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This step is outdated.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.)

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(Originally figured out by someone Anach on MATY.)

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

This is a really dumb question, but after I merge my packages the individual packages still show up. Do I delete them and just keep the merged package?

Thanks

[aikea_guinea]

Yes.