Recreating downloads folder

[windy_moon]

Man, this is time consuming.     Having recently lost my entire Sims game and downloads due to sheer stupidity, I've been busy recreating my downloads folder, at least enough to be able to play the game without being driven crazy.

Most of my critical downloads are Awesome, so the initial shopping was easy..FFS, TwoJeffs, Crammyboy. Throw in Inge & Merola.... I thought I was ready to play, but after a few Sim days I couldn't take it anymore.

Here are the things I forgot until I had no downloads:

1)  Maxis hair sucks.
2)  Maxis athletic wear sucks more.
3)  Maxis elder clothes suck more than all of the hair and athletic wear.

Shopping, shopping, shopping, many hours later I think I am ready to play the game again.  It's amazing how spoiled I had become.

Oh, and I will never forget the name of dizzy's "Breakfast at Midnight"  hack again.  I couldn't remember it to save my life and searched google and Sims sites seemingly endlessly until I finally stumbled upon it. ("eat dinner anytime" didn't work.    )

You anal retentive people who write everything in a notebook have one up on me.

Ever had to start your downloads from total scratch....once you'd played with a full aresenal of downloads and knew how the other half lives?

[BlueSoup]

I know exactly what you mean.  I recently deleted my Downloads folder due to the size making me uncomfortable (no other good reason), and then starting over.  I figured it would be easier to just say no the stuff out there by thinking that I never used an item before, rather than looking at it in-game and deciding I might not ever use it.

Needless to say, I was totally dumb and I regret doing it.    My downloads folder is still over a gig, and I only lost half a gig of stuff with the reorg, and I didn't necessarily lose the stuff I didn't want either.

[holly]

yep at least once every 6 months , and everytime i do it i swear im going to be organised next time . but it never happens

[Jysudo]

I did ....my downloads were so frigging messy...I recategorise everything till. It took me 3 days and 2 bloody weekends. talk about no lifer.
It is neat now.

The only things to suggest to ya.

1. Be fussy. Don't download everything you like. That will kill ur folder asap. Get only the essentials.
2. Label ur folders well.

Maxis Elder shape sucks more than the clothes. I fixed their body shape with some clothing mesh. They look normal now but I wish they could at least walk faster.
Its a pain to see them walk. Its worse than zombies babbling about brains.

[windy_moon]

I did ....my downloads were so frigging messy...I recategorise everything till. It took me 3 days and 2 bloody weekends. talk about no lifer.
It is neat now.

The only things to suggest to ya.

1. Be fussy. Don't download everything you like. That will kill ur folder asap. Get only the essentials.
2. Label ur folders well.

The only consolation I have is the labeling.  I had never reorged after installing whichever expansion pack or patch that allowed folders and subfolders on the important stuff....and, I was such a noob when I started downloading, I let the installer rename a lot of files with the famous and ever-so-handy "625438a5852c9565p385748" kind of names. 

I know what my crap is now.

Still, if I had to choose between starting from scratch with hyper organization or having my old %$@@$ downloads folder back, it wouldn't be much of a contest.

 


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edit ps -- as far as essentials go, that's a different definition for every player, isn't it now.  If I don't have enough hair and clothes choices to fit the personality and story lines of my individual Sims, I can't stand to play.

Oh, and male facial hair!  Most of my guys sport it in some fashion.  Standard issue is just okay for one or two, but they can't all look the same.

Furniture, shrug, I'll get around to downloads eventually, but Maxis does just fine for me in TS2. 

[Ambular]

This is why I occasionally go through and burn all my downloads, neighborhoods, etc. to CD.  Come to think of it, I'm due to back them up again...

[angelyne]

One thing I find essential, even though it's more work.  For every item I download, I will also download the pic.  I store them with the items in its folder.  Otherwise there is no way in hell I will ever remember what it is. 

