hi everyone! can someone give me an idea on how i should organize my downloads folder for cc? are there any limits on the number of folders and so on?

No limits on folders, but there is a limit on number of objects (IFF files) that the game can have. It's a pretty high number, so unless you have thousands and thousands of objects, it's not likely that you will hit this limit. When you hit it, new objects will no longer show up in-game when you add them to the game files -- that's how you'll know you've hit that limit.

The more separate files there are for the game to load, the longer the loading will take. So the best thing to do with the stuff in your Downloads folder that is fixed and there to stay is to put the contents of all the folders into a single FAR archive, and put that FAR file in your GameData/UserObjects folder. This means that the game only needs to load one file to load all the custom objects in-game.

The only exception to this is sound files in objects that feature custom sounds: XA, WAV, and MP3 files. You should leave those in your Downloads folder, in the folder that the belong in. If you change the name of the folder, or you move these sound files, then these custom sounds will break for your object in-game -- they will no longer play.

Everything else you can put in the FAR archive, and it will continue to work just as if it was in the Downloads folder, in its own folder.

But all of this is just to reduce loading time. If you're not worried about that, then you can leave them in the Downloads folder. The Downloads folder does not have any rules, to my knowledge, as to where you can place the files. You could move all the files to a single new folder you create, and the game would not care, it would make no difference to the game. The folders in the Downloads folder are simply there for your convenience, to be able to add or remove individual mods. The only exception to this being the custom sound files, as I mentioned above. They need to stay in the folder they were created to be in.

Note that if your folder names are very long, or you have a lot of nested folders (folder within a folder) that can have an impact on the game's loading/performance as well.

For more information, see here:

https://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=684898

I would actually recommend using FAR archives, and moving/grouping your custom object mods into these FAR archives/files by category. That would probably be the best way to manage mods that you are certain are here to stay. That means that you can disable mods by category, simply by moving that single FAR file out of your game's directory.

For mods that you are unsure about if they are here to stay or if you will remove them eventually, I would leave those in the Downloads folder, in their own folder.

thx for ur answer! how can i create a far archive?

You can use FAR Out:

https://archive.org/details/juliejm...07aviatorjacket

My download folder is organized by creator. I have a different folder in there for each website, but no subfolders within those folders. Everything works and objects show up no problem, loading times are quite fast, and it's relatively easy for me to find something if I need to. So that's certainly one option, but not the only one. You might prefer to organize by object type or some other way. Just choose a system that will make it as easy as possible for your future self to find a specific object that needs to be removed.

There's a small number of objects out there that require a more specific folder path than "whatever works for you" and they will tell you in the readme when that is the case. Usually this has to do with custom sounds as noted above, but not always.

thx! i also learned that u can create far archives using sim enhancer object manager

regarding the amount of the cc, are there any specific values? maybe how many gb of the cc the game can handle?

thx. ill take note of that!

Some discussion of that here: http://simechoes.org/simechoes1/info/limits.html

Logically, I would aim not to surpass the size of Maxis' own game default and expansion pack FARs with my FAR files. If you have need for it, if the FAR is getting too big, break the content into two FAR files, and name them sequentially (e.g. partyobjs1.far, partyobjs2.far). A good point of reference would be under 1GB. Not many things were over 1GB in games back when The Sims was released.

But the excellent resource @EphemeralToast has pointed you to above talks about the absolute limits in great detail. They are quite high. If you don't pack thousands of objects into a single FAR file, then there's no chance you'll surpass it. That's why I recommended sorting your objects into categories by FAR file -- or by source/creator, as suggested above.

thx guys

Caution when packaging FAR files -- I just found out that packaging a CMX file into a FAR file will crash the game when the game tries to load it:

https://modthesims.info/showthread....685#post5957685

So any custom animations included/bundled with objects need to be converted from a CMX file into a BCF file before being added to a FAR file, or they should be left out of the FAR file altogether, along with their corresponding CFP files -- the same as custom sound files.

As a general rule, only use FARs to bundle objects (IFFs) from your Downloads folder -- and be careful not to include any sound (XA/WAV/MP3) and animation (CMX and CFP) files.

thx u for important information

is there also no limit on the number of far files?

There is, but it's higher than anything you'll ever be able to hit. I think about 65,000 FAR files or so. The size of the individual FAR files is more important than how many of them there are. Try not to overbloat them. Don't go over 1 GB on a single FAR file.