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#1 Old 9th May 2017 at 10:22 PM
Default SIMelissa Downloads Bloat
I just joined the group and thought I'd jump in with a thread on my current Sims 2 dilemma: Download Folder Bloat

I have 24,227 files in 2,724 folders that have pushed my downloads folder to a bursting at the seams 8.36 GB. The game takes forever to open in this ol' laptop, and the game play is sluggish, especially now that Povertyville is in the middle of a winter snowstorm. :-)

So now, I'm taking a deep breath and gearing up for a purge. I found a nifty tutorial to get rid of those pesky unwanted things that clog up the catalog but I never think of deleting once I've closed out the game. I'm going to give it a try: http://sushigal007.tumblr.com/post/...-your-downloads

I've already deleted the horrid Maxis collection folders. Next, I will create my own collections folders based on how I think about looking for stuff. (Cars; Farm Animals; Hospital Equipment; Pharmacy; Nursery; Sewing Room; Crafts Room; etc.)

Hopefully, when I'm done, I'll have gotten rid of the stuff I don't use and will be able to find the stuff I want to use. Wish me luck!
SIMelissa
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#2 Old 10th May 2017 at 2:13 AM
WOW 24,227 files!! Good luck with your 'purge'! My folder is organized in a way that has mods (essential/nonessential) CC(unorganized clothes) and furniture, but I find your method to be WAY more organized. I estimate my game has roughly 5 megs of cc. It must be hard letting go of cc, in fact sometimes, I love going on "cc shopping sprees ". (Yeah, I need a cc 'purge' too)

What's going on in your game group here: http://www.modthesims.info/forumdis...546&groupid=906
Check it out ;)
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#3 Old 11th May 2017 at 3:30 AM
My purge didn't go too well. In all, I was able to dump only 347 files. I still have 23,880 files and 8.26GB of CC. Too much cute stuff in my downloads folder that I didn't want to let go of ... and more in a folder on my desktop that is waiting to go in.

On the plus side, the instructions in the webpage were easy to follow and understand and worked perfectly. I guess I'm going to have to be brutal and cut some of the stuff that I like. But I'm not ready to do that just yet.
Link Ninja
#4 Old 11th May 2017 at 6:16 AM
What if you partition them out into different folders and then switch them out as needed. Lets say you have a collection of cc you downloaded specifically for a building project - well put it all into a downloads folder and only add it when you know you are having a sim go to that building or intend to play that building. I'm just kind of spit-balling here since I don't know what all cc you have but I have like CC for a casino, a laundromat, a masquerade ball etc and I could probably remove those if I knew I wasn't going to use them but keep them around, outside of my EA folder in case I need to put them back in when I want to do masquerade pics or have sims go to specific cc-heavy places I built.

Uh oh! My social bar is low - that's why I posted today.

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#5 Old 12th May 2017 at 4:41 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Charmful
What if you partition them out into different folders and then switch them out as needed.


@Charmful: Your idea is something I'm seriously considering, especially for specialty lots. My computer saw a noticeable lag after I downloaded a lot of cool stuff for a hospital I recently built. I definitely plan to round up all the medieval files and put them in a folder in my backup file. That way, I can drop it in if/when I decide to start a medieval neighborhood.

Not every file I own is in my downloads folder. My backup folder has more than 35,000 files and is almost 12GB. But then, my backup folder also has a ton of photos which has been a godsend in helping me identify a good portion of my downloads. Unfortunately, I don't have photos of everything.

Tonight, I pulled out some of the hair and vehicles. This culling got me down to 23,058 files and 7.5 GB. I think I can still downsize the clothes folders a bit more. Then, I'll have to go in and give all that cool decor stuff a good going over. I'd like to get things down to about 6 GB. I think that should be doable.
Doing all the things, and *mostly* not failing.
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#6 Old 12th May 2017 at 7:04 AM
If you have some specialty hoods, like Medieval or Zombie Apocalypse, a good suggestion is to create a PermaGame (like an AnyGame except you don't have to worry about it getting deleted) and move all the related CC over there. I like playing those specialty games, but I don't need their CC (or defaults) junking up and slowing down my main game so that's what I do.
Lab Assistant
#7 Old 13th May 2017 at 8:49 PM
Charmful, your idea is awesome. I tweaked it a little and think things will be okay, so let's see.
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#8 Old 25th May 2017 at 4:13 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Phaenoh
If you have some specialty hoods, like Medieval or Zombie Apocalypse, a good suggestion is to create a PermaGame (like an AnyGame except you don't have to worry about it getting deleted) and move all the related CC over there. I like playing those specialty games, but I don't need their CC (or defaults) junking up and slowing down my main game so that's what I do.


