Speed up your game by deleting world caches.

[Cyron]

Hi there,
i searched through this forum and found several posts, mentioning the deletion of the world caches for fixing bugs but today I found another benefit.
First of I like to say why I came up with this idea anyway. The framerate of my game dropped down dramatically since the first days. I encountered this especially with the old neighborhoods Sunset Valley and Riverview.
So I moved the two files Riverview_objects.package and Riverview_sims.package to the desktop and started the game. Wow, Riverview has never been so fast!
Then I tried the same with Sunset Valley but to my surprise there are no cache files of that town in (MyDocuments)\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\WorldCaches. I found it in C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Caches.
Sunset Valley had the most awful frame rates but now it runs like a charm! The cache file is now rebuilt at the same location where the others reside.
The only (temporary) drawback I found: it takes up to 10 seconds for the game to render details of a lot but that's only when it comes to vicinity the first time. I think this is logical because that's what the cache files have been holding.
After all I guess those caches gather a lot of crap over time which slows down the game.

Now I'd like to know Pescado's opinion about that. Is it safe to do what I have done?

P.S. Sorry for my bad english.

[Claeric]

Hm, I never noticed Sunset Valley doesnt have Caches with the rest. The WorldCaches folder seems to only work for secondary worlds, Sunset Valley is basically embedded in the game whereas any others are extra.

It only has Objectcache for me, though, no sim cache. But has it been the same cache since I restarted a Sunset Valley save? hmmmm

[Roux]

Anytime I load up SV, the compositorCache.package and simCompositorCache.package files (located in My Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3) balloon in size. If I delete them and play other worlds, those files never get larger than 1-2 KB. Once I noticed this, I inferred that SV was caching there.

I'm no Pescado, but it's worth mentioning that removing or altering stuff in Program Files often breaks installation of patches and EPs/SPs. I prefer keeping that massive file in place and deleting those two caches if I want/need to clear SV's cache. Interesting stuff, though.

[Cyron]

I keep the original cache file of Sunset Valley in a safe place until I'm sure it's OK to delete it. Maybe the setup routine of the next EP checks for all those files and refuses to install when it finds an incomplete file list. I don't know.

[J. M. Pescado]

You know what else speeds up your game? Installing it to a RAMdisk and putting your userdirectory there, too. No more HD use at all. Zoom!

[Cyron]

Great joke Mr. Pescado. 
Now seriously, what's your recommendation about those cache files?

[J. M. Pescado]

Great joke Mr. Pescado. 

That wasn't a joke. I really do have a 30+ GB RAMdisk, because Win32 can only use about 3 GBs of RAM, so the remaining pile of RAM I have installed is unusable except as a RAMdisk under Win32.

Now seriously, what's your recommendation about those cache files?

Unless they're broken, or corrupt, I'd leave them be, as deleting them will cause everything to have to be recalculated, which will result in invisible and white objects. However, nuking them won't harm your game and if they've become corrupted, nuking them may help. But I wouldn't make it a habit.

[Cyron]

Thank you J.M. 
I will do it only once in a while when I encounter massive drops in the framerate again.
I have also restored the original cache file of Sunset Valley because I don't know how the EP Setup will behave when the file is absent.

[wizard_merlin]

Thank you J.M. 
I will do it only once in a while when I encounter massive drops in the framerate again.
I have also restored the original cache file of Sunset Valley because I don't know how the EP Setup will behave when the file is absent.

What framerates are you talking about?  If your game is running in the hundreds, you'll probably fry your graphics card.  The game should be running no more than about 30fps, and the human eye can't really discern anything greater than that anyway.  Most movies are shot, and played between 25 and 30fps, depending what country and format you use.

[Claeric]

*60fps

the game only runs internally (whatever that means) at 30FPS but it looks a hell of a lot smoother at 60. I'm rather pissed I was told way back in december to cap it at 30, I've been missing out like crazy for months.

[Cyron]

I'm talking about 12fps and less, combined with lags of about 0.5 seconds.

[tizerist]

*60fps

the game only runs internally (whatever that means) at 30FPS but it looks a hell of a lot smoother at 60. I'm rather pissed I was told way back in december to cap it at 30, I've been missing out like crazy for months.

Hmm, just tested it, and I can officially confirm it looks better at 60. The counter says its hovering just under 30 still, but there is a zippier camera rotation.
Strange but true.

[Claeric]

I wonder if this is, therefore, uncommon knowledge.

All I know is the FPS limiter information has said for a looong while to cap it at 30. Curiosity had me try it at 60, and the game felt like I upgraded my damn computer. >:[

[ascarrott]

The game runs more smoother at 60fps and forcing on Vsync form the graphics card options stops it from running over 60fps (depending on your monitor refresh rate) and gets rid of the 100+ fps problem, that the fps limiter fixes and should prevent overheating.

[Claeric]

Forcing vsync from your control panel for your card, you mean? I will try that.

edit: forcing vsync makes my FPS wildly fluctuate from 9 to 150. FPS limiter is still better, it just needs to be capped at 60 instead of 30.

[J. M. Pescado]

Capping at 60 is meaningless: The game doesn't do things that many times per second, so there would be no information. Additionally, you can't actually *SEE* that fast.

[Claeric]

Well, for once, I am going to throw rocks at you up on your high horse, because you're full of shit this time. The game is markedly smoother at 60fps than at 30fps.

I'd say I'd take a video, but the in-game video function always outputs at the same FPS. my Sims 2 game ran at a horrible FPS but was smooth as butter in videos (of course, it took 20 minutes to film 5 minutes of gameplay...)

[Milhouse Trixibelle Saltfucker III]

Well, for once, I am going to throw rocks at you up on your high horse, because you're full of shit this time. The game is markedly smoother at 60fps than at 30fps.

It's probably your monitor, then.

[Cyron]

I'd like to go back to the topic because actually I have a question.
There is something odd: I have 3 copies of Sunset Valley, different town names, different Sims and different houses but they all share the same cache files! The same goes for third party worlds. Well, I wonder what kind of shit that is!
Especially with Sunset Valley I have to face the Error 12 so often that I don't even care to play it anymore! No problem with other towns. Is it in any way possible that this cache sharing causes this error?
I am going to test this. I moved the Sims and houses from the copies of Sunset Valley to different (well done) third party worlds, deleted the copies and I will see what happens.

EDIT (few hours later): Nope, I saved 3 times successful but the fourth one came up with Error 12 again. :-/

EDIT 2: Ambitions FTW! This Addon decrapified my Sunset Valley save about 20MB, it saves in seconds instead of 4 minutes now and no Error 12 anymore!