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Scholar
Original Poster
#1 Old 8th Jan 2018 at 4:11 PM
Default Tutorials/Methods/Advice for organising CC?
Sooooooooo long story short, I screwed up and I'm hoping that someone out there knows how to help me fix my screw-up with minimal pain.

The longer version goes like this;

When I started playing TS3, I had for the most part learned from my TS2 mistakes and took more care to label and organise my TS3 CC. But as time went on, I got sloppy. There are things that contributed to this, such as playing less often but still browsing CC sites frequently, leading to me having to install larger amounts of CC at a time, and some medical stuff that really seriously sapped my energy for a long time, which caused a lot of disorganisation in all parts of my life. Also, my ADHD made it hard to tackle the growing problem cause I just kept losing focus very quickly whenever I started trying to sort through files.

And so now I have an INSANE amount of unsorted and unlabelled CC that I need to install. Some of it may be duplicates of stuff that's already installed, some of it may be duplicates of other uninstalled CC. As I have also played and downloaded CC for TSM, TS2, and TS4, I can't be certain that none of those files haven't gotten mixed up in the mess. I may have downloaded conflicting CC without realising it. There are so many potential landmines in here. And having this mess to deal with is keeping me from actually playing the game, because I feel like I should sort this out first.

Not being as active in the community as I used to means that I really don't know what tools and tutorials are out there, and I don't really know how to find them, or what is broken/outdated, or what has worked well for lots of people, or anything. So I'm asking for advice.

What is the best way to sort an already existing disaster zone of CC, with minimal effort? (excluding deleting and starting from scratch, which I really don't want to do, because I know some of this stuff was really hard to track down the first time)

no power in the verse can stop me
ge smak daun, gyon op nodotaim
jus nou drein jus daun
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Scholar
#2 Old 8th Jan 2018 at 4:38 PM Last edited by pretenshus : 8th Jan 2018 at 4:53 PM.
tbh its as you said earlier which is that you started off organizing cc

First off I only play the sims 3, and I used to play on slow laptops, so I've been whipped as far as playing organized and clean goes,
but the methods I use still apply
- packaging things is a lifesaver once you know what you can and cant/should and should not package.

-My cc is organized by ea/store content
-by type, CAS, Buy, or build (these are typically permanent and I keep them inside the packages folder)
-then by how I play. Since I tend to play culturally/lifestyle, I have Japanese, French, Chinese cc as well as urban, rustic, contemporary cc. These can also include cas, buy, and build items I dont want to have in my game permanently (these each have their own folder and I put them in and take them out depending on which save I want to play)

-All of this (stuff that isnt being used) is kept outside the sims 3 folder. I have a desktop folder called sims 3 archive and I go in there to grab things whenever I want certain custom content, it is also organized. Its also great because in several cases downloads have gone down, posts have disappeared, and I've managed to keep the content rather than it being lost forever or deleted.

-I use S3PE but not custard or the dashboard for bad cc or wtv. Organizing this way means if there is any cc causing me issues I will most likely know exactly what it is.
-With this also comes where you get your cc from. I use mod the sims, trusted simblrs who have a good track record, and tsr. In my personal experience, the farther away SOME cc looks from maxis match the more likely it is to have issues, high poly, etc.

- In your case it really may just be that you need to slow down and think about how you play/want to play. I tend to only play one family and then interact with all the other sims.
- my sims/families also tend to be male so I dont overly customize any one sim, especially females, unless they are in my main family.
- I cant speak for a bunch of makeup/jewelry and other accessories that are usually thrown on female sims.

- My hairs are typically store items and then from there any hair cc that I feel like I ABSOLUTELY NEED and actually work. The hairs tend to be extremely different from each other as not to have 7 retextures of one hairstyle.
-Clothing is store too and as I mentioned earlier, I have staple clothing and then clothing that get cycled out from switching of the folders

-Rename anything and everything that you cant identify by their names. Since all my staple cas items are in one folder I've renamed them with markers like "HAIR_", "CLOTHING_" and if I'm still confused I view them in S3PE So all in all your playstyle + some sort of system that makes sense to you.
Scholar
#3 Old 8th Jan 2018 at 4:49 PM
I feel overwhelmed just reading this! So you've got hundreds or thousands of files sitting in your downloads folder waiting to be unzipped, unpacked, compressed and put in your game? As for discerning what is for what game, google your file name.