I often use a program call Flash Got All to download the pictures of a site.  Some sites like MTS2 force you to click on a link to download, so the program doesn't help me for downloading content, but it will work to download jpgs for most sites, including MTS2.  I click download all, remove all the thumbnails and extra crap, and download the pics.  It's especially useful for MTS2, because it take like 5 minutes to open each picture sometimes. 

[ZephyrZodiac]

I keep a back-up folder on my 2nd HD which has everything I've ever downloaded and still use (ie haven't thrown out because it was crap) stored by site.  i don't keep the original zips and rars, everything is unpacked and filed with photos so it's easy to access should I want it again.  For example, if I have a mesh set Living room plus six folders of recolours, they all get lumped in together.  But it works for me.

I'm also splitting all my downloads up now, and running themed games.  That way I can limit myself to 2GB of Downloads per set of Game Folders, and still load the game in the time it takes to play a game of Spider on the other PC.

[Jysudo]

Saving the photo also helps if you want to organize the objects in the same way as the photo did. Also is helpful for rememberinbg what objects come with what sets.
I would think that having too many subfolders means that the game took a longer time to load since it had to search more in depth for the cc rather than retrieving them from a lumpy messy folder.

I do burn all my downloads onto a DVD. I don't run theme games (don't see the point) 

Sure, everyone's defn of essential is different but if you sit down and think about it, Do you really need that facial hair that looks so similar to that other one I have?
Do I really need 10 recolors of this dress? Do I really need that stupid potted plant which comes with Modern Living Mesh Set?
That's it. That's how I kept my downloads down to 5000...which I think is a healthy number.

[JadeEliott]

Saving the photo also helps if you want to organize the objects in the same way as the photo did. Also is helpful for rememberinbg what objects come with what sets.
I would think that having too many subfolders means that the game took a longer time to load since it had to search more in depth for the cc rather than retrieving them from a lumpy messy folder.

I thought this would be true too, but my game loads faster and I am the QUEEN of subfoldering. Ask BlueSoup, who hates me case of this. :-)

I have heard it from several folks taht subfoldering causes faster loading. The game does to have to search all over for recolors to meshes, perhaps? I don't know...

*shrug*

[ZephyrZodiac]

The folders I was referring to were my saved files, not the ones in game.  and I do subfolder my downloads, and haven't noticed the game lagging - but I can find stuff!  An enormous, messy downloads folder just freaks me out!

[Dea]

Oh, and I will never forget the name of dizzy's "Breakfast at Midnight"  hack again

I cant tell you how long I looked for that hack bc I couldnt remember Dizzy's name and the name of the hack.  I think it finally clicked in my head when I saw a post by Dizzy somewhere.  I went to MTS2 bc I knew it was atleast there and finally found it.  I think I thought it was on of Monique's hacks at first and thats why I couldnt find it.  Im throwing out my downloads folder(onto my desktop at least) in a couple of days when I get DSL and Im starting over.  The only folder I am keeping is my hacks folder.

[Jysudo]

I subfolder all my downloads and I time religiously. I think there is a slight increase of 1 min or less for my subfoldering. I don't know how many levels you guys go through.
Especially Jade ...can you elaborate or show me the way to urs and bluesoup's discussion if its a open one?

I only have 2 levels of sub folders for each main folder (I must have like 20 main folders).
I am not sure if havnig a messy lump or organized lump helps to load faster/ slower for everyone. For me, its a wee slower and I live with that but I was thinking if if I have 20 sub folders, would it slow the loading? Anyone any ideaS?

And by the way, does categorising hairs into correct bins help to increase/ reduce loadng times? Any impact> I am thinking if its worth to sort out hair using datagen or simpe.but it seems pretty consuming and I been reading the threads here.

by the way, how many downloads do you guys have and whats the loading time? would love to hear from especially Jade here 

[BlueSoup]

Especially Jade ...can you elaborate or show me the way to urs and bluesoup's discussion if its a open one?

