More Awesome Than You!

Why do we do this to ourselves?  Why is it we end up downloading so much stuff that our games will barely chug along, then have to get rid of 90% of it to play?  AARRGGHHH!!!  I've been at this for something like five hours now, and there's no use saying a word here at home because no one would understand.

And does anyone besides me have something like 40 different bathroom sets, but never in the right price range?  Like the cheap sink, expensive toilet, expensive shower match, but there's no cheap toilet or cheap sink or even a tub, and there's no expensive sink for later upgrades.

I really thought at first it was going to be so much easier keeping track of objects with the way they're set up in TS2.  I've found it's a lot harder for me.  In TS1 I could find everything I was seeking at a glance.  In TS2 I have to dig and dig and dig to find the matching objects and even making categories don't always work because it would take something like 100 of them in order to get things right.

Yep, I know what you mean about download folders... I've got to go through mine, and try and organize, and get rid of some. If not, I may very well end up starting over again, with a fresh game. We will see... I doubt it, but we'll see. I'd hate to loose all my downloads. =(

I feel your pain. For weeks now I haven't really played the game because of the loading time. When I first installed it, I waited maybe 20 seconds to play. Now sometimes it taked 40 minutes! I spend much of my free time perusing sites for new downloads. It's insane. What's the point of having thousands of d/l's for the game if I can't really play it?

I need an intervention. (Plus a new motherboard so I can add more RAM). :P

Probably need to form some sort of support group for downloading Sims 2 goodies. Even got DSL to feed my addiction. Now I am getting extremely "picky" about what I download. Wish sometimes the price of the item was available because I download and then see the item in the game and can't afford to buy it.  Solved that problem by creating cheating and non-cheating neighborhoods in order to use some of the higher end items. Sigh, I'll still be downloading again tomorrow, and the day after that, and...

I don't mind some of the more expensive stuff because with Uni it's just too easy for my sims to get rich, and with my computer I don't dare build large houses, let alone clutter them up with a lot of objects because everything just gets so stinkin' slow.  Of course because it all gets so slow I get real lazy about buying new stuff for my poor simmies.

I think it's easier just to blow out everything in the game and start fresh.  I have back-ups of everything I downloaded.  Unfortunately that also includes the content I no longer really want so I can't just stick it all blindly back into the game, but probably can at least sort through and find most of what I do want to put back in.  :P

Maybe you should restrict yourself to only downloading from MATY, and deleting all of your custom content that you are not actually using. Remember, a sim can only wear one hair, and one uniform of a type. Unless you have a few thousand sims, you definitely do not need hundreds of hairs and uniforms! Stuff the unused ones away, they don't need to be loaded just to take up space.

Actually, I have only been downloading from MATY for about three months now!  ;D  I don't download objects often and only have a handful of sites I visit about every couple of months or so.  Hair styles are one of the easiest things for me to resist.  At first I was downloading quite a bit more, but then when I got to seeing how they really look on my sims I quit getting so many.  Indeed, sims can only wear one hairstyle--at a time. ;)

I also go through periodically and delete objects and textures in-game and delete unnecessary genetics, makeup and clothes through BodyShop (I got rid of all custom eyes and skintones a long time ago).  I've been keeping my entire DL folder's content to under a gig--right now it's at 442 megs, but I do have to put at least some clothes and hair back in.  And yes, my sims do wear those clothes and the hairstyles--my opinion of most of the in-game clothing is that they're disgusting.  :-\

My new rule is this. Once I get to the point where it takes more than five minutes to open my game, I will start a new Main Downloads Folder and put the new stuff in there to be used with a new hood. Having so many dls you can't play is not smart I found...but having another hood to rotate to that has all new stuff works.

I would DL stuff that fits into different hoods by type, like victorian stuff in one DLs folder for that type hood, but I do not do themed hoods. So it is just based on when each hood reaches it's custom content limit...add another hood with appropriate DLs folder.

That should help. :-)

Thanks Jade, that's a good idea. :)

Jade, it seems we think alike. :D

I have a whole bunch of different game sets (usually with just one neighborhood each), and each has its own custom content. There is some stuff that I want in each neighborhood (some of Helaene's makeup, etc), but mostly it's all individual. I have LOTS of "themed" neighborhoods, so this makes sense for me. Why have a bunch of Victorian-era dresses in a futuristic-themed neighborhood? Actually, it's my alien neighborhood that caused me to start doing this. Once I started it, I quickly realized it was really annoying scrolling past through stuff that I would never use in that neighborhood.

By doing this I have so far managed to stay under 10,000 files for each neighborhood (in many cases it's much, much less). The most I'm willing to wait for the game to load is around 5 minutes. If it creeps toward 6, I start culling. Most of my neighborhoods load in under 3 minutes right now... but this is after a bit of cleaning over the past few weeks.

I actually don't care much about objects. I can play with just Maxis objects and only a few recolors for the objects that otherwise just don't fit anywhere (like that stupid toilet stall that comes only in that hideous green). But I can't stand not having choice for makeup and hair, walls and floors, and to a lesser extent glasses and accessories. So that's what I have the most of.

My extremely UN-organised downloads folder has 429 MB.  There is no order or subfolders, index or system, it is just one big sloppy mess which I may sort out when hell freezes over.  I got to the point where my game took a cigarette and a coffee to load, was quite choppy and nasty me blamed all the downloads.  Then I got a new virus thingamajiggy, (thank you neighbor), which found a contaminated file, deleted that and everything has sped up beautifully.   

In my case, it's coming out of the game that takes forever with my downloads folder in, whereas with it out it's instantly back to my desktop. 

I do have a couple of questions relating to custom content that nobody seems able to answer.  First, if I delete a custom hairstyle or clothing item, will the mesh automatically be deleted and secondly, if I download a full Sim and use that Sim to make a character in the game, can I then delete that Sim from BodyShop, or will doing so mean the Sim will change totally within the game?

Deleting a custom hairstyle or piece of clothing that uses a special mesh in-game or through bodyshop will not delete the mesh. You will have to hunt it down yourself to delete it.

