i have 4,000 mods and cc in my sims 2 and its making my game a little slow is there a way to make it fast without taking my mods out?

Well, you should probably cull if you know that's the issue, but since that's not what you want. I found it made some difference when I created a hood just to house lots from the lot bin, saved them there, then deleted the ones in the bin. You could also upgrade your graphics and memory. You could also see if you don't use all the CC for all games, you might want different game folders, like for people who play both modern and medieval, they might use different game folders so that only the CC needed is in when the game is running. It could also be a different issue, depends what you mean.

4000? That's not much, really (my test game has nearly 20.000).

If you have all EPs, loading and playing can occasionally slow down a bit. Depends on your computer, the amount of CC, the size of the lot, how many sims there are, high-poly items, etc. It's also normal with a little bit of when the game is summoning up something, like neighbors, life or skin states, strays, etc.

Just keep in mind that it's an old game, so it might not handle the resources from even a brand new gaming computer like most newer games do. Even the newest EP is nearly 10 years old.

There's a few things you can do. Culling is still your best option though.

1. Go through your downloads folder and remove anything that's not a mod. Text files, PSDs, image files, etc. The game will still attempt to read them and that can slow down the game launch. WizTree can help you find them.

2. Get jfade's Compressorizer. Most modders these days will already do it, but if you're using older mods (I've noticed Fresh-Prince's cars are particularly bad for this), you can compress them. This might not necessarily make it faster but it will decrease the filesize.

3. If you know how to use SimPE, you can merge recolour packages. I've done this, and it drastically decreased my loading time - but keep in mind that I have a huge amount of CC, so it might not be so much on your setup. I used this guide.

When you say it's making your game slow, in what way do you mean exactly?

Generally, too much CC will slow loading, too much bodyshop CC will definitely slow down CAS. A lot of CC won't make play slow unless you are actively using high poly items on the lot. If your lots are very large or tall you can expect it to be slow, even with no CC unless you have a supercomputer, if you place a lot of NPC animals you can expect that particular lot to be slow.

4K is not much at all. What type of computer are you on?
Have you tried renaming files to take out special characters?
Have you tried compressing the files?

Oooo, new one for me! I like this idea!

@Sunrader - keep in mind that merging them will decompress any Compressorized files. So you'll want to do that again afterwards.

the loading is fine its just how slow my sims are going and it ticks me off

Okay but we need more information before we know if it is your cc. Are the lots large? Do they have lots of plants and fences? is the CC on the lots high poly? Are there NPC mods on the lot, those things will affect how smoothly the lots play.

If loading is fine than you don't have too many files. Have you tried making a backup, pulling your cc and seeing how those lots play sans CC? You have not given us your computer specs.

thanks alot

What do you mean by that?
Do they move slow when going someplace? (athletic skill over 6 I think will give them the ability to run everywhere, and mods/cheats can get them to teleport everywhere).
Do they do things slowly? (sims do that. Just get used to it, and be glad it's not the general slowness from TS4).
Anything else?

I think she means lag.

OP without details we can't help, and as far as I know compressing files will only help with loading (and some people actually experience slower not faster loading after compressing) This will not help with lag on a lot.

If it's on-lot lag, then the total amount of CC you have doesn't affect that. What affects it is what's on that lot and what's in the neighborhood that that lot is in. It's likely that your video card is having trouble rendering it all in addition to having to animate Sims. SO:

Do you use large lots? (Like, bigger than about 3x3? Try to stick to smaller ones.)
Do you have a mod that forces extra visitors on community lots? (Get rid of it.)
Is there lots of high-poly stuff on your lots, like highly-detailed landscaping items?
Is there visible water and you're using a water mod to make it look nicer? (The latest water mod is VERY resource-consumptive.)
Are your neighborhoods heavily-decorated with lots of detailed neighborhood deco that doesn't go all blurry when viewed from a lot? (Those objects are usually high-poly AND high-res and should be used sparingly.)
Are your Sims wearing high-poly hairs? (The latest 4t2 ones are RIDICULOUSLY high-poly, nearing 40K polys when, really, 10K counts as high-poly for TS2; I refuse to use such hairs, myself.)
Do you use higher-res default terrain/road replacements? (Like CuriousB's or any that I've made? High-res road replacements in particular are extremely resource-consumptive.)
Do you use custom skies and/or animated skies and/or skylines? (All extremely high-res.)
Do you use lots of furniture converted from other games? Many such things are higher-poly and higher-res than TS2 is meant for.

Basically, remember this: TS2 is a 14-year-old game, positively ANCIENT by computer standards. It is older than some players, I imagine. It does not understand how to fully utilize more modern video cards and multi-core processors without some help because those things did not exist when the game was developed. If you cram a bunch of newer high-poly/high-res stuff into it, it's gonna choke and lag like a mother. How much and how soon it does that will depend on your system specs especially your video card's specs.

So, it would be very helpful to know your video card's specs. Do you have a dedicated video card, or is it one that's integrated with the motherboard? How much dedicated RAM does it have, if it's a dedicated card? How much texture memory does it have?

4000 files is nothing. I have almost 10x that, and my game runs fine even though I don't have a high-end video card. (It's dedicated, has 2GB of RAM, of which 1.7GB is texture memory, but it's an older model.) BUT I am extremely particular and careful about what I put in my game, checking polycounts and texture sizes and stuff before I decide whether or not something I downloaded goes in and generally avoiding converted-from-other-games build/buy items. I knowingly use some things that are very resource-consumptive -- high-res terrain defaults and custom skies/horizons, mostly -- so I know I have to be careful elsewhere, and I accept that. I more or less know what my game/video card can handle, and I push its limits, but not to the breaking point. (Well, OK, sometimes to the breaking point. Even past it. There's one extremely-extremely decorated and crowded "downtown" neighborhood that I can only play in about hour-long sessions before the pink flashing starts because my video card runs out of texture memory even when I force the game to use it all and I have to exit and reload the game. I know its limits, though. And it still doesn't lag.)

ALL that being said, there can also be CC that just acts weird sometimes. For instance, there's a person I follow on Tumblr who found that an old Rose hair (old, very low poly, nothing special about it) cuts her framerate in half when a Sim that's wearing it is on a lot. She did extensive testing and figured out that that was what was causing it. No one has any idea why, last I saw. It just happens. There are weird anomalies like that sometimes.

Bek's pickable flowers on my home business florist slows my lot down so much at night (only at night) That I delete and replace them every day! I only use a couple of rows.

Window's DIsk Defragmenter can help make games/programs run faster.
and there might also be download-able programs that could do that.

Don't defrag an SSD though! All it'll do is make it wear out faster.