Now, I probably am crazy to have ~20 GB of custom content in my game, but my save strategy has bailed my ass out of bad situations on a number of occasions.
Top Secret Researcher
#32 Old 18th Mar 2015 at 3:12 AM
Me too. And I only load about 2GB of CC per save.
I just number them: family name 1.1, 1.2 etc. and start with 2.1 when the last of the first generation has died. I haven't used "Save" since probably 2011. And I'm much happier for it.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#33 Old 18th Mar 2015 at 3:27 AM
Quote: Originally posted by eskie227
I create a new save file every single save. Because I always use Save As..., not Save. Save offers you no advantage over Save As. Some games when saving will perform an incremental save, speeding return to game play, but save in 3 creates a complete save every time, compressing the entire world and world state. And if you only rely on Save, you can only "roll back" one prior save if something goes wrong. With Save As, which I do every sim night, or after major milestones I don't feel like potentially losing from some software hiccup, I can step back to multiple points if decisions I made turn out to have been ill advised.

Sure, every now and then, I open the saves folder and delete a whole slew of old save games, but it takes all of a few seconds to do that (and certainly faster than trying to manage saves through the in game selector). And I can archive several saves in an archive folder I keep for Sims stuff, so I have old save files from just about every generation of every family I've played since I decided to manage things that way, so by now I have a lot of old families stashed away. Maybe I'll never do anything with them, but they're there if I want to.

Now, I probably am crazy to have ~20 GB of custom content in my game, but my save strategy has bailed my ass out of bad situations on a number of occasions.


Are you me? I do exactly the same thing. It's so nice having an archive. I just keep all my old saves on another partition along with the archive of all the CC and other Sims 3 stuff I hoard, there for whenever I might want them.

EDIT: But yeah, this is why it isn't crazy to do it.

EDIT2: Though having a backup copy of all the rars and zips and stuff of all my CC is probably a little crazy.
Top Secret Researcher
#34 Old 18th Mar 2015 at 3:40 AM
Quote: Originally posted by kikaimegami

EDIT2: Though having a backup copy of all the rars and zips and stuff of all my CC is probably a little crazy.


Not at all. Backups of EVERYTHING on an external drive.
Lab Assistant
#35 Old 18th Mar 2015 at 4:08 AM
@eskie227 Oh, yeah, I can see that now. I just hate having to delete things because I take too long to contemplate the potential usage of that item and it feels weird and all final even though everything is put in the purgatory of the recycling bin. Although, I will disagree against the numbering of the names that someone else mentioned because I feel as if they're more organized when I label them with the certain moment like putting "move" in there when we move houses, "baby" when they get preggers, "plastic" before plastic surgery, ect. They're labeled with time and date within game and their files so it's not like I'm going to lose my place. Some people remember numbers better, though. I just happen to be one of those people who don't.
Instructor
#36 Old 18th Mar 2015 at 7:43 AM
When it comes to managing my CC and mods, I prefer to do that manually because it helps keep me aware of what I have, what I use most often, and what I want to delete. All of my CC and mods are in package files, no CC gets loaded through the launcher (unless it's a 'must have' community lot, house or town).

CC and mods are organized in folders by their creator in both my C: drive and backup. I use many of my mods in all games and I check for updates regularly. Some mods and CC I use for specific types of gameplay and those get shuffled in and out of my Sims 3 folder as needed. I add subfolders to a main folder with a title that lets me know what CC or mod I need to have for specific games. Usually I use my Sim's name and the town as the name of the folder (Lisette Supernatural MF, for example).

When saving my games, I also use Save As rather than Save. I do a rotation of two or three and if all is well I start the rotation over (Ashlyn in DV, Ashlyn in DV2, Ashlyn in DV3). Another thing I do is delete cache files regularly, possibly more often than necessary but it's a habit I got into. If playing a world that does have a World Cache file, I keep an eye on the cache file sizes and when they get big, I delete those also. I have backups of my favorite households in case I want to go back and play them again.

I don't add more than I can handle to my games. I clean out what I can live without and what doesn't add it's weight in gameplay.
Alchemist
#37 Old 19th Mar 2015 at 9:50 AM
I always use Save As too. It's saved me from quite a few unpleasant situations, including botched travels.
The naming scheme I follow is Name of sim number of save +foreign country + number
e.g. Charles Vane 06 Ch03 (if in China), or Charles Vane 06

Then I let the saves accumulate in the folder. Once there are around 10-15 I move them to my external 1TB HDD (which, of course, isn't only for sim stuff). After a while, when I know I won't need to return to incremental saves like this, I delete the ones that aren't multiples of 5. Then after even longer, I only leave the multiples of 10, just in case I ever get nostalgic and need a sim or house
Scholar
#38 Old 22nd Jun 2015 at 5:10 AM
I have a question about loading times with CAS. Does it matter for loading times if you organize clothes (as combined packages) according to category? I don't mean everyday, swimwear etc, but top, bottom, shoes etc. When in CAS it seems as every time you switch from for example shoes to tops, it loads all items again, no matter what combined packages they are in.