I'm a bit of a Sims 2 ninny. I've never heard of a PermaGame, but I remember seeing something about AnyGame Starter. I thought it was for people who did not have their disc. <slaps head> I'll download the AnyGame Starter and see what it does.
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#9 Old 25th May 2017 at 4:34 AM
FYI . . .
I've played Sims 2 off and on for years -- mostly off -- my Sims get a job, marry, have babies, buy new furniture, decorate. Then I'd get bored, uninstall and ignore Sims for months. Something would happen (illness, injury, surgery) and I'd pull out Sims 2 reinstall and do it all over again. But I never learned how to do anything with SimPE, BodyShop, or all those other programs everyone talks about.

For someone with a TON of CC, I have really BLAH houses and neighborhoods. They are NOTHING like those breathtakingly beautiful neighborhoods in Jo and Phaenoh's threads that I browsed through today. Houses I build are PLAIN, but affordable and easy to maneuver my Sims through. I never downloaded houses for fear of the HugBug until recently. I fell in love with a created house, downloaded it but I haven't added it to my game.

My most recent Sims 2 install was this past December. I am now backing up my neighborhood on a semi-regular basis and hope to grow it into a lively community that continues to thrive and grow. I'm also hoping that this will be the year that I learn how to do a few things in SimPE and figure out how to keep my game play fresh so that I no longer get bored and/or discouraged.
Lab Assistant
#10 Old 25th May 2017 at 1:01 PM
I wish you all the luck. And as a side-note, I have never been a sim-pe expert either. All those tiny little lines confuse me. Greatly.

A tip to keep the game-play interesting, leave them on their own. Take them to community lots and let them be. They will form their own relationships and such. You will have a blast. Doing challenges that can be incorporated in your game might be a fine idea too, although I have never done it. If you have never dipped your toe into the vast waters of business, do so now. It's great fun. Also, make interesting community lots,and visit those.If you have the Pets expansions, try adopting pets. If you have Bon Voyage, take them on vacation. There are loads of other things you can do. Hopefully others will provide more tips, and if I remember anything, I'll also drop by.
Doing all the things, and *mostly* not failing.
retired moderator
#11 Old 25th May 2017 at 4:02 PM
The PermaGames are like AnyGames, but you don't have to worry about only having 3, or accidentally deleting your favorite one when you need to make another for something. I use AnyGames to do my mod testing, and keep PermaGames for my Medieval and Zombie Apox games.

From what I've heard, if you have BO's No Sim Loaded in your downloads folder, even an infected house can't infect your game, but to be on the safe side, also pick up these other two if you don't have them already:
http://www.leefish.nl/mybb/thread-1665.html
http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=295358 (just the social remover)
http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=140314
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#12 Old 26th May 2017 at 5:23 AM
I have all the expansion packs. I love Pets! Have a love-hate relationship with Business. And I think Bon Voyage can be fun now and then. I think I need to be more emotionally invested in my towns, the families and their storylines. This year, I started a legacy challenge. It's been fun, but I don't like my current generation as much as I did the poor, struggling founder.

Phaenoh, thanks for the links. I'd forgotten that I have BO's No Sim Loaded. I'm guessing the Sim controller is how you got all your playables to sit down for the wedding. Brilliant!
Doing all the things, and *mostly* not failing.
retired moderator
#13 Old 26th May 2017 at 5:41 AM
Actually, it was Inge's cat teleporter. If I had to do them all one at a time, that would have taken forever!
Top Secret Researcher
#14 Old 27th May 2017 at 9:05 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Phaenoh
Actually, it was Inge's cat teleporter. If I had to do them all one at a time, that would have taken forever!

I use Sim Wardrobe's Visual Teleportal most of the time.

Business is one of my most favourites and I also like Pets. I don't have FT or AL being that I am a Mac player.

I don't have nearly that many files in my Downloads folder, but I am highly organized. I have 49 separate clothes folders for each of my fav creators and one for general MTS clothes. 131 folders for hair organized by creator and hair style, 25 folders for jewelry organized by creator and type. 18 folders of glasses, 37 folders of vehicles organized by model. I have my Mods organized by creator and whether they are object mods or not, plus food, makeup, careers, building, default clothes, default vhehicles, & default replacements all with subfolders organizing further. I like to know where everything is and what it does. No pictures of the stuff are in the Downloads folder and no text files though, just .package files. Total files at this moment 9453

for info on changing the Mac Open File Limit check out my post here http://www.insimenator.org/index.ph...html#msg1628939
Curiosity killed the cat,
but satisfaction brought it back.
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#15 Old 29th May 2017 at 10:29 PM
Quote: Originally posted by lordtyger9
I like to know where everything is and what it does. No pictures of the stuff are in the Downloads folder and no text files though, just .package files. Total files at this moment 9453


Me, too! I am finally figuring out to keep my CC organized. I have my working downloads folder with packages only. But my two backup downloads folder have everything my working folder has plus texts, images and various other files (ie: "pick one" mods that might need to be swapped out for one reason or another.)

