How big is your saves? How to deal with big saves?

[noxnoxnox]

My current NHD save file is approximately 200MB. It starts out in AP on a 25MB of 20 residential and community lots. My whole Saves folder is now 15GB, given the auto saves working every 45mins and many redundant saves has been deleted.
It starts to lag like hell when moving the camera around and on a dull day in China it'll freeze intermittently. The big saves is the problem, right? I have memories off and everything I can think of like minimum service sims, and pop cap of 50 (very small town). I think I have to say goodbye to all the citizens of AP on the NPC Armageddon very soon and start with a fresh saves. It's just difficult to delete most of the long time friends and neighbors with the deep background and histories, I want to know how you deal with it, is there some way to keep the saves as small as possible, does the amount of CC in the saves affect the size?

[tizerist]

Yeah I know, mine is spiralling out of control too. I don't know how big this will be in 5 years time, and it's scary.
Here's a little timeline of how it's happened.

08/2010............228mb...............Been playing in my new hood about a month.
11/2010............232mb...............No problems.
02/2011............385mb...............A massive jump in size, due to me adding food trucks around town.
04/2011............421mb...............Still growing. Alarm bells start ringing. How big is too big, I wonder.
09/2011............411mb...............5 months and it's shrunk, somehow.
09/2011............453mb...............Added a new town to my save, courtesy of Twallans Traveler. It's a large hood too.
10/2011............580mb...............Probably due to me populating the new town. Maybe.
10/2011............714mb...............Added another vacation hood, the largest yet.
01/2012............874mb...............Pets added alot of size I think, but I don't know, I hadn't backed up a save since October.
Today...............893mb............... :wtf:

BTW, your performance issues are likely not down to your save size. Mine is approaching a gig and it's as smooth as ever. Just remember to use Twallans mods to keep things tidy.

[noxnoxnox]

oh my holy sim goddess, that's just unbelievable. I'm glad I asked the question, now I know someone has survived the hundreds MB saves file and still going steady to GB. Can you post your PC's stats too, because your computer has done magic, looking at the time span, nearly 1 and a half year without corruption/bad saves and still growing? I'm green with envy.

[tizerist]

Motherboard: Asus P5NT-WS SLI, NF680i SLI, 775
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, Socket 775
PSU: 620W Enermax Liberty Modular Series 1
Graphics: Nvidia 460 GTX
4gb RAM

I never had a corrupted save. Only played with (Twallans) Story mode for a brief period, otherwise it's always traditionally been off.

[amberland]

I'm currently at 428mb. 269mb of it is the TravelDB file.

I've been having a lot of error 12's lately. I don't know why. It might be because of the size. This always seems to happen to me when I've been playing a neighborhood for a while. I'm working on trying to fix it, I don't want to abandon my neighborhood.

tizerist, which of Twallan's mods do you use?

[Rarr]

I'm sure this is such a noob question, but what does saving a lot have to do with game lag? :blink:

[twallan]

My current save file is approximately 200MB.

How large is the NHD file itself ?

The game only loads one town-file at a time, so it is the size of each NHD file that you need to watch, not the size of the entire folder.

As Amberland noted, the TravelDB.package is the single largest bloater at the moment, and strictly speaking you can actually don't require it to play the game.

TravelDB contains the photos attached to your memories, and the exports of any foreign sims you have in your game (which are simply readded to the file the next time you visit the vacation world). The game will still load fine if you delete that particular file, though you will lose the aforementioned information.

:)

[noxnoxnox]

Dear Twallan, that is my AppaloosaPlains_0x0c50c56d.nhd size, roughly 200MB, other town nhd are much smaller. My sim is living on a big lot 50x50 with a family of 7 YA and 4 pets. I've postponed moving some of them out because I love setting up the big family dinner and drama. During the span of nearly 1 year of playing, I believe I have portered the family for 3 or 4 times to a clean town because of Error 12.
@tizerist: That's a decent PC, I think I should not blame my computer for not capable of simming because at least it has the ASUS VEVO V, AMD X4 965 3.4 GB and 4 GB of RAM too. Since installing Windows 64bits, the error 12 has not touched my nerve again. But my Story Progression is on all the time. I'm wondering how much percent of it is in the save?
Another question, how much CC do you have? I'm so greedy with CC, I have nearly 2.5GB in DCCache and 900MB in Packages.

