Several Months ago I decided I had enough custom content and was not going to download anymore. Then when I was building I wanted a white garage door and went looking for it. When I found it I also saw a lot or recolors that I liked and went on a downloading spree. I now have close to three gigs of downloads! My game does not seem to be having any trouble with that load so I was wondering how much it could handle. Does anyone else have that much? I was wondering if I am an excessive downloader of custom content. How much custom content do others have? I would like to hear from others.

If you want to know how much CC other people have in their games take a look at this thread http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=334968 Lots of responses

Thanks a lot. I feel better. There are people with twice as much custom content as me. It also seems to depend on how big a hard drive your computer has. I am not having any really long load times so I guess my computer is pretty good.

Basically, if your game runs super slow, or crashes constantly, you have too much CC. xD That's my guide.

This, definitely. I would add that if you find that you have several of what is essentially the same thing (a white, arched "San Fransisco"-style double door, for example) then it might be time to trim a little of the fat and keep the best example(s) of whatever items are duplicated. I am guilty of this, as anything architectural/build mode attracts me like a June bug to a bug zapper. Also, there is a program available on this site (I believe) that will allow you to check your files for duplicates (i.e. two or more of the exact same object) and delete the unneccesary ones from the game. Unfortunately, I cannot remember the name of the program/utility and am basically too damned lazy to look it up right now. I'm sure someone will come along to point you in the right direction and/or shame me for my lack of effort.


edit: for clarity

The Clean Installer and Delphy's Download Organiser are both pretty useful tools to have if you're trying to reduce the size of your downloads folder.

edit: DDO found here http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=227925 Clean Installer is autolinked in my post

For the overall question, I think it depends on your computer, your game configuration, and your tolerance level. Game performance is definitely affected by your configuration, the number of EPs/SPs you have. For example, when I play my lot-building AnyGame with EPs only up to Pets (so that I can adjust individual roof angles, don'tchaknow) but all of my (currently) 5GB of custom content except hacks (which is a very small-in-size folder), the game goes from zero to building a lot very quickly. But if I'm actually playing the game and therefore have all my EPs/SPs involved and all of my custom content, it's a lot slower to load and move between lots and such. And when I just have the base-game playing...Man, it loads in seconds. *laughs*

So, I could be wrong but it seems to me that it's not so much the amount of CC but more the number of EPs/SPs that you play with that causes more lag/longer loading times. Of course, if you have an extreme amount of CC, it will definitely have an affect. I seem to have an "average" amount for a creator/downloader, from what I saw in the thread that was linked above, and for me the EPs/SPs seem to have much more of an effect on loading times and such, based on evidence from playing with the same CC in different configurations, thanks to the AnyGameStarter.

That said, my game never crashes. Really. And I play on a 7-year-old (albeit well-maintained) laptop, not a top-of-the-line machine. Even when I had about 12GB of CC, my game never crashed. The only time it has ever done so was when I've tried to load a lot that required EPs that I didn't have. Even though I'm careful to check that, sometimes the fallible human being who created the lot makes a mistake and...there you go. Now, I've had my game not want to run at all, particularly after installing a new EP/SP, but that's always been because of bad cache files, not CC; once the cache files were deleted and the game restarted, everything was just fine. Overall, I tend to think that if one's game crashes a lot, it's likely more due to one's computer than to the game or anything having to do with CC.

So, overall, I really, truly don't think that CC is a major cause of game crashing. Even hacks that conflict (which I've had a LOT of) in my experience only cause weird things to happen in the game and/or will make it such that some interactions are unavailable or broken because, I guess, the code is conflicting. They don't make the whole darn game crash, much less explode. Maybe I just lead a charmed life or something, but my hacks folder is the one that has the largest number of files it, other than walls/floor, and I'm NOT 100% scrupulous about checking for conflicts before I put something new that catches my eye in my game, and...Well, like I said, my game never outright crashes, but on occasion there is very serious weirdness, and I have to do some backtracking to get rid of the hack that caused it. And I could be wrong, but I seriously doubt that mere unhacked CC objects will cause one's game to completely crash.

Anyway, that ranting done...Like I said, it depends on your computer, your game configuration, and your tolerance level. I've heard of people who've had 30GB of CC and all the EPs/SPs...and their game takes an hour to load and a long time to move between lots. I, personally, wouldn't tolerate that very well, and so I'd jettison CC first in an effort to get things under control. But for those people, it's apparently acceptable, so their 30GB of CC isn't "too much." One download folder size doesn't fit all, after all.