I try (emphasis on TRY) to keep images of all my downloads so I can more easily decide what I must keep and what I can dump. These images have been very handy as I've been working to reduce the size of my downloads folder.

Yesterday, I took a look at the properties of my category folder and learned something interesting. My female hair file was HUGE -- a whopping 1.5 GB. My male hair file was about 560 MB, which about the same as my five other big files (Vehicles, Neighborhood deco, Bathroom, Bedroom and Furniture). Surprisingly, all those door & window files I own take only 128 MB.

I dumped the hair files created by a designer who uses pink for the red hair, reducing my downloads folder by a full GB. I also found some children's clothing, all by the same designer, with size numbers that are five or six times higher than similar clothing. Cute stuff, but not five times cuter than what I already own. So, I held my breath and deleted that designer's entire folder. Now, my downloads folder is a more reasonable 6.3 GB. If I keep going, I just might reach my goal of having tons of CC variety while still keeping the size to 6 GB or less. It's gonna take time and some hard choices.
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#16 Old 30th May 2017 at 9:09 PM
Well, I tried the AnyGameStarter. Unfortunately, I'm one of those people who cannot get it to read the fullgame.id file, even though it is clearly where it should be. After multiple tries, reading posts, reinstalling and restarting windows I still could not get it to work.

I have Double Deluxe and all the EPs and SPs on CD, which should work with the AGS, but doesn't. I read one post that said AGS does not work with collection packs, which probably means it conflicts with my Best of Business (Open for Business, H&M, Kitchen & Bath), Fun with Pets (Pets, Mansions & Gardens, Family Fun) and University Life (University, Teen Style, Ikea) collections.

I also read that some people who had this problem could not get their regular game to work afterward. Same happened to me. I had to do a system restore to launch my Sims game. I'm going to forget the AnyGameStarter. I know there are a few alternatives (swapping out a downloads folder and making changes in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE) but I'm not sure I want to play with my registry. So, I'll just play as is and consider my options when/if I decide to do an historical game.
Doing all the things, and *mostly* not failing.
retired moderator
#17 Old 31st May 2017 at 4:07 PM
Did you manually add "Wow6432Node\" to each line in the app file after the AnyGame ran? AnyGame was made before Win 7 and Win7 added that to the file path. Numenor never updated it. Mootilda had talked about it, but never got to it. Make sure you add that line to both your AnyGame and your Full Game. Every time you run the AnyGame program, it will rewrite the app file so you'll need to do it again. That's why I prefer the PermaGames for specialized games, each has their own app file and doesn't need to be fixed every time I make a new AnyGame.

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#18 Old 3rd Jun 2017 at 4:43 AM
I don't know anything about the registry files. (But I do know to make a restore point before I mess around with it! LOL) I think I followed the instructions on editing the files but I still have problems. The problem is likely something I did or did not do correctly.

FYI -- I edited the anygame1 and full reg files located at: "... Documents/AnyGameStarter/AppFiles.

Now, it looks like this (see how the latter portion is different than yours. Yours ends with "documents" and mine ends with "Anygamestarter/anygame1"



(I hope I got that spoiler button right. This is my first time doing it)

Here is the error message I'm getting when trying to run the AnyGame1:
"There is something wrong in your save-game folders: AnyGameStarter can't
find your "full" game folder. It should be located in:
C:\Users\Mom\Desktop\DOCUME~1\EA Games\The SimsTM 2 Double Deluxe
and it should contain, along with all your downloads and neighborhoods,
a small file named "FullGame.id"; but AnyGameStarter can't find this file.
The only solution is to run the AnyGame Setup again and reinstall this AnyGame."

The file is there. I see it in my "...Documents/EAGames/Sims2DoubleDeluxe" folder.
Doing all the things, and *mostly* not failing.
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#19 Old 3rd Jun 2017 at 5:58 AM
I'm not entirely sure that the bottom part being different matters, but you did miss the Wow6432Node in the top 2, so that might be your issue.
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#20 Old 4th Jun 2017 at 5:02 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Phaenoh
I'm not entirely sure that the bottom part being different matters, but you did miss the Wow6432Node in the top 2, so that might be your issue.


