Tutorial - Combining Packages to Ease Lag and Load Time

[aikea_guinea]

I originally put this tutorial together for century_eyes, but I thought I'd go ahead and repost it here in case anyone else could get some use out of it.

If you primarily use package files for your custom content and have noticed increased load times and/or lag in your game, follow this tutorial to combine your CC into fewer, larger packages to fix the problem.



Open S3PE and choose 'New.'


Right-click in the big empty white area and select '(EXPERIMENTAL) As dbc...'


Select the files you want to combine and let S3PE do its thing. This may take a loooooong time; don't panic and just let it keep working.


You'll probably get this popup. Hit 'OK.'

[IMAGE REMOVED TO EASE CONFUSION]
Arrange the innards by instance number, select all the XML files with an instance number of 0000000000000, and delete them. (Note: There's a checkbox at the bottom of the S3PE window that says "Sort" - you have to check that box before you can arrange by instance.)
This step is outdated. S3PE automatically deletes the XML files that need to be deleted. Don't touch the others.

Repeat steps 2 through 5 as needed, then save your file. This may also take ages to finish, so just let it run. This new package is the only thing you'll need in your downloads folder for all your CC to show up, so remove the uncombined packages. I keep my uncombined files separate in case there are things I want to get rid of later on.


You can combine combined packages, and it's ok to add more things to your combined packages at a later date.

I'd suggest instead of making one huge package of all your CC to have four or five, only because when I tried to make a single package things started to blow up. I've got Objects, CAS (hair, clothes, makeup), Patterns, and my own crap as their own packages.

I've not combined Default Replacements (never sure if I'll switch those out or something), my hacks, and AM/story progression.

Very easy, and holy shit it makes a huge difference. My game now loads as quickly as it did before I had any CC in it, and no longer lags at all.

This is the original thread on MATY.

Anach has offered up this additional information, which is very useful:

1. If you have a merged a mod and wish to update it with a newer version, you will need to re-merge the entire package, or you will usually experience game breakages.

2. The game imposes a limit of 200MB on its own merged packages (dbc), however a package can be anysize, and the only limitation is processing time (larger takes longer) and filesystem limits.

3. Try to keep your total number of mod packages under 100.

4. You can also remove ICON type files (junk files used by sims3pack) and "THUM" (thumbnails) if you wish the game to generate its own thumbnails rather than use the ones provided in the package.

More Useful Information from darlas_mom:

"When I tried this, I ended up getting the scary-as-hell "Service initialization failed (0x065d0274)" error and had to uninstall and reinstall.

It turned out a piece of CC I'd installed that day right before doing this was bad (because the game still didn't work until I removed it, cleared my cache files again and then rebooted), but I'm still scared to try this again...uninstalling and reinstalling takes me forever because then I have to download 500+ MB of patches all over again. :-/

Just wanted to make you and others aware of this possibility, so that if it happens to anyone else, they don't panic."

In other words, make sure you don't have any corrupted CC before attempting this.

For anyone getting the 'Materials Materializing' error:

"I have some extra info that might help people who run into the "materials materializing" error. It seems that it occurs when patterns are combined with other items. And also if CAP patterns are turned into package files. So combine patterns just with other patterns, and leave CAP patterns sims3pack. I delete CAP files as fast as i can because they have brought me only troubles."

(Thanks for reminding me about this, Jolanda.)

__________________________________________________
(Originally figured out by someone Anach on MATY.)

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Is there anyway to select multiple files for deletion? I see you have them highlighted, but I can't figure it out.

Thanks, but..

[(Anonymous)]

I love this, it has worked with my mods so far. But I noticed in CAS, it shows none of my hairs and clothes.. I've repackaged them about three times, then deleted them and started over with it, but it still won't show. Do you have any idea why this be??? Thanks.

HELP!?

[(Anonymous)]

Hey I've tried now for a lot of times and every time I open in step 3 I don't get that little pop-up thing. I get one that says 'Auto-save current package after each package imported?'. If I say YES it opens some file with all the packages in it. In there I can only select one file at a time and I have to save and if I don't select anything it wont save and just don't do anything. Then when I close that thing something like the 5th picture comes up. Then when I save the files (there a only like 20 in all) and start the game nothing has changed! And all the .packages files are still where they were before! Can you please help because my game has become HORRIBLE to play because it is SO slow!!! :(

[(Anonymous)]

Okay, so I'm completely confused..
If we want to download new cc and keep it, how do we uncombine all of this? Then re-do it with the new cc i'm guessing is the same as the first time we combined all of the cc? I'm sorry, i'm so confused! As long as i've been playing the sims 3 (for about a year), i've never heard of this x_x

Massive File Size Reduction

[(Anonymous)]

Should I be concerned that the total size of the consolidated .package files is significantly (about 2/3) smaller that the total size of the individual files? I feel like that much of a a size reduction would mean loss of data, or are the files really being compressed that much?

[darlas_mom]

When I tried this, I ended up getting the scary-as-hell "Service initialization failed (0x065d0274)" error and had to uninstall and reinstall.

It turned out a piece of CC I'd installed that day right before doing this was bad (because the game still didn't work until I removed it, cleared my cache files again and then rebooted), but I'm still scared to try this again...uninstalling and reinstalling takes me forever because then I have to download 500+ MB of patches all over again. :-/

Just wanted to make you and others aware of this possibility, so that if it happens to anyone else, they don't panic.

Bad File

[(Anonymous)]

How do you find and get rid of a bad file?