Sims in the bodyshop/CAS sim bin can be safely deleted once a sim is made from them. Once the sim is made and in the neighborhood sim bin or a house they don't use any data from the CAS sim bin sim. I've done it many times myself.

Here's an irritatingly smug suggestion.  I test anything I put in the game without all my other Downloads in.  If I DL a set of something (and like a lot of people I don't DL much nowadays), I make a collection of the set while I'm testing it.  That way I can find the parts of the set easily when I want them again.

That's like telling a woman she doesn't really need a closet full of clothes, she can easily do with pne dress and a good set of clothes for church on Sunday :D

What I do to feed my addiction is to have a separate download folders when I store everything I download.  Only some of it goes into my game.  I have the rest there "just in case"  Typical pack rat reasoning :)  Funny because I am not like that in RL.  I've long ago learned not to buy anything just for the heck of it.  It just turns into clutter.

I've considered doing just what you proposed JM.  Removing what I am not using.  The problem is a bit catch 22.  Since the game takes 5+ minutes to load, who wants to shut it down in order to put something back in the game.  So you have everything at hand in case you need it.  I wish that TS2 would let you add content on the fly, like a sort of file open type of thing.

The problem for me is that part of my enjoyment is constantly fiddling with the decor.  Adding this, adding that, changing the wallpaper.  I find that I tend to favor playing houses that are well decorated. 

As for clothes, well there are so many categories : toddler, child, teen, young adult, adult elder.  Then you have undies, swim, casual (top, bottom, full) , formal,  sleep.  That's 40 different categories.  So if even if you restrict yourself to few choices which is hard to do, it can easily add up to monstrous amount of files.

Which reminds me I am due for a culling :)

BTW, Loverat on MTS2 has created a collection of icons for use in collections.  I don't know if there are 100, but there were a LOT

You can. The ones that can't are stupid and just need a bit of smacking. :P

The definition of "not using" kinda precludes "putting it back".

Considering that many of these categories of clothes are items you will basically never see, you don't need to get fancy uniforms in every category. Sims basically never use their underwear except for woohoo, don't swim all that much because it provides very little benefit, and the only thing they do with "sleep" is, well, "sleep". This is very boring and not at all worth paying much attention to.

Spoken like a true man!!  :P

Oh I forgot to mention a little trick I use when i want to "store" some items without necessirely removing them entirely.  I zip the items and leave it in my download folder.  This way the game won't load the items, but the zip serves as a visible reminder that it's avalaible.

PS.  JM are you trying to tell me that 66 different bikinis for adult females is too much ? :D  Ok maybe you got a point lol

I've always been financially disadvantaged and addicted to catalogues.  Downloading stuff for the Sims is like living out that compulsion in the lowest cost way possible (excepting identity theft).  Last night I realized that Sunair's content is like freaking Ikea/the Gap for sims.  I'm the least fussy person in the world and my sims are fashion plates (well, by my standards which is not a Miss America ideal of blowsy haired, overly made-up beauty).

I'm fortunate, though.  These days I keep my neighborhoods underpopulated and my households smallish.  I periodically do a quick sweep to eradicate the dead weight to make room for something new I just have to have.  Even though my initial load time is about 15 minutes (before I organized my downloads folder)  I can usually find something to occupy my time- like reading or Sudoku. 

I have 1.67 GB of sims downloads in my folder. That is way down from a few months ago when I decided to take measures and deleted most of what I never use. I also have my folder compressed. It seems to make a difference.

My game loads ultra-fast though. I have no problems there. But for now I do not need any more hair or clothing or anything else for that matter. Only critical fixes from MATY and such.

Usually when I am unhappy with my downloads status, I just remove my downloads folder, archive it on my slave drive for reference, then start a new neighborhood with a clean slate (except for critical fixes). That way whenever a hack, etc pops out at me as something I need I get it from my archived downloads folder. Works rather well I think anyway. :)

Before: 4.63GB, 9793 items
After: 767 MB, 1922 items

I always download far too much and then forget to delete the cruft.

If it takes you 15 mins to load the game, how does ure game run after? do you lag alot while playing? I've never had as many downloads as that on any comp Ive played and even tho it takes me like 2-3 mins to load, bigger lots that I load to play can get quite laggy.

I wouldn't mind keeping only the stuff I actually have in play and getting rid of the rest. I wish there was a way to see what's being used or not, though, while out of the game. I'm tired of blindly deleting badly named files and going into the game to find every female walkby is now bald and wearing the same burgundy shirt/capris outfit.  :P

We need a program like the "whatused" one for Sims 1.  Told you every item being used in each neighborhood, then you could make .far files of it all and name them after the negihborhood.  Decide which neighborhood you wanted to play and put in the right download file.  And yes, I even had a sheet of paper for each neighborhood with a chart of which families lived in which lot... With everything in the game at the same time, it took 45 minutes to load; and that was minimized!  There is no way I can even begin to say that I am not a downloadaholic...

I just reorganized my downloads folder and it took about 7 minutes to load.  In game, depending on lot size, it takes about 3 minutes to load a lot and there are lags whenever something/one comes onto the lot, but nothing extreme or intolerable.  Huge lots take longer to load and are sometimes annoying to navigate if they're packed with detail.  When I play the Goth house, for example, I have to delete the fence running the perimeter of the yard because it slows my game to a crawl (actually, any house with lots of fencing is problematic).  After that, I have no problems. 

My god... I still wonder how can someone wait 7 minutes before a lot loads!

It is taking me less than a minute even for big houses like the Goth.

I did had tons of stuck awhile ago and delete it all when it started to take 2 min. to load big lots.

You are very patient...

I agree with JM, there is so many combination we can do in game I see no use in adding tons of custom stuff in the game.  After all, a toilet is a a toilet and hair is hair and make-up is make-up.  For me performance is way more important than having 100 choices of color bed sheets.

Yes, I cured myself.... do you want the address of my Sim shrink, she does wonders as you can see  ;D

I regularly clean out my downloads of stuff I never use. Even though I'm a creator myself, I often end up using Maxis items, anyway. I'm so picky about custom objects that I rarely end up playing with them for long (you know, the shadow doesn't match the object -> gone). Most of my own objects I never use, either  :D. Only some good ones end up having a long life in my game. Being extra critical helps you keep the downloads folder slim.