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=2841.0  & http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=2974.0

And by the way, does categorising hairs into correct bins help to increase/ reduce loadng times? Any impact> I am thinking if its worth to sort out hair using datagen or simpe.but it seems pretty consuming and I been reading the threads here.

I dunno if it reduces them or not - I haven't noticed a difference from before and after.  And recategorising hair is tedious, but not hard.  I would do it, just because it all looks so pretty in the right bins, and that way you can create them right from CAS with custom hairstyles, but not have them pass on bass-ackwards genetics.

by the way, how many downloads do you guys have and whats the loading time? would love to hear from especially Jade here 

I have 1.5 gigs, and my loading time is about 6 minutes to get into the neighbourhood view.  From there, I can get into a lot in about 2 minutes.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I have two gigs, and it takes me less than 6 minutes to load, and about a minute to enter a lot, less if it's a small lot.

[Jysudo]

I have 1.5 gbs. It takes me 3 mins to get to neighbourhood screen and 1 minute odd to enter a medium sized lot with 5 simmies wearing high poly hair and having a house full of cc objects.

ETS: try timing ur loadings if you have time. take out the folders etc and try different combinations of loading. It helps to know what increases/ reduces loading times. Give u an idea of how to max ur downloads and min ur loading times. Sorry but I am kinda a stats freak when it comes to this.

And Jade's subfoldering is truly more awesome than mine. Mine is organized but simplistic compared to hers truly.

[BlueSoup]

* BlueSoup has a craptastic computer.

But since it's only that slow due to the downloads folder size, I refuse to upgrade it.  Really, that will just allow me to get even more stuff.  Which is appealing, but I wouldn't be able to live with myself lol.

[Verona]

I've got 1.97 gigs and it loads in less than 4 minutes. I took out the intro movie which helped even  more.

[Jysudo]

I've got 1.97 gigs and it loads in less than 4 minutes. I took out the intro movie which helped even  more.

how to take out that movie?

[Verona]

The movies are in     C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\Movies   you simply delete the "s" on Movies.  Next time you start your game, no dancing, etc.

It definitely cuts a little time off loading.


Edited to change DATA to Data...sorry

[flowerchile]

Ever had to start your downloads from total scratch....once you'd played with a full aresenal of downloads and knew how the other half lives?

Oh yeh, so many times I lost count..I did think it was a good thing at first, you know start afresh, don't get stuff you don't really need etc.  Bullshit.  I spent hours looking for those elusive D/L's, the ones I couldn't live without and ended up with more!  Funny but, I never did find those I couldn't live without....

[TaWanda]

 Hah, when I redid my folder I remembered to save to my desktop most of the things I wanted to keep, and managed to find many of the others I forgot to save but there is this one rug... I have have spents hours looking for it!  Funny how one little thing like that you don't think is all that important, until it's gone, and then you realize just how much you really liked and used it 

[Jysudo]

Ever had to start your downloads from total scratch....once you'd played with a full aresenal of downloads and knew how the other half lives?

Oh yeh, so many times I lost count..I did think it was a good thing at first, you know start afresh, don't get stuff you don't really need etc.  Bullshit.  I spent hours looking for those elusive D/L's, the ones I couldn't live without and ended up with more!  Funny but, I never did find those I couldn't live without....

Thats cool. I have several sets of downloads I cannot do without.
In fact because I am so picky at downloads, I would say about 60% of my downloads are 'essentials'.

[holly]

ok i checked how big my downloads folder is and its 2gb fortunaty my game still loads in about 5mins ,

do one of u organised people want to come and live with me and sort it out for me

[ZephyrZodiac]

Hah, when I redid my folder I remembered to save to my desktop most of the things I wanted to keep, and managed to find many of the others I forgot to save but there is this one rug... I have have spents hours looking for it!  Funny how one little thing like that you don't think is all that important, until it's gone, and then you realize just how much you really liked and used it 

Maybe if you could find a picture of the rug - maybe it was in a pic you took in game? - and posted it, someone would recognise it?