[jenieusa]

BB save on week 26....222MB

[Bryan19kc]

How large is the NHD file itself ?

The game only loads one town-file at a time, so it is the size of each NHD file that you need to watch, not the size of the entire folder.

:)

I am very glad of that as my saves folder comes in at a WHOPPIN' 3.33 gigs! I really need to delete a few back ups and go back to earlier games, save houses i built to the library and delete them. LOL! I'm not having any lag and the game runs .... well as good as the Sims 3 can. hehe.

[Floraflora2]

My current save file is approximately 200MB. It starts out in AP on a 25MB of 20 residential and community lots. My whole Saves folder is now 15GB, given the auto saves working every 45mins and many redundant saves has been deleted.
It starts to lag like hell when moving the camera around and on a dull day in China it'll freeze intermittently. The big saves is the problem, right? I have memories off and everything I can think of like minimum service sims, and pop cap of 50 (very small town). I think I have to say goodbye to all the citizens of AP on the NPC Armageddon very soon and start with a fresh saves. It's just difficult to delete most of the long time friends and neighbors with the deep background and histories, I want to know how you deal with it, is there some way to keep the saves as small as possible, does the amount of CC in the saves affect the size?

Very good question, and a center of my interest, too, since the day I joined the "error code 12 club" lately. :P I would suggest everbyody who has less than 4 GB RAM the following tricks to reduce your save file size:

- Each time before you want to play, delete your four Cache files. For example, my simCompositorCache.package can grow to 300 MB in a 4-5 hours gameplay! (Stylist carreer or if you plan outfits frequently.)
- From time to time, before you want to play, go to your neighbourhood's folder and check the size of the travelDB.package. If it's enourmous (comparing it to the .nhd save file size), you must make the decision to give up storing the pictures of your sims' memories. I gave it up, and from time to time I delete the travelDB.package. I never use the memories, so I don't need them. Very good file size reducing trick.
- From time to time, check the size of the Thumbnails folder in the Sims 3 folder. It's harmless to delete its content (the thumbnails of your downloaded cc), they will be regenerated and sometimes it's needed to be regenerated.
- "Inworld" tricks: check the map of your town. Are there any huge size community lots that you never use? Fishing spots far away, parks here and there your sims never want to go? Huge residential mansions you never use? Bite on the bullet and delete them. Reduce the data size of your town.
- Check how many bouncers and mixers are in your town. Do you really need all of them? Do I really need two bouncers in the Brightmore disco or the Sport Club? No, one is enough. Do I really need a mixer in the secret basement in the cemetery of Bridgeport? No. Delete the unnecessary bars and velvet ropes from your town, and reduce the number of NPCs.
- From time to time, check your townies in Edit Town, and make the decision: if the town save file is huge, some of the households should go. Delete some of them in Edit Town. (Evict, then Delete).
- Limit the number how many families you play with. Frequently changing active households - as far as I know - also results a rapidly growing file size, especially if their inventories are fully stocked with stuff.

And I must add: I know, that it's not a solution. Playing Sims is not about limiting your game experience. :( These tricks are temporary, until we have more RAMs and stronger systems.

[tizerist]

I have nearly 2.5GB in DCCache and 900MB in Packages.
I sincerely hope that 900mb is merged. You didn't say if you had tested with all CC removed, which should be your first port of call.
The Twallan mods you need for savegame maintenance are overwatch, error trap, and possibly register.
Make sure you're using an FPS limiter at all times, and gamebooster won't hurt either.
If you've got WA, the routing fixes here on MTS do apparently help with lag.
And obviously, run virus scans and defrag your hard drive to help general performance.

My CC is something like 20mb dbc and 1.2 gig in packages, merged. I could make this 4 times bigger with minimal impact, according to my tests.

[noxnoxnox]

Yes, my packages are merged and those are my most-wanted so I can't imagine starting the game without them. I use most of Twallan mods, including those you listed. I still can't get your secret here because your machine seem to handle the game much better than mine. It would be dream coming true if I could get 4G with "minimal impact". I'll get at least some error 12 or saving forever before reaching half that mark.

[tizerist]

those are my most-wanted so I can't imagine starting the game without them.
It's just a 10 minute test. Just put them back in afterwards. :)

[nikkiforest99]

There's a save compressor tool over at MATY, you can find it here (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,15129.0.html)