Hi. My name is MutantBunny and I have EDD.

I only worry about it all before each new Ep. With each Ep I start thinking about load times and then I'm driven to go thru and get rid of those things I don't use much or don''t really like anymore.

It would certainly be MUCH easier if the delete function in game worked more efficeintly. That constant back to the beginining gets old fast and then there is just the length of time for each delete. I wish someone would hack that and make it better! Or if we had an item and object browser stand alone program -- that would be great.

Since NL, now that we can at least use sub folders, it's easier for me. Since most creators put their initials at the beginning of a file name that makes it easy to sort items. For instance, I have a folder named Objects and within that folder I have Sunair, Windkeeper, DH, etc. I tried doing it on type of item (doors, couches) but that didn't work good enough. Also, now I know the items well enough I can pretty much ID who made them. Still, that doesn't help me decide what to keep and what to throw. If we had a stand alone item viewer that allowed for 3d viewing.....

Um...err...well I would love to agree with that, but I can't since I stole most of my ideas from you, to be frank. :-)

I read a post you wrote in another downloading thread some months back where you gave detail on how you set up your DLs folder and I used that for inspiration.

Great minds think alike, others steal like crazy. *snort*

LOL

Well then, I'm glad that post was useful!

I think I have been remarkably restrained in my downloading recently.

I had a great purge of stuff I don't use, and so I wasn't tempted to put it back in, I deleted it.  Yeah, really actually gone.  I pruned down from 6.4GB to 1.7GB, and boy I was proud of myself.  My game went from 45 minute load time to 31/2 minute load time.

Of course I am a severe EDD sufferer and have to confess that just a week after my great purge my Downloads folder has somehow crept back up to 2.3GB, it's not me I swear, pixies do it while I sleep!

And it had nothing to do with my tempting you with male clothes the other day, either.  ;D

Nope, I'm sure the 40-odd new shirts and jeans and and hot undies I downloaded have nothing to do with it at all.  ;D

I managed to clear out a good chunk of downloads, but I added in a whole bunch new of stuff thanks to the "male hair" thread on this forum. I'm hopeless.  But my sims look great !  :D

And IgnorantBliss fattened my dl folder a little more. Its seems you like the same creators and objects I do. Of course you even had a few I have never seen before and the dl folder got even bigger.

It is a compulsion for me, I hate to shop and I hate to spend money, but when it comes to the sims I really enjoy building and decorating houses so I need scads of stuff to do that, otherwise after thirty houses, too much starts to look alike. I do need to do a cull this weekend though, I am almost up to 2.7gb. The thing that stops me from doing it is it really doesnt take all that long to load, at least not compared to my frustration when I want to decorate a house in something different from the last 5 or 6...

You know, I always thought my game took a heck of a long time to load, but it only ever took ten minutes from when I started it to when I was actually in a neighborhood. I can't imagine how crazy I'd be if it took 45 minutes!

There was something I've been meaning to try, but haven't gotten around to yet. 

Step 1: package every house I am using, therefore hopefully including all the items used in the house.
Step 2: Remove the download folder.
Step 2: extract the content of the package house file and place the files back in the download folder.

I know this won't work for meshes, but you can always track them down one by one.


It's called including a jpg with every item.  It's time consuming but so worth it :)

I've thought about doing that same exact thing!

Hmmmm,,  I've thought about this and came to the conclusion I need MORE downloads.  I obviously don't have enough as my game still loads in half a cigarette. 

*Off to find more downloads*

Let me know if it works :D

I was hoping you'd let me know!

Here's an idea, remove all the custom content which is not made by you or anyone at MATY when you install a new expansion.  Then, download your crap.  You'll find your download folder being quite a bit lighter, since you probably won't download stuff that you got in a TSR shopping spree that you never saw since the day you installed it.

Simply, you don't need 50 outfits for every sim.  Plus, there's a bunch included in the expansions.  Keep a few that you like, but you might want to go through the game periodically to get rid of the ones you don't use.  Also, don't use download managers such as QExpress or Sims2Pack to install anything other than houses.  These add stuff with garbled names which make it even harder to remove sims or clothing without entering the program.  Also, they might add unwanted content and a sim file which you will probably never use unless you downloaded a MATY animal or something.

Skins take up quite a bit of space, but meshes take up more.  If you're not using any of the meshes in your folder, toss them.  As a look at my DL folder right now, I've got 2 that are about 700K in size.  That's about 2% of my downloads folder currently, and I know how many people download tons of those.

My downloads folder?  It's 97MB and my game loads in about 5 seconds.  However, it may be because my computer is fairly recent and has 1GB of ram.

MisterPaper (oh I don't know why but I am loving your name lol)

It's definately the size of your downloads folder :)  My system has been totally overhauled in the last three months (New mobo, new CPU (twice), new PSU, More RAM, new graphics, in fact everything except the case and drives) and I have 1GB of RAM, and a 3.3GHz CPU, and my downloads folder is currently at 2.42GB (I know it's increased again, I SWEAR I didn't do it *looks shifty*) My game's not so bad now, takes maybe 5 or 6 minutes to load, perfectly acceptable from my point of view.

GAAAH. 5 or 6 MINUTES to load? You have any idea how often I have to exit and restart my game while making something? :P

All Jorennes Suck!

JM, I would figure that if I had to exit and re-load my game for making something I'd take all my DLs out while doing that.

I don't know for sure how long it takes my game to load because I don't sit here and wait on it but it's not more than five or six minutes.

At any rate, I've spent a good part of the last three days going through so far all of my BodyShop content and grabbing screenshots from a dozen or so websites to add to the archives.  This was a great help because as I went through I also deleted scads of files that I'd decided sometime back I was tired of seeing in my game.  Everything was going really, really great until I went to Mermaid Cove to get some screenshots from there.  That's when I saw all of the absolutely awesome clothes my simmies have been begging for something like forever!  The great thing about Hairfish is that most of her clothes use in-game meshes, which goes along with one of my rules.  Basically, these are my rules for downloading for TS2:

#1.  Don't download excesses of clothes that use custom meshes.  If it's one mesh that five or six outfits can use, then fine.  If it's a couple of wedding dresses then fine.  Otherwise, forget it.  Also, don't download from any one site more than one outfit over a half-meg in file size.

