Club Crimsyn
The 'Y' Makes It Hip
Tutorial - Combining Packages to Ease Lag and Load Time 
14th-May-2010 12:21 pm
TS3 - Tristan - Wicked
I originally put this tutorial together for [personal profile] century_eyes, but I thought I'd go ahead and repost it here in case anyone else could get some use out of it.

If you primarily use package files for your custom content and have noticed increased load times and/or lag in your game, follow this tutorial to combine your CC into fewer, larger packages to fix the problem.



Open S3PE and choose 'New.'


Right-click in the big empty white area and select '(EXPERIMENTAL) As dbc...'


Select the files you want to combine and let S3PE do its thing. This may take a loooooong time; don't panic and just let it keep working.


You'll probably get this popup. Hit 'OK.'


Arrange the innards by instance number, select all the XML files with an instance number of 0000000000000, and delete them. (Note: There's a checkbox at the bottom of the SimPE window that says "Sort" - you have to check that box before you can arrange by instance.)

Repeat steps 2 through 5 as needed, then save your file. This may also take ages to finish, so just let it run. This new package is the only thing you'll need in your downloads folder for all your CC to show up, so remove the uncombined packages. I keep my uncombined files separate in case there are things I want to get rid of later on.


You can combine combined packages, and it's ok to add more things to your combined packages at a later date.

I'd suggest instead of making one huge package of all your CC to have four or five, only because when I tried to make a single package things started to blow up. I've got Objects, CAS (hair, clothes, makeup), Patterns, and my own crap as their own packages.

I've not combined Default Replacements (never sure if I'll switch those out or something), my hacks, and AM/story progression.

Very easy, and holy shit it makes a huge difference. My game now loads as quickly as it did before I had any CC in it, and no longer lags at all.

This is the original thread on MATY. Anach has offered up this additional information, which is very useful:

1. If you have a merged a mod and wish to update it with a newer version, you will need to re-merge the entire package, or you will usually experience game breakages.

2. The game imposes a limit of 200MB on its own merged packages (dbc), however a package can be anysize, and the only limitation is processing time (larger takes longer) and filesystem limits.

3. Try to keep your total number of mod packages under 100.

4. You can also remove ICON type files (junk files used by sims3pack) and "THUM" (thumbnails) if you wish the game to generate its own thumbnails rather than use the ones provided in the package.

(Originally figured out by someone Anach on MATY.)
Comments 
14th-May-2010 08:11 pm (UTC)
Dark Angel
I just learned about this too and merged everything recently. Seriously, it works! I combine it with Delphy's multipack extractor to turn everything into .package files.

I've noticed recently that the file size doesn't change if you install something through the launcher and then uninstall it. Talk about bloating the game!

It also amazes me what we go through to play a game sometimes. lol
14th-May-2010 11:31 pm (UTC)
TS3 - Tristan - Purple Profile
Isn't it crazy what a huge difference it makes?! I was getting close to TS2 load times before I did this, and now it loads in 2-3 minutes total.

"It also amazes me what we go through to play a game sometimes. lol"

I was seriously thinking that when I was making this tutorial! Ha!
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