But did Igazor actually try it, rather than just assume? Guess I should have made it clear that I'd like an opinion based on actual experience. Assume nothing, test everything

To be fair now the opinion of Igazor is that of someone who, although also having the same ongoing game in play since 2012, doesn't actually have much time to play it anymore. My assessment should not have been regarded as being disrespectful or "summarily dismissed," bur more of an "okay, interesting but this doesn't really make any sense yet" (key world being YET) as an initial reaction only. I apologize if that assessment seems to have no value.

The expected performance tradeoff on clearing out WorldCaches is that when you take your sims to a part of the world that hasn't yet been cache-rebuilt, the scenery and stuff all around the world lot will look like rectangles and undefined objects until they get re-cached and rendered one by one. If there is no caching, then this will happen continuously. On modern computer systems with blazingly fast processors and GPUs, this may not be very apparent to the player because it will tend to happen so quickly but it will still make the game work harder to render and move the game camera around each scene. On older or less capable systems, the effect will be more obvious unless and until the caches are allowed to rebuild.

You require other testers, who should also share their current specs and say which worlds they are playing, and maybe a bit more patience (bumping the thread up like this is fine) until some who are able to assist by testing properly come forward.

I've been doing this for 4 days already, and have not experienced what you describe. Lots and objects build the same as before, with no "continuous" negative effects.
Bye

JesseMadoo post_id=98343 time=1702842282 user_id=25726 wrote: I've been doing this for 4 days already, and have not experienced what you describe. Lots and objects build the same as before, with no "continuous" negative effects.
Bye

Look, this is an old game now and there aren't a whole lot of places left on the web to get quality, well-informed technical assistance with a new idea. Perhaps try MTS if you are that unhappy with our customer service here and yes, maybe "Bye" is unfortunately the correct way to leave things. That's up to you at this point, but I will thank you in advance to not be rude to those still trying to help players with this game after all these years.

JesseMadoo wrote: ↑

December 17th, 2023, 12:00 pm

Am I really seeing a benefit, or am I just seeing the normal variability that one experiences from one Sims session to the next. Tell me I'm right, tell me I'm wrong. It doesn't matter to me, there's no ego involved here. I'm just trying to get this game to run better, and maybe help some other simmers as well. Thank you

While I understand the frustration, playtesting is time consuming and nobody here owes it to you. Someone taking time out of their day to run some tests on their end would be very kind, but is not a baseline to expect. And I had a little bit here about how you probably didn't intend to come off that way, but from the snippety response that has appeared while I wrote this I have less interest in excusing an attitude.

I personally panned over this conversation because, despite clearing them being a common suggestion, the caches do a job and when they haven't cached bad data I'd say they do it pretty well. The smoothness of playing a world with a full healthy cache is significant in my experience, so I don't need to test to know I would not trade an impact on memory for that impact on performance.
Secondly, I don't experience Error 12- and every time I mention that I know I'm closer to the day I jinx myself and am tossed into the realm of suffering with the rest of you- so I'm obviously doing enough right so far to not need to perform mad science on my game just yet.

I think for most users here, the idea will fundamentally clash with their own understanding of the cache files. It's entirely possible that something new and novel could come along and shake up that understanding. It may take some more indepth reports on what you have observed, though. You wanted the opinion of the more experienced but have been ungrateful for their input. Unfortunately, shaking the community forum harder isn't how you get help to fall out (unless I've been using it wrong this whole time).

JesseMadoo wrote: ↑

December 17th, 2023, 2:44 pm

I've been doing this for 4 days already, and have not experienced what you describe. Lots and objects build the same as before, with no "continuous" negative effects.
Bye

I am so sorry, I read about your "experiment" and testing it myself I had on my to-do list, but at the moment I simply had no time, that's why I didn't respond, as I also thought that igazor may be right, and I was waiting for some other users too, to get more options

Sometimes, and especially a few weeks before Christmas people may be busy with other topics, so it was surely not ignorance.

Hmmm something seemed to have happened here...

What I found the most helpful (not much though, but can def feel a little bit of difference) so far is... (I am using those memory clean programs and save cleaners at the same time and I check the ram usage real-time during the game session)

1. Bulldoze Big Lots
- Bulldoze large lots with numerous objects and use rabbit hole rugs instead of big rabbit hole buildings. Ensure you use MC to flush out any remaining spawners post-bulldozing. It's not always easy, especially when it involves tearing down beautiful mansions that perfectly fit into my storytelling.