First, download 7 zip, s3pe, and multi installer. Then do a rough sort by creator making folders and dragging and dropping in groups. Then I can look at the file names and sort from there. The main thing to remember is to not compress scripting files, patterns, default replacements or skins and do not unpack counters or patterns. Only compress groups groups of 200 MB or less.

Personally, I sort by scripting, CAS, build, or buy. Then I sub-sort by hair, makeup, clothes, skin. I sort scripting mods by creator and I sort build and buy by type of objects. Sometimes I get what objects are wrong because I search "table" and put all the files with the word "table" in it into the "table" folder and table lamps and things get scooped into it, but it's probably better than having a zillion files to comb through. I actually spent a week of evenings doing this not too long ago after a real download spree. FTR, nobody needs as many lamps or windows as there are in my game right now, but I like how not everybody has the same stuff.
Field Researcher
#4 Old 10th Jan 2018 at 11:36 AM
Game Lag
How do you make your game run so smooth?
1. Use Save Cleaner

2. Use CC Magic to compress files

3. Rename any packages in your game so they dont have spaces and symbols like %&[] in them (_ is okay).

4. Make sure your game recognizes your graphics card

5. Use nraas Saver, or have multiple saves for each save, so like Save1-4, so you don’t keep saving over the same one

6. Never install houses as sims3packs, they usually include up to 600 pieces of CC! We recommend installing everything as .package

7. Run all your CC (except mods, poses, sliders) through s3rc to compress them

8. Use FPS limiter

9. Do not play huge worlds

10. Use some of nraas mods to regulate how many strays, townies, other sims you have in your save. Don’t let the game randomly populate your world (I think Story Progression and Register do this)

11. Use Overwatch and Errortrap from nraas

12. Disable both shop mode and memories in your sims options, and do not play online

13. Don’t play your game for hours on end, reload after like 2-3h

14. If you have money, buy an SSD, the game loads faster

15. Sort and test your CC

How do you sort your CC?

1. I convert everything to .package

2. I rename it to CAS_top_cu, or like Build_wal_ or Buy_pic so that later I know what it is, I also take out all weird signs people like to add like [ ] &% etc… (I use the ReNamer)

3. I open it in S3PE, if it is hair I check that it is for teen,adult,YA,Elder and all categories, for clothes I check to see if it is in the categories I want it, patterns I fix, clothes and skin i remove _IMG files that are incorrect

4. I run them through s3rc (unless it is a mod)

5. I put all my new stuff in a “test” folder in my mods folder and usually they stay there like 3 days, so I can see if they cause me issues

6. They are then imported into CC magic, where I have sub-folders for every category, aka Walls, Floors, HairAF …..

7. A copy of all my CC is placed in a “Backup” folder that also has sub-folders per category, so if someone sends a WCIF I can just go to the correct folder and look
Instructor
#5 Old 10th Jan 2018 at 8:04 PM
I would recommend creating a separate folder within the Mods folder with a distinctive name and put the news stuff there so you know where your new content is.

Once you've done that I also recommend using Delphy's Dashboard. You can check for duplicates, corrupted files, or anything that's for Sims 2 as well as a few other options. I don't think it can sort for Sims 4 files, but the icon on those is slightly different which should help you somewhat.

Once you run the game, do a play test in a new save and just see how things go. If you have any crashes or destabilization of your game, run the TS3 Crash Log Analyzer to find out why. (this is where having a separate folder for the new stuff you're installing will help, because if the CLA gives a custom content warning, then you can use the 50/50 method on this folder until you figure out what's causing the problem, without accidentally removing any of the CC you already know works..)
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