Custom content or less games?

[TaylaJay]

Would you rather delete all or most of your custom content or unintall a few ep's or sp's to make your game run faster?

I'm in a pickle. Which should i do? What would you do? :)

[Apsalar]

Take down your cc, friend. Just keep the stuff you really can't live without. It's a blessed relief when you kill off cc. Good luck! :D

[Ghost sdoj]

I would not delete an EP because they all affect gameplay and I would be worried that I would trash my saved games. Global hacks, custom tv channels, and really high poly CC are the worst offenders, so just eliminating as many of them as you can live without might let you keep the rest.

[TaylaJay]

But it's so hard to work out what piece of cc is what. And i've got alot. I've avoided going on the sims because of the slowness. And i want to buyt to two lastest sp's too, but i don't think i can wait as long as i'd need to to play it.

Any easy way to cut down on what cc is what?

[Apsalar]

Here's a nifty tool for keeping you cc in line: http://www.modthesims2.com/member/showthread.php?t=227925
It's easy to use and very fast!

[TaylaJay]

Aaah. I have that. And i don't think i've opened it since i downloaded it. It confused me "/

[Ghost sdoj]

Clean Pack Installer or Delphy's Download organizer might help there.
I'm giving directions with Clean pack because it's what I'm used to.
Set it to scan your entire downloads directory, including subfolders. Now go read a book or something if you have a lot of CC.

When it finally finishes, everything will be listed and labeled. Global hacks show in red. (If Clean pack doesn't label something it's usually a mesh). There is an option to show previews. Click it, then one by one click your CC. It doesn't look exactly like the game, but you can usually figure out what you are looking at.

You can also delete CC in game or in bodyshop with the trashcan icon, but that makes it gone forever so you need to be sure you want it gone. You won't be able to rescue it from the recycle bin.

[TaylaJay]

But if you delete it manually from the Clean installer, wouldn't that take absolutly ages?

I had deleted quite a few items in-game. But i didn't see much of a difference.

[Apsalar]

Yes clean installer takes ages - if you use the Download Organizer, it takes much much less time. One of the good things about DO is that you can filter the packages - so you can concentrate on one kind of objects at a time.

[Ghost sdoj]

Well, you could make a list of the few things that you absolutely have to keep, then bulk delete the rest....

I think Delphy's Download Organizer simplifies things, but I haven't used it enough yet to be able to give instructions off the top of my head. But I have noticed that it really isn't as confusing as it first looks.

[TaylaJay]

Any tutorials on how to use the Download Organiser then? Because it's just numbers & letters to me.

[crocobaura]

Lol, you should definitely cut down on the cc. Stuff packs and EPs are good, don't delete those over cc. I also tend to download lots of stuff and when my game starts crawling, I just take out the downloads folder, then I add in stuff I know and I can't live without. I tend to get lots of stuff that I'll never actually use like 20 skins and 500 hair files. :) Also, I like the look of medieval and victorian stuff and furniture, thing is I never built a neighbourhood to require them, so I removed those as well. And clothes, too many clothes that my sims never wear, same mesh in five pretty colours, just making my game crawl.

[Apsalar]

One thing I really like about DO is that I can pretty much delete duplicates with a single click.

[crocobaura]

One thing I really like about DO is that I can pretty much delete duplicates with a single click.

Lol, I've been cleaning out my older downloads, it's incredible how many duplicates were there! The evils of subfoldering! :smash:

[Ghost sdoj]

At the bottom of your page there is an area with checkboxes for filename, title and description. A lot of CC ends up with filenames like abcd1234, but the title and description are usually more helpful. Make sure you have those boxes checked. Then you can tell what you are looking at

[WooHoo]

I used to have the same problem...
It would've been near impossible for me to clean out my CC folder (it was before I knew you could make subfolders) and DDO wasn't made yet. So I deleted the whole thing, deleted my custom neighborhood and all the other neighborhoods I don't play with, and started over completely.

Don't be like me kids, control your downloading!

[Padlock_SC]

Squish your files.

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,8316.0.html

I think this doesn't play too nicely with the download organiser, but if you aren't using the organiser anyway, then I'd say just go ahead and squish.

Use the Sims2Pack Clean Installer to sort things into subfolders--this makes deleting things easier. The S2PCI should catch the duplicates for you, even if they're in different subfolders. You just have to do a full recursive scan.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v253/Not_You/werwerwer.jpg

I wouldn't uninstall any EPs or SPs unless you have a backup of your data prior to installing it, or if you aren't attached to what you have now.

Regardless of what you use to sort through your downloads, if you have a lot, you're going to spend some time on it. Short of just deleting the entire folder, there is no quick way to get through.

[pieridae]

Also check out this recent thread that deals with game slowness: http://forums.sims2community.com/showthread.php?t=42401

[sharkloverplayer]

What about sims?Does the clean installer label them too?I have a lot of sims I've dl'd from the sims 2 exchange and a couple from modthesims 2.

[jenniferrsg]

Try using the Content Manager that EA offers on the site. I have my friend send me it today, and it's by far, the least complicated, best remover for CC. :)

[sopye]

While using the DO to try to organize my cc, I am left with a dozen or so empty packages. What are these? Are they usable and need to stay with the game, or can you delete them from your download? Only description given in DO is empty package.

