nraas

I understand that there's a general consensus that you should merge as many of your package files as possible for a variety of reasons. I have always done this. Lately, though, I've undertaken an extensive (and tedious!) project where I'm sorting through every single piece of CC, recatagorizing, fixing bad tags in them (seriously, why would you classify a beard as a hat?!), and doing a general cleanup. As a result, I've now got hundreds of individual CASP files, plus every piece of CC, plus all my store content (not quite done going through the content of the venues, but soon, I hope). In testing stuff, I've had to leave things unmerged so as to pinpoint any problems, and I find that I actually prefer it unmerged, and that's why I'm seeking opinions and input.

Is there TRULY any reason to merge package files? I understand that loading times can be slowed, but I'm not actually that worried about that. I have a very grunty computer these days and The Sims is running on a very fast drive, so loading times, even before I started this project and had a bunch of bloat in the way of content, isn't much of an issue.

Apart from loading times, does having a lot of unmerged packages cause any particular issues? I've heard people say it contributes to lag, but does it, really? Bad CC certainly can, and I've experienced that for myself (part of why I undertook this very lengthy and tedious project), but does having a whole lot of very small package files really cause issues?

If it does cause problems, I'll go back to merging everything, but if I can avoid having to do that, I'm kind of leaning toward just keeping everything separated.

Thoughts? Experiences?
 

I use CCMagic for this since years and for patch 1.67 it still works http://modthesims.info/d/461888
 

Yes, I'm familiar with CCMagic. I have generally preferred to merge by hand for various reasons, but I do know the program works and that a lot of people like it.

But it doesn't really answer my question as to whether or not there is any actual benefit of merging.
 

Yes, right so here is the answer from Crinrict https://sims3.crinrict.com/en/2011/04/t ... e-lag.html

"A lot of package files lag your game and you will end up having very long loading times. The game does not seem to care that much how large the files are but does care about the number of files."

So I think its YES 

Hello bonniherself,

Wow, that seems quite the project! Something I need to do myslf one of these days....

I have to agree with C-Dark. CC Magic is an amazing, easy to use program. I've used it for years and I love it. 
You basically load up all of your CC/Mods/etc. then you can sort them into categories. (For example, all the clothes, etc). You can make your own categories however you like.

Then you select which categories you want to play with, and CC does all the merging work for you. 
Since it merges everything for you, you can keep everything separate and pull out mods at any time. One of my favorite features is that every mod has its own thumbnail picture so you can get an idea of what each object is.

The only difficult part of using CC magic is using NRAAS mods and premium content. There are some very good tutorials online that will walk you through this. Once CC magic is all set up, its relatively low maintenance (other than adding and sorting new cc).

The other nice thing about CC magic is you open the game directly through the program, bypassing the EA launcher. This (on my computer at least) saves me extra loading time.

Hope this helps!

As I said, I'm familar with CC Magic.  
 

bonniherself wrote: ↑

October 19th, 2018, 4:30 am

Apart from loading times, does having a lot of unmerged packages cause any particular issues? I've heard people say it contributes to lag, but does it, really? Bad CC certainly can, and I've experienced that for myself (part of why I undertook this very lengthy and tedious project), but does having a whole lot of very small package files really cause issues?

Hi bonniherself!

As far as I understand, merging packages only helps in decreasing the loading time - it doesn't have any effect on lag at all.

I did try to load my game without merging my CC once and it was taking so long (I waited over 15 minutes) I gave up and stopped it loading. Now I merge every time and my loading time is only about 5 minutes. So, not merging is not an option for me any longer. I think the long load time might be because of the sheer quantity of CC I have installed - 9.54 GB and that doesn't include mods. I also use CC Magic to do my merging as handling that amount of CC manually would drive me insane lol! My Mods folder is only 394 MB and that's not merged as it's not a good idea to merge mods.

So, if you don't have an extreme amount of CC and you're happy with your loading time, even though your packages are unmerged, then I say continue doing it that way.

But have you ever heard of a program called CCMagic?

Okay, just kidding. Besides totally agreeing with Sarah (of course), just wanted to point out for others reading this that CCMagic is known to work on Patch 1.69. It just cannot be used to startup the game, the other functions remain the same.

I would never merge script/core mods. And I would never merge tuning mods either, but that's only because they become much more of a pain to remove, replace, udpate, and remerge when the need arises. The only benefit I get from merging content myself, and the only one I expect to get, is some relief on the load times.

Besides loading times you'll see an improvement in texture pop when jumping between lots but that's about it. Generally most things in those files are loaded into memory on the first load.

To clarify, when y'all talk about faster load times from merging package files, are you referring to:

1. The time it takes the game to start
2. The time it takes to load a saved game
3. Both