#2.  Don't download custom eye colors or skin colors because the game sets customs as dominant, so you can have a Nordic blonde blue-eyed sim and a dark-haired brown-eyed sim end up with a Nordic blonde blue-eyed sim which is completely ridiculous.

#3.  Be careful with hair and meshes.  Some files aren't too huge but many are.  Also, keep toddler hairstyles to a minimum because the toddler stage is only 3-4 sim days and they clog the game with unnecessary hairstyles for later ages.  (I have to admit, I couldn't resist a set of most awesome dreadlocks.)

#4.  Kid clothes often work for both genders.  It's good to have a nice variety and you're always going to run into a few things that will be in your game from day one until the next-gen game comes out, which is fine, but it's just too easy to clog the game with kids' clothes.  Don't download kids' underwear.  They wear clothes in the daytime and sleep in their jammies.  Shoot, I don't even know IF my sim kids wear undies!

#5.  Never subscribe to any pay sites!  There's already too much custom content available for free, and the talented people willing to give it for free more than deserve a donation or two from me!

#6.  Be extremely picky about quality.  If it looks bad in the screenshot it probably looks worse in the game.  Even if it looks halfway decent in the screenshot it still may be hopeless.  However, if it's on Dincer Hepguler's site, go on a downloading rampage because it'll both look and function absolutely beautifully!

#7.  Don't put sims into your game unless it's into empty Downloads and SavedSims folders.  Then check in BodyShop and see exactly what's there because no one needs 347 shades of blue lipstick or pink eyeshadow.

As I said, these are just some of my rules.  A few I started out with, then have been adding more as I go along.

I still haven't decided exactly how I'm going to set up my new folder structure yet.  I still have a few more hairstyles to track down yet and a few articles of clothing.  I figure it's not as important with the objects because I've found it's pretty easy to delete them in-game.  (The design tool is a huge help for deleting textures, then the mesh can be deleted in the main buy screen.)  Hmmm.  Upon thinking about it for a half-minute or so, I think I'd best go snag screenshots for that stuff, too.  Otherwise I won't have any clue what I'm putting back into my game and I'll end up with everything I'd already removed.

Who is that, and what is their site?  (Man, I'm hopeless, but I don't care  :P)

Ahh yes, see as Misty pointed out, when making something I move my downloads folder out of the game, zip zip, speedy loading.

The problem with so many of these downloading "rules" is they don't fit my playing style at all.

I can't swap in and out folders according to themed hoods, because I only play one hood.

I play with aging off, so keeping toddlers clothes down while possible, is less accurate.  My toddlers are toddlers for four real-time months, my children are children for eight real-time months.

I have 92 residential lots, incuding multi-family lots such as apartments and duplexes, and as someone said before, it gets so tedious decorating essentially the same five times or more.

I have somewhere close to 365 playable sims, so to get a varied look across the 'hood, that's a lot of clothes/hair (even taking one outfit for each sim for each clothing type)

Dude, you don't kno who Dincer Hepguler is? He's been around like foreeeeeeeeeever. He made a bunch of objects for sims1, and most of his sims2 objects are remakes of those (which is totally fine, as they were pretty nifty). His site is here (http://moonsims.asi.org/dh-sims-site/). I think he also has some stuff on TSR that's not the same as what's at his site, but I'm not entirely sure.

ETA: found it: http://www.thesimsresource.com/profiles/view.php?mid=380800

3 minutes to load, I timed it today.  *Off to find yet more downloads*

Oh and Eaglezero; I think I love you...(Refer to post Sims1 for Sims2) ;)

What's funny is that in the Sims1 for Sims2 thread I didn't even THINK of Dincer, even though I have almost all his objects in my game. *headdesk* I'm so slow sometimes. Still, glad to have been of help.

Hmmm My Download folder is currently 1.88 Gigabytes in size and my neighborhood loads in about 90 seconds the game it self takes 2 minutes to load. as I am currently on a building spree and not playing my sims at all :o I have noticed actual lot loading time varies from 30 seconds for my smallest lot whish houses my city maintenance yard to 90 seconds for my largest lot which houses a movie theater,butcher shop,grocery store and a mini department store.
  My goal in my hood is to build a realistic city and I am progressing nicely  with my goal.I have an H&R Block currently under construction and just finished my sim Depot store and Harrods department store and a fine wine store. I also have a french bakery under costruction. a museum,police station,fire station and hospital have been placed.
 I have also put in a chinese restaurant,gas station,and resort type spa's I owe a great deal of thanks to retail sims,Sims connection and MTS2 for the Items needed for this project. in the planning stage is a bike shop,beauty salon,occult and crystal store,the IRS, a biker bar ,a bordello,a candy shop,music store , a farmers market , Hawai beach party bar and a carnival.I am unable to find 2 sims how ever that I desperately need to complete my city  A bag lady and a wino. I have the druggie who will be a townie I just need the wino and Bag lady for townies

Dincer's stuff is gorgeous, but some of the poly counts are astronomical....

OH! I know where you can get that : http://www.sussissogoodsims2.com/Fxmakeup.html

Sussis is working on a Dickens theme, so she has all sort of (what I assume is) costume makeup.  She has a wino (veins on the face and a reddened nose), dark shadows under the eyes, sores, scars ect.

Also there is a bunch of special characters at MTS2, hooker, drug addict, ect.  I can't remember the creator but I could track it down.  Did you see his stuff?

I f you have the link I would appreciate it as my search has turned up nothing

It's hilarious how threads about slow loading due to too much crap usually leads to exchanging links to sites that have crap.

Try these guys. They should be right up your alley, so to speak. ;)

Baglady (http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=85718)

Pete the Perv (http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=86033)

No that's not it, although those are good.  There was someone else who produced a whole series of ho's.  He also created a trashed dorm house and a trashed trailer.  Just can't remember who he is

EDIT ok ok got it got it  :  http://www.modthesims2.com/member.php?u=8833

And Bangelnuts, why don't you post a pic.  Inquiring minds want to know


Haha that's so true.  But then we wouldn't make posts about slow loading if we weren't all download ho's would we ? :)

I said it before and I'll say it again.  We need an intervention!