Oh and sry for the necro, but I thought it would fit this thread :p
Alchemist
#39 Old 22nd Jun 2015 at 6:58 AM
Quote: Originally posted by mithrak_nl
I have a question about loading times with CAS. Does it matter for loading times if you organize clothes (as combined packages) according to category? I don't mean everyday, swimwear etc, but top, bottom, shoes etc. When in CAS it seems as every time you switch from for example shoes to tops, it loads all items again, no matter what combined packages they are in.

Oh and sry for the necro, but I thought it would fit this thread :p

Absolutely none. You can put clothes in the Buy Mode or Kitchen Furniture folders if you want to Likewise: it doesn't matter what the files are called - despite some people advising not to include spaces of special characters (brackets, punctuation) in filenames; I've tried this myself but haven't compared how fast/well a game runs compared to having packages with "weird" filenames. I like to organize my CC by gender, room or type, then creator, and it has no influence on how it shows up in-game. IIRC Master Controller has an option to display EA or CC clothing first in CAS.

And yeah, there's no way to escape items in the catalog (furniture, clothes, hair, patterns) loading again once you switch to another category. It's just the (poor) way that TS3 is coded, despite using cache files. If you want to escape load for patterns and furniture, consider using the Favorites section (for patterns) and Collections (for furniture). Remember to save once you've made a collection; if the game crashes, your work on the collection will unfortunately not be preserved.
Scholar
#40 Old 22nd Jun 2015 at 8:35 AM
Quote: Originally posted by sweetdevil
Absolutely none. You can put clothes in the Buy Mode or Kitchen Furniture folders if you want to Likewise: it doesn't matter what the files are called - despite some people advising not to include spaces of special characters (brackets, punctuation) in filenames; I've tried this myself but haven't compared how fast/well a game runs compared to having packages with "weird" filenames. I like to organize my CC by gender, room or type, then creator, and it has no influence on how it shows up in-game. IIRC Master Controller has an option to display EA or CC clothing first in CAS.

And yeah, there's no way to escape items in the catalog (furniture, clothes, hair, patterns) loading again once you switch to another category. It's just the (poor) way that TS3 is coded, despite using cache files. If you want to escape load for patterns and furniture, consider using the Favorites section (for patterns) and Collections (for furniture). Remember to save once you've made a collection; if the game crashes, your work on the collection will unfortunately not be preserved.


I don't think we are talking about the same thing here. I am talking just about things that show up in CAS atm. I combine .package files to bigger ones, so CAS has a lot less files to load. Which is already noticably faster.

Anyway, atm I have shoes, clothes and accesories in their own packages (clothes1, clothes2, accesories1, accesories2 etc). When you are in CAS and you switch between tops and bottoms in clothes for example, the related package files are read again from your harddisk. So when I switch to bottoms, the game will read from all three big clothes packages that I currently have(or from a created cache?). So I was wondering if it would be even faster if I would divide the clothes packages into tops, bottoms, body packages. I am not sure how TS3 handles the . package files and if it checks all of them every time.

Atm, I would maybe not gain much speed because the total amount of CC is not that great, but could it matter after downloading more CC?

So current situation : Clothes1.package, Clothes2.package, Clothes3.packages, Hair1.package etc

Possibly faster way : ClothesTop1.package, ClothesBottom1.package, Clothesbody1.package etc.

I want each clothing section to read from as few files as possible, but I am not sure if the game handles CC files this way.
Alchemist
#41 Old 22nd Jun 2015 at 1:02 PM Last edited by sweetdevil : 22nd Jun 2015 at 1:16 PM.
Oh, so that's what you meant. I did a test now, merging the packages specifically how you described. Here are the testing conditions:
- I am using full CAS, not the dresser / makeover station / whatever else;
- each test, I deleted the 5 cache files for a more honest comparison;
- I am taking into account only the female teen-elder clothing (as I have more of those), not counting accessories, and only counting the Everyday category;
- times are counted from clicking on the Clothing icon in CAS, to the moment that category is fully loaded;
- I am using MC's option of hiding recolors of clothes, so only one preset is shown in the catalog. I don't hide clothes from any EP or SP;
- total filesize (unmerged): bottoms (26.7 MB), tops (69.4 MB), outfits (186 MB), shoes (21.1 MB);
- total filesize (merged): bottoms (26.2 MB), tops (65 MB), outfits (183 MB), shoes (19.8 MB).