[stygia2002]

Would you rather delete all or most of your custom content or unintall a few ep's or sp's to make your game run faster?

I'm in a pickle. Which should i do? What would you do? :)

I'd thin out my custom content...the EPs add new features for the game itself and make more things possible in your game. I played with just the base game and the EPs for awhile and it was fine. I do have a few must haves in CC: Insiminator, Bruno's Orlando Bloom and the hair meshes that I like to have as options for him, custom eyes and some specific custom hair and clothing. Those don't really amount to much.

[Unregistered00]

Will these Sim Custom Content (e.g hair, face, skin tones. not hacks) cause a screw up in the game?

[Sparklycookie]

Only if you download hacks, stuff like hair doesn't have many problems with messing up games.

[muttlove]

delete cc, or save up for a new brain (for the computer XD) it does the world of good.

[k24601]

I have lots of CC, of course at first (I didn't know any better at the time) it was really bad. I got fed up and just took everything out, deleted old neighborhood, ect. Then after reading about a bunch of stuff I started redownloading and installing stuff - This time I was much smarter and made folders to put in my downloads folder, for example for downloaded sims like a favorite game icon or jrocker, ect. make a folder for that sim and put all their crap in that one folder. I have a folder just for custom hair and a folder for clothes, a folder for custom skins and a folder for custom eyes and some folders are whole sets for things I want in my game like a folder with nothing but sewing related stuff in it. And thankfully MOST of my stuff is well labeled (by the creators) so all I really have to do is memorize a few things and then go to a certain folder and if I change my mind about the object, I take it out or delete it. Another way to to know what's what is to download and make collection files. We can delete objects in-game too...just saying. Sorry if you already knew any of this.

I don't know how well it work for you but...Clicking Properties - General - Advanced - Compress To Save Disk Space - Ok - Apply worked for me. Compressed items really does make it faster for me. If for some reason your game folder and everything in it is not set to read only, also set everything to read only. I don't know how or why that works but it supposedly is a way to make things go faster as well. Also removing the opening animation from your game will speed things up.

I think with a mod, might even be on here, to remove the family loading screen, may speed things up as well but I'm not sure as I do not have that in my game...I think I kept meaning to get it but for some reason don't have it yet...if I find it again I will probably get it.

Of course...the less CC you have the faster your game will be. I'm still really bad about downloading too much and wanting too much in my game but I feel I'm much smarter overall about it now since I have subfolders and always compress everything now right after...

I'm sorry but I forget how to take out the opening sequence to make the game go faster. I'm hoping to have more ram in my computer someday, you might want to consider getting more ram too. Other people have already given good advice as well so I don't even really need to get into other stuff even though I'm tempted to reiterate... I guess I have the "store edition" of Sims 2 since what I have is called Sims 2 Double Deluxe - so I have base game plus Nightlife and Celebrations pack. I'm sure if I got rid of all my CC again my game would run even faster than it already does. The initial is slow at start and then when buying clothes or changing for the first time may be slow the first time but once started up everything runs ok and during gameplay things run well again after the intial slowness of buying clothes or wanting to take makeup on or take it off of sims ...I don't know how to explain it any better than that, sorry. Anyway, my point is that you can have lots of CC and still have a pretty fast game - (again...it will be slow loading at first but after initial slowdown it should speed back up as long as you don't have crazy settings like have all details set to high or whatever if you know what I mean) - it just takes some tips and tricks to get it faster but still keep all your CC. Taking out anything you don't really use or need is a good idea too. Just be careful about what you take out, what you put in, and make backups. ;-)
LOL

To answer the initial question, I would hate to have to go without CC since I have very specific but wide-spread and "crazy" taste in things like hair and clothing. I have a love-hate/hate-love things for the sims because there's always something or some detail Maxis put in that I hate and I get bored of seeing the same clothes all the time...I'm into so many things that it would be very boring for me to limit myself to playing with just the maxis stuff. I love cheats and stuff so I would have a hard time giving up hacks and certain mods too. I would rather keep the CC and uninstall the packs if I had any more packs than the ones I already have. I'm thinking of getting Uni someday since I'm really mad at Maxis for not including it with the double deluxe pack since Uni came before NL. I love pets but I've read lots of bad things about pets and the problems it 'causes so I'm a little afraid to get the pets expansion as I don't want to screw up my game any more than it already is. (my game is only a little screwy though...it rarely crashes or anything but it can be annoying at times...I'm not sure what mod is causing it but I'm too lazy to go through everything/find the conflicting mods and remove them nor do I really want to as I'm otherwise happy and fine with them being in my game even though they do sometimes cause annoying error things to pop up) Right now I have no plans to get OFB or other expansions so I wish somebody would make things for people who don't want to get OFB but do want to be able to give their sims their own home business and stuff...Farming with certain mods is a good start but I wish there more choices....I find it frustrating that so many cool looking mods out there require OFB and/or other EPs that I don't have. So I'm very thankful to the creators that make stuff base game/any EP compatible.
Sorry this ended up being so long.

[Lexie 123]

delete all you unused hoods, made my game faster (i have almost all eps and tons of cc)

go into windowed mode, delete unused families, use small lots with limited junk, especially mirrors.

laptops run faster but glitch more. if you toss eps, get rid of the stuff packs, they dont really affect game play and you can download similar stuff.