That is the funniest thing I have read in ages. Snorted milk outta my nose.

Of My hideous wino? orr my town?

Both really, I'm interested

I just got to this thread and I must be a target for balls of fire. I have a 7.89 GB Downloads folder, and the game takes half an hour to load, it's much faster since I added RAM, before it was an hour. So I get pretty frustrated if something goes wrong and crashes mid-game :D Most of the time I do housework or make dinner when I'm waiting for the danged thing to load. Lot-loading is also faster than before, about 2minutes and I don't hog up my community lots with lots of objects, so the slowing is down to a more tolerable state during gameplay downtown :)

 I think the major slowing down is from the 30,000 recolors I've downloaded since day 1 of bodyshop (before the game came out). Or the 5000 new mesh items. I'm going to sort it all out while I'm waiting for Business EP to come to my country, and a very good thing, seeing I'll probably have to wait for Pescado's hacks to be updated for the EP, which I wouldn't play the game at all without. So the cleaning up will keep me sane as my anticipation rises for the game, and will make more space for new EP-related downloads :D

I'm hopeless.

Here's the link directly to Dincer's site (http://moonsims.asi.org/dh-sims-site/sims2index.html).  Oh yes--he's been my absolute favorite since early in my TS1 days.  And yep, some of his stuff is high-poly or whatever, but not all of it is.  Not only does he make absolutely the most gorgeous period furnishings, but he does awesome modern work too.  Since I don't download for TS2 like I did for TS1 it took me until just a few months ago to even figure out he was doing TS2 stuff.  He also makes a quality of wall- and floor-coverings that I've never been able to find anywhere else.  He may not have tons of them, but with his stuff you don't need quantity so much.  I'll probably end up using his stuff mainly in smaller houses that can handle the extra load.  I tend to decorate my more rambling houses with more modern-style furnishings.

Basically, I figured when I first started TS2 it would take a while for objects to be able to be made and when the first textures were downloaded I figured that as time went on my earlier textures would ultimately be replaced by better stuff later on.

Jorenne I totally understand what you're saying, and I know there's no way a lot of people can use the same rules I use for downloads.  Everyone has their own playing style.  Frankly I admire your tenacity to be able to play a neighborhood like that.  If I have more than about a half-dozen families in play I'm going absolutely nuts!

HALF AN HOUR!!!!    You must have the patience of a saint, I would rather talk to my mother in law than wait that long.

Still love ya Eaglezero.  I went to Dincers last night and had a great time.  He rocks. ;D

                                                 MORE PLEASE

Blubug, I've noticed new meshes seem to cause a much bigger hit to the loading time than recolours.

So much for my gung-ho- duzn't matta attitude.  My game died in the arse tonight after I installed *DRUMROLL* YES; another download.  So as I'm not a computer wiz, I figured it would be best to uninstall and reinstall, but I forgot about the hundreds of D/L's.  lThis is gunna take soooooo long.   :'(

Yes, I know but I check each and every one in simpe as I download for poly counts and check file sizes, so I would be in a much worse state if I didn't. THAT's why I don't have any of Dincer's stuff, although I'd love to. For one high poly Dincer-made  bed (in game) I can probably put in a house 10 low poly beds in equal quality due to low poly meshing and high quality texturing. but I don't put in 10 beds, so my game runs faster.

Call me crazy, but I'm happy with this. A few years back my computer was very outdated and just playing The sims 1 with all EP's and a gazillion downloads- the game loaded in 4 hours! I started it before I went to bed then played in the mornings until it crashed! I'm happy to say my sense of control has developed greatly in the downloading area in the past 3 years. And any game loading time under 10 minutes amazes me! :D

Why are you reinstalling the game if you suspect the problem is with a download?  There are really very few instances where reinstalling the game is necessary.  The game files themselves do not really change very much with game play, as all the changes are concentrated in the data files (in your document folder)

Oh thank you for that dincers link.  His stuff is pretty darn neat.  And i was having trouble finding victorian furniture


Edit :  Ouch, he's not stingy with those vertices is he.  almost 9000 for a simple side table?

I really loved dincer's  lightwood set for sims 1, and downloaded it right after I found it for sims 2.  that was right about the time that Motoki was starting the polygon awareness.  I had noticed the slowdown and everything and started checking.  It all had to go.... much faster now, and I'm more careful now about meshes.

Ugh! I'm really trying to clear out my folder and now I see more stuff that I MUST have.

(But, thanks, the stuff does look great.)

Same here, but the stuff is soooo gorgeous. I've actually been thinking about starting a new hood just so I can use some of his stuff without killing my game.

I guess it's just me, but his stuff really didn't float my boat that much.  I saw maybe only one thing I liked, and even then not enough to download it.

I might have liked it more with TS1, not so much now.

Custom mesh objects don't really appeal to me too much.  Maybe it's because I really didn't find any of them that are low-poly that look that good or the fact that they still use the same animations.  I wasn't too crazy about recolors either, maybe I've just become more accepting of Maxis stuff than I was in TS1.

A 8GB download folder?  Wow, I wonder what the limit is on the size of the downloads folder.  I believe in TS1 you couldn't get even half that size in the entire Sims folder.

I spend my vacations visiting old cemetaries and victorian mansions. I am hooked on "old and elaborate" , so the DH stuff  really appeals to me (the cabinets full of THINGS make me drool). My kids think I'm nuts :D

As a bonafide virgin when it comes to all technical aspects of Sims2 , I figured it would be easier to reinstall.  No great loss.  The game was crashing upon loading and even when I did delete the download that I thought was suss, it still wouldn't load.  So out with the old and in with the new.  At least I can be a bit more choosy with the customs I reinstall. 

Alright but even virgins need to learn a little technique at one point :D

If you want to just start over, all you have to do is rename your The Sims 2 folder to something else.  Next time you fire up the game, it will create a brand spanking new game.  If it's still crashing, then it's time to pull out your pile o' cd's.

