Long save time

[J. M. Pescado]

Try a test: Destroyallhumans, then see how long it takes to save with the neighborhood totally empty of all life.

[gilmar]

I can't use that test. I don't have awesome mod installed.
Maybe I'll try decrapifying or recompressing again.

[Neowulf]

Why DON'T you have awesomemod installed? It fixes a ton of EAxian errors, and has a bunch of extra uses to boot.

Also, I don't think compressing will help you at all with time, since it'll just require more time to decompress later.

[J. M. Pescado]

I am beginning to see where the problem might be coming from.

[Skadi]

Why DON'T you have awesomemod installed? It fixes a ton of EAxian errors, and has a bunch of extra uses to boot.

Also, I don't think compressing will help you at all with time, since it'll just require more time to decompress later.

You do realise that some people might use twallan-ware or even play vanilla? Not everyone uses AM.

I am hoping Pescado has stomped out this behaviour in AM, EA are uniquely able to bork their games in new and interesting ways.

[Jeebus]

Why DON'T you have awesomemod installed? It fixes a ton of EAxian errors, and has a bunch of extra uses to boot.

Also, I don't think compressing will help you at all with time, since it'll just require more time to decompress later.

You do realise that some people might use twallan-ware or even play vanilla? Not everyone uses AM.

Yes, but these people are clearly sick and need to see a doctor.

[Neowulf]

You do realise that some people might use twallan-ware or even play vanilla? Not everyone uses AM.

I am hoping Pescado has stomped out this behaviour in AM, EA are uniquely able to bork their games in new and interesting ways.

I use both twallan-ware and awesome, and don't see why others would be unwilling to add awesome. I suppose there are some that would WANT to play vanilla, but it's not entirely practical. Most of the extra features of awesome are configurable, and basic gameplay is essentially the same with or without awesome.

[gilmar]

I don't normally install mods in my games, just CC. I like to go vanilla. But I might give it a try to test the destroyallhumans cheat.

[Neowulf]

You might also like to try "clearmemories" to help a little with the bloat.

[J. M. Pescado]

I don't normally install mods in my games, just CC. I like to go vanilla. But I might give it a try to test the destroyallhumans cheat.

I normally see things that way, too, but there are several key differences here: Vanilla is broken and sucks. Just read the list of "fixed bugs" and you will see what I mean.

AwesomeMod, however, can be configured to run pretty close to vanilla, except for mostly fairly inobtrusive fixes, stuff people thought was always there, until they take it out.

[Lord Darcy]

You may also try using IngePE to destroy all of the SNAPs, but that part is untested.

I've been doing it for a while without any problem. The game just generates Sims' thumbnails the next time you click on the relationship panel.

I'm curious about IMGs in the save files. They look suspiciously like some kind of img caches to me, like the ones found in the cache files.

[J. M. Pescado]

I believe they're an image cache also, but I recall when I attempted mass extermination on them, the result was that the game did not rebuild them fast enough and defaulted to the base-world's image caches, which worked really badly if you had altered those lots.

[gilmar]

Okay.
I've run the test destroyallhumans twice. About 100 to 200 plus sims were killed. Unfortunately the vacant houses were immediately filled by sims from nowhere. It still took 1.5 hours to save. The safe file size decreased to about 276 Mb.
I also ran the clearmemories before I killed everyone but somehow when I looked back at my sims scrapbook, the memories were still there.

[J. M. Pescado]

Your own memories aren't cleared. If you want to clear EVERYTHING, do "clearmemories all". And something is deeply, deeply wrong with your game if, after emptying the entire neighborhood, there's still 200+ MBs of cruft in there.

[gilmar]

Okay. What should I do next? I haven't go rid of the ghosts yet

[wizard_merlin]

Have you tried a fresh game to see when the bloat occurs?  If it is occurring with the first save of a fresh game, I would suggest a serious issue within your game or CC, you could also start a fresh game with no CC and see what happens when you save.

[GnatGoSplat]

Twallan's Porter is probably your only hope, assuming you want to save most of the residents and their relationships.
It fixed my 2009-era bloated save.

[gilmar]

Okay. How about the relationship of my sims with their dead ones? Will they lose the relationship if I transport the cemetry and the sims to a new Sunset Valley?

[Neowulf]

I'd assume if you "Manage the Dead" on the Mausoleum, and add the dead sims to the inventories of their family members, you can bring them with you. I don't know if the Porter will keep the graveyard as it is. I've never really tried using it like that before.

[BlueSoup]

Are you sure it's the save time, and not the quit time? I've had no problem saving, but quitting takes forever, if I don't shut it down myself manually first.

[J. M. Pescado]

The game loves to inexplicably take interminably long to quit, yes. I have long since given up on relying on it to actually end on its own, and just use my CRTL-ALT-F4 YOU DIE NAO shortcut.

[BlueSoup]

This is new though. It's never taken quite this long, we're talking over 10 minutes (I just force it after that).

[gilmar]

Are you sure it's the save time, and not the quit time? I've had no problem saving, but quitting takes forever, if I don't shut it down myself manually first.

Yes, I think it's the save time, I've save as before and it's taken that long.

Edit :
Okay, I managed to export my families to a new Sunset Valley neighbourhood with the graves in their inventories. Saved a couple of times without much play in the daily lives of my sims. Was revamping the neighbourhood. Took about a 2.5 mins to load,  about a min to save & quit. And 30 secs + to save in the middle of the game.

The files as they stand now are roughly
Sunset Valley_0x0859db3c.nhd  22.8 Mb
Sunset Valley_0x0859db3cExportDB.package  131 Kb
TravelDB.package  2.85 Mb

I haven't travelled so far. Are the sizes okay?

P.S : I also tried to upgrade my ram to 4g but my comp refused to recognize it, so I guess I'll be stuck on 3g.