[(Anonymous)]

Wow! i did it! I feel like god muajajaja xD Thanks

[(Anonymous)]

Not sure if I should do this, but I downloaded all of the store files which is well over 1-2GB, and when I have them in the game I only get lag when I try to click on another person, that is it. It takes around 12 seconds with all of them in the game. But when I take them all off but 2-4 then it takes about 5 seconds, and when I remove them all it is instant. So now I'm going to try and combine them all and see if that helps. Will probably take a few hours to get them all combined. Here's hoping it works.

[(Anonymous)]

Well I combined all my store files and I still get a 7 second lag when I try and click on another sim, but nothing else. I'm thinking that it might be fixed if I had .sims3pack files to install to the game.

question

[(Anonymous)]

This tutorial is really helpful! However, I do have an important question. The total amount of packages in my mods folder come out to little over 200MB and I have have tons of sims3pack files installed. Do you know what is the max MB of CC that the game can handle before it starts to have issues?
Thanks!

[aureliasidhe.livejournal.com]

I seriously feel the need to thank you for this extremely useful, as well as easy to read tutorial. I actually started on a quest the other day to reduce my downloads, because the game was running so slow. I have a really high-end Computer, and I am usually cautious and test CC before I commit it to game; so I knew it was due to the CC amount. I found a link to this tutorial and figured I would try it. Wow, did it work like a charm. CaS, Build, Buy modes were all a nightmare for me. The game itself didn't really run as fluid as it should. I don't have a 10g folder like some, so it was a bit annoying that it slowed my game so intensely lol. Anyways after that rambling, I have actually added some cc and my game runs as if it has No cc at all! Thank you so very much!

[(Anonymous)]

after I selected the files I want to combine, the program asks me again which file I want to open.. and I can only select one and this step is not mentioned here..

so I selected a random file and combined it and placed it in my mods file and went to check if it worked.. and my game totally crashed LOL :P

help :P?

Its workes :)

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks soo much for this.
I was having Quite a bit of lag ,The lag wasent big but it just annoyed me.
So i decided to have a go at this and It worked ;D
My game used to be really choppy and stutter through the houses but its ALOT smoother now
Thanks again for this very detailed tutorial,Really Appreciate it =)

[(Anonymous)]

I am attempting this for a second time and I am really hoping that it works. I tried before, but I kept getting some weird error message so I switched to the 64-bit version.It all seems to be working fine and no messages so far. I do have a question though. I never got that message about the XML is that okay? I just want to make sure I'm not doing anything wrong.

package limits and priority of similar grouping?

[(Anonymous)]

Q1:I'm trying this for the first time and I just realized there is no limit listed to how many can be packaged together. I have over 1700 mods and my objects alone are around 500, which I'm packaging now.

Q2:I'm trying to put "like" things together, but how much does it matter? Some things I have no idea what category they go under. The mod creator just gave them a number, for example, so it could be hair or a chair, who knows? Will it still work if a few are out of place?

Thanks in advance :)

[club_confession]

I just now started to do this because my game is so slow. Thank you for the tutorial. One question, however.

In the point where it is required to delete the XML files with an instance number of 0000000000000, all those files are already lined over and marked as deleted. Does that mean I can ignore them? Thanks.

xml files?

[(Anonymous)]

In another tutorial of the use of s3pe I read that after choosing 'new' one should choose the 'import from package', it said nothing about the 'experimental' thing. So that is how I've been doing it this far and it has worked just fine. So is there a reason why to do it this way? Does it make the files different somehow? Thanks in advance. :)

[shinryaku]

Thank you so much! :D I thought I was going to have to just take out my files, since nothing I did helped. But then I saw this while browsing your downloads! And I immediately loved you.

(Also, as a little bit of a side-note, I was wondering if the amount of sims3pack files could cause problems as well? I don't like asking stuff on MATY, so I'd rather ask here first. Sorry :P)

[(Anonymous)]

I noticed in the added info it says that the game imposes a 200mb package size? So does that mean i can't make any of these merges larger than 200 mb?

I have all of the store content from 2009 i want to merge like this but the largest file from early 2009 that i have is over 350mb alone. Some of the other files are only 50-75mb, but i have all of '09, '10, '11 that is making my game slow down quite a bit.

What are my options?

What is a DBPF package?

[(Anonymous)]

My cc is all separate and not in packages - how do I put them in packages so I can use s3pe?

I've tried a few things but keep coming up against the same problem: the files I'm trying to open are not DBPF packages. I'm not computer savvy so have no idea what this means and so have no idea how to rectify this.

My game is currently taking four and a half hours to load so any help would be greatly appreciated! I don't even have that much cc, but every little helps.

Thank you in advance, I hope you can help me!

[greymanticore]

Thank you! It took a while, but I compressed 1,300 files to less than 200. :) Before I tried this, my game would launch but never advance to the first loading screen. Now my game is launching and actively loading. The Sunset Valley loading screen is a little slower, but it's making progress (much better than not loading at all).

Super excited to play Sims 3 again!

[(Anonymous)]

I've asked around on how to add new custom content to already packaged files, but I still do not understand! How do you add new custom content to an already packaged file step by step?

[(Anonymous)]

OMG. This takes for ever! But it'll be worth it!

Dad bought me a laptop single-core 2.4GHz. qq.

Viewing contents of packages

[(Anonymous)]

Thankyou so much for the tutorial! Halved my load times, literally.

Do you know how I could view the contents of .package files? I have a ton that have names that aren't very descriptive and I'm not sure what they are.