1. unmerged packages: 10 seconds (tops), 7 seconds (bottoms), 12 seconds (outfits), 6 seconds (shoes);
2. merged packages, separated by CAS category: 10 seconds (tops), 6 seconds (bottoms), 11 seconds (outfits), 5 seconds (shoes);
3. merged packages, mixed (one 393 MB package): 10 seconds (tops), 6 seconds (bottoms), 10 seconds (outfits), 5 seconds (shoes);
4. merged packages, separated by creator (separate packages): 9 seconds (tops), 4 seconds (bottoms), 8 seconds (outfits), 5 seconds (shoes).

Note that while the numbers may not seem much in CAS, they may affect gameplay. I haven't tested that. So, all in all, the numbers are pretty similar. A large number of unmerged packages does lead to slower gameplay, though, but it seems to make no difference in CAS. My regular setup is the same as yours, by the way: Clothing -> Female -> Creator1, Creator2 etc. + MiscClothes1, MiscClothes 2 etc.
Scholar
#42 Old 22nd Jun 2015 at 2:21 PM
Wow you tested this right away Just having to start a TS3 save four times for this must have taken ages already But like me you also have not a lot of CC to test with. The differences will be more noticable with more CC probably ( or a slower pc for that matter). I just wondered at what moments the game reads those files.

Anyway, I thought I noticed a difference when making sure all the shoes were in a seperate file as test. Before I had just CAS1, 2, etc files. The shoes category seemed to load faster. But maybe someone who knows how the games deals with those files from a technical point of view can tell us if it matters to seperate CC according to those categories. I am trying to squeeze as much performance out of TS3. Just a few seconds less would matter a lot to me. I tend to switch categories a lot in CAS.

Also reminds me of how I wish we could create extra categories in CAS, especially for accesories. That has too many different types of items imo and always becomes slow in my TS3.
Alchemist
#43 Old 22nd Jun 2015 at 3:36 PM
Eh, it's no biggie. I usually go do something else while the game loads I do have a ton of CC (about 1 GB of clothes and at least 1.3 GB of hair), not counting what I don't use. These are literally the most versatile items I could find - nothing too specific or too themed, which I won't use - in order to maximize performance.

Make sure the CC you are using is not corrupt in any way. A handy method to check is using Process Monitor; normally, a file should have a few hundred or thousand access instances (several thousand if game files). If it gets in the hundred thousands or even millions, then you definitely have to remove that file.

Here is what I normally do when checking packages. I've discovered that ProcMon doesn't catch troublesome files if they're part of merged packages; interestingly enough, before doing the test above I was testing some hair that was previously merged, and one of the hairstyles had over 4 million access times.

Other than that...monitor how much RAM TS3 takes up and when it usually crashes. Whenever it gets close to that number, you should save and exit. Whenever I'm making sims, I usually end up saving 2-3 versions of them to prevent losing too much progress when the inevitable crash happens. Alternatively, if only making sims or building, try doing it in a new save or a tiny, empty world like the CAS world.

Quote: Originally posted by mithrak_nl
Also reminds me of how I wish we could create extra categories in CAS, especially for accesories. That has too many different types of items imo and always becomes slow in my TS3.

Tell me about it. Or break down the Decor catalog entry into several customizable parts (collections don't count). Decor -> Misc Decor is the bane of my existence, lol.
Spice Pony
#44 Old 22nd Jun 2015 at 10:14 PM
I don't just organise my CC into folders and/or merged files by type; I also organise by use. The first level of my mods folder contains only the stuff I want in absolutely all cases, that is, in my standard gameplay. It then contains a subfolder with stuff I only use occasionally, and it contains a similar subfolder, and so on. When I don't need that stuff, I just pull the folder out of the mods folder and store it on the desktop. Lets me keep track of my CC while not breaking the game with the sheer volume of it.
Scholar
#45 Old 23rd Jun 2015 at 5:04 AM
Fortunately I don't experience crashes with TS3, but in the past I had severe lag due to corrupt CC. I use Delphy's Dashboard now to check .packages (I convert all sim3pack CC using s3ce) and then organise them using CCMagic because from the filenames I can't always tell for sure what category they are from. I don't use CCMagic yet to combine them because I am used to use S3PE for that. Also because I sometimes use it to change CC (making formal also usable as everyday etc).

Atm the game runs very smoothly, probably mostly because for once I didn't install every ep I have (no Pets or Seasons this time). And right from the start I used a EA world with fixed routing from ellacharmed. So my question regarding CAS categories was more about squeezing max performance out of TS3 I think that in the past I mostly had CC problems from installing sims with CC included. This is something I don't do anymore, unless it is handled like on this website that provides .sim files and just shows you where to get the CC if it is used. More work, but easier to track down potential problems.
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