Good eye, Phaenoh!
I added the phrase to the top two lines in both files and am still getting the same error.

I think I'm going to set the AnyGameStarter idea aside for now. I'll try it again later and might even post in the help section to see if anyone else might offer a solution. But for now, I'll wait. I'm just too burned out to mess with it at the moment. I might be able to accomplish what I want with a separate downloads folder and a set of hiders, which is something I've not yet used either.
Doing all the things, and *mostly* not failing.
retired moderator
#21 Old 4th Jun 2017 at 5:41 AM
I took another look at it, and you pulled the App files from the AnyGame 1, and I was showing App files for the full game. This is what the bottom half of my AnyGame 1 looks like. Disregard the C vs E drive discrepancy that we have, I have 2 hard drives and my path is a bit different in the early part because of that.

Quote:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders]
"Personal"="E:\\Users\\<NAME>\\DOCUME~1\\ANYGAM~1\\AnyGame1"
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders]
"Personal"="E:\\Users\\<NAME>\\DOCUME~1\\ANYGAM~1\\AnyGame1"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders]
"Common Documents"="E:\\Users\\<NAME>\\DOCUME~1\\ANYGAM~1\\AnyGame1"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders]
"Common Documents"="E:\\Users\\<NAME>\\DOCUME~1\\ANYGAM~1\\AnyGame1"


My other suggestion is make sure you've edited both the AnyGame 1 AND the FullGame app files before trying to run it. Setting it aside for now is a good idea too though. Give it time to stew and maybe your brain will figure out the answer when you aren't focused on the problem.
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#22 Old 12th Jun 2017 at 9:25 PM
I have officially given up on AnyGameStarter. After an exhausted effort, I finally found out why it won't work with my Double Deluxe & compilation EPs setup: https://modthesims.info/showthread....5#startcomments

Messing with my computer (AGS and other stuff) I somehow messed things up. (One day I might learn that technically challenged people should not attempt to follow pro advice on the Internet -- Microsoft pro or otherwise!) Long story short, I moved my downloads folder to a new profile (deleted the old profile) and now some of my CC has changed. For example, a lovely sofa has turned into an upscale park bench. And five generations of packed crates of crops that were stored in the estate's warehouse are now little statues. I'm not sure how this happened since I copied, saved and used the same downloads folder I'd been playing previously. Maybe it has something to do with the profile name change. Perhaps renaming my new profile "Mom" (the old name) instead of "Melissa" will do the trick. If not, I won't be heartbroken. In the past, I've always wiped out the neighborhoods with a new install ('cause I didn't know about backing up things -- obviously still need help with that).

On the upside, MTS member Kunder helped me fix my video.sgr file. And I changed out my RAM on this old laptop. Now, I have 8GB (7.75 usable) instead of the 4GB (2.5GB usable) that I was previously installed. Hopefully this will help with future game play.
#23 Old 12th Jun 2017 at 10:56 PM
Are the newly changed objects maxis items? Usually when things change like that (For me it's when i've downloaded lots and placed them in game after using clean installer) it's because the mesh is missing so the game tries to replace it with something similar from the same category.
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#24 Old 12th Jun 2017 at 11:55 PM
I have no idea what was wrong. I deleted the neighborhood and downloads folders, changed my profile name, recopied the neighborhood and downloads folders to their correct place and now all appears to be working. The pretty sofa has returned, along with the washer & dryer and my warehouse full of fruits, veggies and fish. I didn't go through every household, but it appears the only thing that is different is the censor blur. I don't have any anatomically correct skins. I like my Sims to be like Barbie & Ken. So the fix should be easy enough. I think it was either a downloaded hack or a matter of checking or unchecking some box.
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#25 Old 14th Jun 2017 at 10:16 PM
Turns out the profile delete did not work. Not only that, but the other profiles I made to get rid of the first one are still there, too--despite an attempt at following instructions from several Internet experts. So, I did something drastic. I reinstalled Windows 7.

Thankfully, I made a backup copy of my neighborhood. But I'd forgotten all the other work that needs to go into making this game play like it did before: CFF Explorer to make it read more than 2GB; adding -w to the exe startup file so it will open in window mode; Issues with Double Deluxe creating TWO partial Sims folders in My Documents. Who knows what else I've forgotten!

I'll be ready next time. I'm writing everything in a notebook so that I can refer to it the next time I have to reinstall Sims.
 
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