Well pop my cherry.  Thanks Angelyne.  You may not believe this but I joined this forum to learn a little technique; after 131 posts and 3 promotions I finally have. Mind you; the refresher course in sarcasm and witty comments hasn't hurt. LOL

"Downloading Ho".  Yep, I resemble that remark.   ::)

My downloads folder is currently 1.16 GB (1,250,386,162 bytes), 4746 files.  I'm going to work on cleaning it out a little.  It takes about 10 minutes for the game to load, and about 2-5 for a lot.  But, we're upgrading the RAM from 512 mb to 1 gig, so we'll see if that helps.  

My theory on my own downloading addiction:  It's a direct result of being a materialistic child of the 80's.  We have to have it all. The best, the shiniest.  Especially we females, were taught that we need a wardrobe that looked like a fashion show, and a shoe collection that rivaled Imelda Marcos' (mispelled).  Buttt, how many of us actually have that?  Not I.  I can download all the things I fantazise about for free online and enjoy them through my Sims.  I'd be curious to see what everyone downloads, because I'd bet that all of them are things that we wish for in real life.  For example:  I recently noticed that most of my sims have long hair.  I have about 50 different longer styles, all based on Brianna's longer mesh, the Jenette Biderman Mesh, and a couple from Pronupsims.net.  I just recently chopped my own RL hair off because it just won't grow past my shoulders.  :(  I have always wanted long thick hair but was not blessed with it.  But, most of my female sims are, thanks to me.  

lol, Flowerchile, that had me chuckling.

Interesting theory Kristalrose.  Most of my sims are wearing fetching short styles or curly hair.  I've had long thick straight (blond) hair most of my life.  Well less thick now, damn this growing old crap.  Believe me it's a lot of work, maybe more than it's worth. 

Anyway, most of the stuff I am downloading are beautiful sexy clothes for my willowy sims (I am not willowy in the least) and beautiful furniture for my houses.  (I've only recently become a house owner and my furniture is crap and my house needs some serious redecorating).

So you might have a point there.

I agree!  I have all slim sims, sims with gorgeous hair (no gray), sims with houses that have different rooms painted different colors, and sims with furniture that matches.  And in my "real game" they all have great looking clothes too.  That game has a 3.3gb dl folder and takes 7 minutes to load.  The "first alternate" game I'm using now has only downloaded hair and hacks, and loads in less than 2 minutes.

I think that there's definite truth to that remark. In fact, that's the whole point of the sims for me - vicarious living. I'm a romantic at heart and a sucker for "true love". I also have a burning desire to be fabulously wealthy. Therefore, all my sims are happily married, fabulously rich, living in huge mansions with interior design as seen in the pages of Architectural Digest (that magazine just induces bucketloads of drool). The women, of course, are all fabulously decked out in designer gowns and stiletto heels. (I'm also a sucker for high-fashion) Their hair is always gorgeous and sleek, substituting for my own desire for those $400 haircuts I so totally want. So until I get rich or find true love, the sims is there to fill in the gap.  A gaping void being filled by a ballooning download folder of 3Gb+ ;D

So is it some statement of ego (or satisfaction with my life, but that, frankly, is less interesting than my ego) that most of my sims dress like me, look like me, and live in a house around the same size as mine (or smaller)?

Eaglezero, last night I typed a memo on my addiction to downloading, based on 12 steps to being cured.  Then I decided not to post it because it just said way too much about me as a person! ;D

Au contraire.  Just to prove what a download ho I am and have always been, my TS1 downloads reached a grand total of 12GB by the end

a follow up to the Request to see my wino and My town which is currently under going  mass construction,

(http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d76/Bangelnuts/ScreenShot218.jpg)
(http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d76/Bangelnuts/ScreenShot217.jpg)

(http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d76/Bangelnuts/ScreenShot215.jpg)
the undesirable society  that are part of the homeless townies in my neighborhood

Those homeless men sure have a lot of dough. lol.

There were originally four sims on that lot when that pic was taken. I removed the  money using the family funds cheat so they went on to the streets broke

Thanks, Bangelnuts, for posting the pics. I love your little town! You wino is gross; (as well he should be), but the town is awesome. :D

Weeee, I'm back.  Have done as instructed with the Sims2 folder, and reloaded everything but the "bored with", shit and it only took me 3 hours.  Yay... ;D.
 It's actually quite nice to start all over again.  I've learnt quite a bit since first installing, so I can avoid all those little f@&k ups that I was plagued with.   
More downloads; more downloads.........

What would actually happen if stuff was removed from the catalog that was in use in lots? Would they revert back to the original (or in the case of new meshes-what they were based on)
I have a bunch of recolours/new meshed stuff that I am going to try to get rid of-but because of my kids, I don't know if they are in use. I'm not going to go through their neighbourhoods, my youngest daughter has about 30 occupied lots! :o I'm too darned lazy...

Yes, basically - though the adult females always seem to default to that horrid burgundy shirt/tan trousers combo when you delete skins.  I removed Numenor's windows last week for some reason or other - oh to speed up loading because I wanted to look at something quickly - and when I went into a lot where I'd used them, they'd been replaced by the shop windows.  I exited without saving, put the windows back and they were there again when I went back.

Hah, that's really funny. You should type it back up and post it, because I want to read it now! Plus, downloading IS addictive ... maybe you'd have steps that would help cure me. I do suppose, though, that I'd have to WANT to be cured ...

yeah Eaglezero, post it.  This isn't MTS2, we are all friends here.  Anyway we would be in a bad position to judge.. it would be like an alcoholic calling another alcoholic a wino :D

Unedited...because I am sad. ;D
 

Of course, I'm cured now.  I really don't have a problem and I'm not in denial. ::)

The wino is the one with the striped bright ugly out fit the string haired blond is the druggie.thanks glad you like my neighborhood.I owe a huge debt of Gratitude to all the wonderful builders at numerous sites including Laverwinkle  for the buildings. however I have 8 maty sims in a apartment building who would disagree with you on the view. out their Back windows sits the I.R.S. and their front view is the Bus Station ;D

Blah does this mean I would have to get rid of my 122 adult female bathing suits ? The hell with that !! :)

I will just get a better system that loads my game in half the time.  So there.

