Looking for something useful

[liegenschonheit]

I was wondering if anyone knew of any programs that allow you to sift your downloads and erraticate any useless junk, like orphaned meshes and textures. I have been recommended DatGen before, but whenever I try to run the download maid it explodes in a firey ball of crap and is generally of no use at all. And as we all know, EA's download manager is complete garbage. I use Clean Installer to manage my downloads most of the time, but unfortunately it doesn't have the capacity to do what I want to do.

Any suggestions?

[JadeEliott]

There is no other program that I am aware of that does what you want. The best thing is to be organized in the first place, really.

[radiophonic]

None of the programs available for the task are very efficient. Just find the one you're happy with and stick with it.

Spending some time sorting does help quite a bit. When content is safe within separate directories, it's much faster to get rid of crap files since they'll only land in the root folder (aka Downloads). The only problem I have with using sub folders is checking for duplicates, you still need to parse the entire directory recursively to check for dupes. Fortunately, that small hassle stopped me from going on download binges and filling the game with useless crap.

[liegenschonheit]

My download folder is organized into about 20 subfolders. The problem is that I know some of those subfolders contain meshes that I am no longer using due to deleting CC in game or in bodyshop. I was hoping for a more efficient way of rooting them out.

[DMDye]

I don't think Sim File Maid2 is made for programs like DatGen... just for 'normal' TS2 downloads like houses, skins, objects and similar stuff.

Yes! I agree - it gets kind of frustrating, the amount of time (at least triple the download time) you spend cleaning your downloads with the: Clean Installer, Sim PE, and Jfade's Hack Cleaner! The funny thing, is they *all* find different things as dupicates!

After using all 3, my OFB seems to be surviving; so I won't knock them. I spend lots of time on my game (before play time) -  but it seems to be stable.
I installed OFB without removing *anything* (like CC) from my game. As I did the patch.

I will ask where to get DatGen, so I can post a more 'knowledgeable' opinion later.

[liegenschonheit]

The Download Maid is a tool in DatGen, and as far as I can tell it is completely useless.

[TaWanda]

I use the download maid mostly for identifying stuff with high poly counts, but it is real bad about bogging down if the folders are too big. So I just feed it little bits at a time and it works ok.

[Motoki]

I always try to keep a mesh and all it's associated textures in separate folders. It's a pain to do but it helps loads later on. Then instead of deleting something in the bodyshop, you can delete the whole folder.

Believe me I understand your pain, file management in this game is an absolute nightmare and there simply is no one single good tool for doing it. I'm suprised someone hasn't tried to come up with one yet and sell it. Given how willing this community is to shell out their money I be they'd make a bundle. Hell, I think even I would pay for a program that made sorting, deleting, organizing and viewing downloads simple and efficient.

[radiophonic]

Believe me I understand your pain, file management in this game is an absolute nightmare and there simply is no one single good tool for doing it. I'm suprised someone hasn't tried to come up with one yet and sell it. Given how willing this community is to shell out their money I be they'd make a bundle. Hell, I think even I would pay for a program that made sorting, deleting, organizing and viewing downloads simple and efficient.

Word. 

Datgen's File Maid was looking like a promising alternative until development of Datgen was halted.

[liegenschonheit]

Yeah, I would be willing to pay for a program that made sorting and cleaning up downloads less painful. The File Maid seemed like the answer to my "issues" when it promised to find orphaned files, but alas, no dice. I had some pretty painful issues with an existing unused mesh conflicting with a new download and had to spend a rediculous amount of time trying to find the right "orphaned" mesh.

I just want all that crap out of my game!

It does make perverse sense though, the file "maid" refusing to clean anything. I wonder what would have happened had it been a file "nanny".

[Ambular]

SimPe has a function under its Scan Folders menu that is supposed to identify orphan textures, but it flagged a bunch of stuff incorrectly for me, so I don't know...

[sara_dippity]

The way I deal with this is to install new downloads in the main folder, load the game and find them to see how they look in the game and decide then if I'm going to keep them forever or if i'll never use them. Then I browse with Clean installer, if I want to keep it I move it to the right folder. Anything left over is deleted.