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Simmers' Paradise => General Sims 2 Discussion => Topic started by: rosaliaofficial on April 12, 2016, 09:32:25 pm



Title: Loading the game faster? THE SIMS 2
Post by: rosaliaofficial on April 12, 2016, 09:32:25 pm
Is there anything that carries the game faster?
I have 24GB of custom objects and takes almost 30 minutes to load.
I have 1GB in video and HD 500GB card.
But there is a trick to open the game quickly without waiting so long ??  1sw2 1sw2


Title: Re: Loading the game faster? THE SIMS 2
Post by: HobbesED on April 12, 2016, 10:29:49 pm
30 minutes for 24 GB sounds about right and is comparable to what it takes my game to start up with about the same amount of downloads.

TS2's load time is quite dependent on how much Custom Content you have. It loads every piece of CC into memory at startup. While there are some things that could be done such as removing some duplicate folders and language files for languages not used for your game, with that amount of custom content, those deletions won't make much difference in your load time.

A faster computer (faster processors) would load the content faster. Adding memory to your computer might cut down on the amount of paging the computer has to do to keep track of all the CC as it loads it and could also improve load time.

Since the game loads all CC at startup whether it will be used or not, you could go through your downloads folder and remove CC that you don't ever use - old skintones, makeup, clothing, etc to make your Downloads folder smaller and thus improve your load time. If you have particular themed neighborhoods that you play, you could separate out the CC used only in those hoods and only add them back to your Downloads folder when you know you'll be playing those hoods.

Personally, I start up the game and then do a few things around the house while I wait for it to load. 


Title: Re: Loading the game faster? THE SIMS 2
Post by: Theraven on April 13, 2016, 03:36:04 am
Your loading time actually sounds about right, maybe even a bit faster than usual, for that amount of CC. I don't see what you're complaining about - I had loading times beyond 3 hours with around 12-14 GB of CC on my old laptop...


Title: Re: Loading the game faster? THE SIMS 2
Post by: retrotrut on April 13, 2016, 08:16:26 am
24 GB takes 30 Minutes to load????
I have around 24.5 GB and it takes about an hour to an hour and a half. Please tell me what did you do to increase the loading time to 30 minutes.

Thanks


Title: Re: Loading the game faster? THE SIMS 2
Post by: caffeinated.joy on April 13, 2016, 09:23:08 am
retrotrut, it all depends on your computer. A computer with a faster processor and more RAM will load the game faster than a computer with less. Even having more empty hard drive space will make a bit of a difference.


Title: Re: Loading the game faster? THE SIMS 2
Post by: HobbesED on April 13, 2016, 09:40:26 am
24 GB takes 30 Minutes to load????
I have around 24.5 GB and it takes about an hour to an hour and a half. Please tell me what did you do to increase the loading time to 30 minutes.

Thanks

There's no magic bullet to improve load time. Reducing the size and number of files and/or getting better hardware are the only ways to significantly reduce the time it takes to get up and running.

Depending whether you are running from disk and what EPs & SPs you have or whether you are running Ultimate Collection from Origin, you may be able to remove 1-2 GBs of unnecessary files but many people aren't comfortable removing files provided by EA/Maxis and with more than 20GB of CC, doing that may only improve load time by perhaps 10% - more likely less than that.

Since TS2 was created long ago, there is now a hack to its executable (and BodyShop's executable) to allow it to use a greater than 2GB address space if your hardware allows it. Back at its creation, few computers supported that and as future EPs were added, the executable wasn't changed in order to keep the game backward compatible to those older computers. Using CFF Explorer to edit the game's startup executable to use a greater than 2GB address space again is not something most people are comfortable doing.

TS2 is a 32-bit application which means it cannot use anything more than 16GB of RAM (Random Access Memory) even if you are running a 64-bit computer with more than 16GB of memory. Faster (or more) CPUs process the load instructions faster. More or faster memory allows the computer to load with less overhead by the computer. Overhead comes into play because with 20GB of CC and a maximum of 16GB of memory, obviously all CC cannot be in memory at one time. So the computer loads it and if it can't stay in memory, pages or swaps it off to disk and creates a pointer to where on the disk the CC is now stored and keeps that pointer in memory instead.

Anyway, technical stuff aside the bottom line is ... reduce CC, get better hardware, or live with longer load times.


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