And procastination rules !..  I embrace it !  .. All hail the procastinator  ..I will sweep dust under the carpet, I will stuff everything in the closet and jam shut the door.  I will push everything to the back of the fridge until the day it tries to crawl out on it's own, I will buy oodles of baskets and toss everything in it so I don't have to sort through it.  I will stuff stuff everything else that doesn't fit in the basement.  I am procastinator hear me roar!

I'll hold your hand!

Sandi- how big is your download folder now?
*pats Sandi on shoulder and hands her a kleenex*

My TS1 DL/skins folder was six (6!!) CDs of 650MB each!!! By the end, I was only playing in my head because game load time was impossible...not to mention crashes.

I'm much better now, and although I am not cured, TS2 loads in less than 5 minutes (game + neighborhood).

YOU CAN DO THIS!!!!!

Once again, edited for typos. Someone should hold an intervention for me...keep me out of forums while my students are quietly reading!!

You know, Sandilou, that is brave of you to look at this as an addiction and try to cure it (I applaud any attempts at self-awareness and improvement), but I rather think this is a bit much. I address this to all of us, including me.

I mean, DL'ing is fun. Free stuff for our consumeristically trained minds! You get to open up the game and play with it immediately and damn, that is sure better than f'ing up your financial life and credit trying to buy this crap in RL.

I do not think DL'ing is the problem, but just finding out how to manage your DLs so you can actually use them is the key. I think what may be at the root of the feeling that DLing is "bad" is the greed which is fueling it.

I mean if you DL something to enjoy it, use it, thank the creator either by thought or deed (signing a guestbook or pushing a thanks button), then you honor your DLs by keeping them organized (whatever method you want) and then actually using said DLs or deleting them until you have only what you want, then what is the problem in that?

I think if you just grab stuff to "have it" and then let your own greed weigh your game down until it is unplayable or until you are doing nothing but dealing with DLs, then perhaps yes, there is a problem there.

If you enjoy it, and the creators make it to be used and enjoyed, then why is it so bad to DL in moderation and with respect to yourself, your game, and others?

No need to 12-step something like DLing. DLing is not a "disease", but greed is.

I have no doubt, having seen and being an admirer of Angelyne's DL organization system that the number 122 is exact to the penny, so to speak.

My downloads folder is 1.6 gb, down from 2.8. I recently removed about a gigabyte of downloads from my game, and that was without even looking at recolors. Two days ago I deleted all the objects I've never, ever used (like step 6!) and a week ago I went through and removed all the makeup and walls I'd never used (there were a TON of those). There's a really good advantage to this too: it's REALLY easy to find the items I want in the catalogue now! Seriously, prune your catalogue, if for no other reason than that it will make decorating houses go by more quickly in the future.

Steps I really need to do:
1. I have a million custom hairs in my downloads, but I only use a handful. I really hate wading through all the others in the catalogue, but deleting them is so tedious!
5. ahahaha. Bed and rug recolors. I have a ton of bedding recolors from when the game first came out and I just downloaded anything I could get my hands on. They look really crappy and are colors that don't fit any of my walls (neon purple? orangey brown? weird blue pixelated squiggles?). I bet I could delete half the bedding recolors I have and not even notice.

Steps I think might be excessive:
3. I like clothes. If I didn't have about thirty billion other outfits, my poor sims would all be dressed the same, because I insist on them wearing clothes I like (and preferably ones that match the decor of their house in some way).
7. If I prune my downloads, then I only have the stuff I really want in the game. No need to induce extra stress by trying to delete things I like and use whenever I download something new.

I did that lol.  My three girls are named Summer, Autumn and Wynter.  Summer is a blue-eyed blond who wear pink and has a pink house and pink furniture.  Autumn is a redhead with green eyes.  Her clothes are green and so is her house and decor.  Wynter is a dusky black haired girl.  She wears black and favors earth tones.  Ridiculous no ? lol

I like sims to be all coordinated with their houses because I can really easily tell who's who. And also because I have to watch them in their houses for extended periods of time, and I don't want my eyes to fall out from looking at clashing colors for too long!

I've done this a couple of times--accidentally deleted something I forgot was being used.  Basically nothing happens other than the object disappears and if it's a surface with something on it, say a desk with a computer, the object on it is gone, too.  In TS1 there was a message that came up upon loading the house saying objects were missing.  With TS2 there's no warning.  You can basically just go into the house and find it bare.   :o

I also found that when you 'edit' walls and floors in HomeCrafter it will do basically the same thing.  It doesn't edit the files, but deletes the old and makes completely new, so any house that's been using those files has to be re-done.  Imagine my chagrin when I discovered this in about 8 homes that I had decorated, only NOT to remember which walls and floors were originally in them!  :D

I'm taking some advice from here and trying to reorganize my downloads and add themed sets (I do themes, but then end up adding not themed stuff to the neighborhood, just because I like it or don't have something else or whatever). But of course it's going to take forever. Yet another project <sigh>


*I* don't think it's ridiculous at all :) I tend to give my sims a "color" or a "color pallet". I don't necessarily match their entire house, but a lot of it (bedding, desks, only walls and floors, couches and chairs if they're the only sim or it's their room). It makes it easy to choose new clothes for them and make sure they're different from parents/brothers and sisters/townies/whatever. Sometimes I'll choose a baby's crib - like one with orange basketballs and keep them orange and interested in sports, sportsy wallpaper and the like, all their lives - even choosing aspirations and what magazines they read and jobs based on that. I think of them as Amberites (from Zelazny's Nine Princes in Amber) where they all have "colours".

And I actually use the clothes I download - I often have sims change every morning. If I can't get to it every day, very often anyway. I get tired of looking at the same outfit quickly.

PS: I meant there to be a thanks for the thread, thank you in there somewhere.

Sandilou  and others -

I'd like to support you in your quest to break your downloading addition. I will you cheer you from the sidelines. Me, I don't have a problem. I only have 4.5gig on my hard drive, but I still have more than 100gig free space, so in comparison, my download folder is small.  ::)  "De nile" - not just a river is Egypt.