When your game takes more than 15 minutes to load on start up.

Sometimes, constant crashing has nothing to do with too much CC. I solved my constant crashing by allocating the game to use more than 2gbs of memory.

How I did it: http://www.digitalperversion.net/ga...p?topic=21931.0

I have 7 gbs of custom content.

Also, the game can crash alright if you don't put the Sims-whatever.exe on the DEP list. Same applies to BodyShop.

Agreed, and instructions on how to do that are in the linked I posted above.

The game can also crash cause Windows hates you.

There's no such thing as too much CC! RAWR! :D

I'm a diagnosed CC downloading addict. At one point, I had so much my game would hardly run! I decided to take out anything I didn't NEED and start afresh, being much more selective about what I downloaded. I only install the most quality CC now, and it's cut down on the ammount tremendously.

Downloading and finding good custom content is so much fun. It's like shopping, but for free. c: Being pretty frugal in real life, I get the satisfaction of getting new things anytime I please without having to spend actual money. Yay, custom contentttt!

Well, I feel a lot better after reading this thread. I thought that my 787 MBs of CC was a lot.....but after seeing that several people have several GBs of CC has made me realize that I probably actually have a fairly low amount of CC!

Just the same, I have started to implenet some things to insure my CC doesn't get out of control. For example, I have a TON of Christmas CC. So once Christmas was over, I moved all the Christmas CC out of my downloads folder and into another folder elsewhere on my computer. That way it's not taking up unneccesary space in my downloads folder now, but is there if I want it again next Christmas!

I also occasionally make myself go through and purge some CC.

I try to keep both my TS2 and TS3 games' CC folders in the 2GB-3GB range.

COWARD! How dare you! It is imperative that you flood your hard drive with MOAR DOWNLOADS NAOW!

Seriously, the 2-3 gb range is probably safe for any machine, and especially laptops with their measly, anemic capacity. Again, strive for quality over quantity. Always ask yourself: "How often will I use this? before downloading.

And, as predicted, someone came in to give the correct answer to the useful utilities question..and without scolding.

Awesome. Just....awesome.

What others have said in this thread is all good-however, there is another point that must be made about CC-the older the CC, the more likely it is not to have been compressorized by the creator. This would possibly lead to a slower game.
Also, the polygon count in each object is a bone of contention-the larger the polygon size, the more space and hence, load time and running time it takes in the game.
So if you have 5 or 6 objects on one lot that have high polygon counts, it is more likely to slow down or even perhaps crash the game (although I doubt that..)
So in the end, you can probably have a lot of CC in the game (2-3 gigs worth, safely) but it should be modest in size and compressorized to make sure the game handles it well.
I have about 2 gigs worth of CC in my game-it only takes about 5-6 minutes to load.
It should be noted, though that the speed and memory capacity of your computer is very important in this subject-if your computer isn't processing the game fast, that might mean that you need to upgrade it. The more memory you have for the computer, the better it will run-although anything over 2 gigs is a bit of a waste. Also, if you have a lot of space left on your computer after all of your programs are in it helps a lot. I've got about 78% of my disk space still empty, so the game doesn't overload it.
I've run the game on older computers with very little memory and space, and now that I've got one with the maximum capacity, I've found that lots of CC will not cause too much lag. What a difference!

Well, I considered scolding but seeing as you'd already scolded yourself a little I didn't bother.

But since you brought it up, you are a lazy, disgusting, worthless, unhelpful waste of space and you should be ashamed of yourself :p

AGREED.

I think mine crashes because its hate my new laptop!!!
lol

Agree, unless you have told the game to use more than 2 gigs of memory. My game now uses more than 2 gigs, and I am telling you it runs like silky buttah.

I have 4 gigs of memory installed and plan on installing more down the road. But, the above advice is only applicable if you have 64-bit system. (Windows 7 or Vista) But more new systems are coming out with 64-bit installed standard. My 1-year old Compaq came with 64-bit Windows 7.

I have an older model E-Machine which is locked into 2 gigs-unfortunately. I'd upgrade to more if I could find a cheap machine that I could afford. Alas, at the moment, life is just a bit ragged on that end to even consider it.

Right, then, that's better.

I just hit 90,000 and still no lag when I play the game. Takes forever to load though. I think I'm going insane.