2. Inventory Cleanup:
a. For active and inactive Sims:
- Use MC-Object Stats-Inventory or Town Hall MC-Sims-Basic-Sell items-Type of Sims-Residents to remove unnecessary items. I deleted numerous books, diplomas, trophies, instruments, trollies, canes, scraps, valedictorian stuff, and show props. Some inactive Sims seemed to have amassed quite a collection over generations.
b. Dispose of randomly spawned world objects:
- Check for items like food ingredients scattered around the world. I did MC-Objects Stats-Local by clicking on a random part of the sea. I discovered some oddities spread across the world, and to be safe, maybe use MC-Objects Info to locate them and determine their relevance. Also, maybe, test this method after saving your game at the end of the session and see if it's safe to delete them.

While these methods may not yield drastic improvements, I've found that they do contribute to the reduction in Error 12 occurrences a little bit. Just a little bit...

Hope I can discover better ones next time..

Oh, by the way, some questions.
1. I stumbled upon stacks of items like food ingredients at the edge of the world under the sea. (Sometimes, there is a clone of my active sim standing below water on that same spot while my actual sim was sleeping on her bed...creepy...I flushed those food ingredients out using MC but they keep reappearing.
2. I've noticed an odd occurrence where there are two weather stones (I deleted one, but it keeps reappearing) and consistently two maids arriving. I'm playing in a custom world, and I recall reading somewhere that this might be related to layers during the world's creation in CAW. If that's the case, how problematic is it to play with worlds that have two layers? So far, aside from these instances, I haven't encountered any major issues. However, if this isn't the cause, what could be behind these occurrences?

JesseMadoo post_id=98343 time=1702842282 user_id=25726 wrote: I've been doing this for 4 days already, and have not experienced what you describe. Lots and objects build the same as before, with no "continuous" negative effects.

Well, that's the outcome I would assume for my current game, as I'm playing in Sunset Valley at the moment, and games in Sunset Valley - or any other world from the main expansions - don't even touch the WorldCaches folder, so there's that. No testing from me at the moment.

Clearing that folder sometimes helps if you play in some downloaded world, but it's like with the other cache files: it's only necessary from time to time, not every game start.

As for performance: I'm playing with only 5 expansions and 3 stuff packs at the moment, plus essential mods and maybe a handful of store files. That may not really count as a helpful tip, as it's kind of obvious, but the different speed settings actually do something for me for a change.

JesseMadoo wrote: ↑

December 15th, 2023, 11:22 am

Here's something I just started doing a couple of days ago, and it seems to have reduced the rate that commit memory increases, as seen in task manager. I'm wondering if anyone else would see similar results, or is it just my imagination. It seems counter-intuitive, but I disabled the WorldCaches folder (you can use either of the methods that are also used to disable the FeaturedItems folder). Anyone want to give it a try and see if it helps?

The only way this will reduce memory usage is if they have stale references to Sims or objects you've deleted, that's memory usage gone. You'd have to nuke most of the Sims in the world and objects for it to really matter though. Otherwise textures compositors are generated on the fly and still stored in memory for objects still being rendered so you're not saving there, you're just increasing rendering work/time (which is negligible on modern machines for most reasonable worlds). I'd wager this is worse for memory usage, though I've not tested. Something just tells me that EA does a poor job at releasing any resources used to build these because it does a poor job at most things.

These caches are no different than the compositor cache's that live in the folder above them. They just exist because those caches have a limit on them and as you cycle worlds the cache gets overwritten and becomes fairly useless so to keep them somewhat static worlds get their own caches. Expansions too have static object caches that live in the program files.

JesseMadoo wrote: ↑

December 17th, 2023, 12:00 pm

Well, I'm a little bit disappointed that my idea was summarily dismissed, since normally everyone here is so helpful, attentive, and respectful.

Nothing here has ever been dismissed except poor attitudes like you have. We're all busy. Having patience is the best thing when you're dealing with folks who are volunteering their time for the cost of $0.00. Now kindly reconsider your poor dismissive attitude towards my staff or you'll be dismissed off this website.