*slinks away to download some new shinies at MTS2*
(Numenor just put up a hack to stop the shakes after drinking expresso.......*downloads*)

I, too, just delete at will from the game folder. The itme is simply gone when you enter the home.

BUT: I read someplace that deleting this way can make lots that had the item which was delted crash at loading. I have had a few lots that crashed (if that happens, I just bulldoze them.) But I can't say it's from deleting items from the game folder, because I know that this DOES work ok--at least most times.

SimmieCal you are the reason my DL folder had to be culled from 2.00 gig to 1.15 gig yesterday :Dyour link to retail sims cooked my goose ;D which in turn led me to purchase a subscription to simconnection just to get the remaining "retail items" and of course a downloading spree elsewhere. I haven't a clue exactly what I cleaned out yet :o other than some furniture and walls and carpet i never used. seriously I offer my condolences to sandilou and my other fellow DL addicts :) I currently have 194 gig free space on my hard drives just to make me feel better

Posted by: JadeEliott

The 12 steps are written 'tongue in cheek'! (British sense of humour).  One of the reasons why I didn't originally post the 12 steps after I'd drafted them was because I realised that (apart from the hundreds of additional wall paints and flooring that I'd picked up along the way), most of my DL folder is in use.  I pruned it down nicely over the Christmas holidays. I will continue to do so until it meets most of the limits stated in my 12 steps.  

I have a strategy that's really helped;  each time I've gone into that particular user account since Christmas, I've focused on clearing out one section.  I started with the hair section, because I noticed that the mirror was taking longer and longer to launch.  I did all categories of hair, then went onto doing each of the clothing sections, chucking out any stuff that had lost meshes along the way.  Next  I dealt with furniture, then electrics, and decorations and so on, until I had done every section in the buy catalogue.  It's such a simple approach yet it works.

Another thing I've done that helped alot, was start a brand new neighbourhood on another user account.   I add new downloads to that account instead, and thankfully  I'm now really choosy about what I put in, so there's really not all that much there.  In my Matyville 'hood, I haven't added anything at all.  

As a result of this learned behaviour,  I find it easier to recognise when to address download reduction: it's when playing the game feels more like a chore than fun, because everything takes too long to load, the game lags and the virtual memory keeps struggling.   I guess I 'saw the light'  when I launched a brand new vanilla game and couldn't believe how quickly it loaded. Compare times:
Vanilla game:     1.5 - 2mins to neighbourhood screens   30-45 secs to chosen neighbourhood,  1-2 mins to selected lot
Custom game:    20 mins to neighbourhood screen            4 mins to chosen neighbourhood,  4-10 mins to selected lot

To conclude, I'd rather have speedy access to the game than lots of custom content;  I'm happy to settle for maxian defaults and opt for a tiny amount of good quality over quantity with downloads.   I'm more into finding mods and hacks that add something new or get rid of little annoyances so that I can simply enjoy playing the game. 

I agree 100 percent. But I did actually buy a better graphics card and more ram just for the game (don't tell my dad, he still thinks it wasn't enough for my work purposes!) But I did spend a whole 20-hours in total weeding through my custom downloaded clothing for all ages and categories, and dropped the number from about 6000 to about 3700. That was a nightmare, but I must say, before I did that, I only looked at the first 10 pages (at most) of clothing when creating a sim. Now I can look at all the clothes really fast and can't decide because I have only my favorites left. So I use a lot of the clothing on my ugly NPCs and townies, with a complete makeover. :D Now I only download the clothing I really like.
I guess this is because I love buying stuff for everyone else in real life, but I'm too stingy to buy anything for myself, I know fabric prices and I can design and sew my own clothes, so I always think I'll make that myself for 1/5 of the price, but am too lazy to do it, actually. And I can get ideas for new stuff for me- which I'll probably never make. ;)

This thread is about download addiction, and i need to download the skins and clothes of these sims. They would definitely fit into my NB. Where did you get them?

Hello, my name is Kristal, and I have a downloading problem.  I have been clean for about 3 days now.  I have not downloaded anything in three days.  But, I am finding it hard to resist.  And, I am also finding it hard to clean the downloads out.  I keep looking at stuff and thinking, "I know I'll use that." or "But that's so cute!" or "Don't I have a sim wearing that right now?" and so I can't delete it. 

The only thing I have gotten rid of so far are cloned potties, changing tables and cribs-the nanny didn't seem to want to use them!
Oh well, that is some stuff cleaned out ;D

Mod the sims 2 had the baglady by berg and the pervert and druggie.sussi had the make up used on the wino and tsr had the wino's hideous striped suit.the hat is a maxis item. and I am a downloadaholic :P

I have  64GB left...from the original 111GB available.   But that's not really the issue - decluttering is, so last night I started to put stuff in folders and pull out stuff to delete later...after almost 2 hours I hadn't made so much as a dent:  the scroll bar had barely moved.   So today I spent an hour doing a JM special - deleting any unidentified download listed as a random number. My download folder is now 3.18GB (3.20GB).     I discovered alot of those numbers were from custom sims in CAS.  Deleting those in game takes too long.   I'm sorely tempted to detonate every third item in the download folder!   :)

I must also confess that I did add a few downloads yesterday, (I'm not an addict, I'm not) but they were such large items with recolours .. (just a couple of cars), but to my credit I took them out again when I realised that they used up a HUGE amount of file space.

I started cleaning out my downloads ages ago. When I started I had about 3,5GB of downloads. Today I finally went through the last folder and checked the size of the downloads folder. It's now 4,8GB with almost 28.000 files  :o (That might be becuse I didn't exactly stop downloading while cleaning out...)

I just got mine down to 2.81 Gigs. Just as I feared, bald women are everywhere.  :P

Join the Bald sim club ;D I had no clue exactly what i deleted until I entered my hood and found interesting flashing blue stuff all over the place and Body shop had maxis replacements left and right.

*Feels irritatingly smug about the way I cleaned out my downlaods*

I didn't have any baldies, but then I took the time to change all my sims hair to default and didn't open my game at all until I was done cleaning out.  I had a couple of sims who ended up in the burgandy and cream shirt/capri's and many of my men are now wearing a default suit.  But I can deal with that  for as long as it takes me to redress them all :)