About This File
SimCity 4 Ultimate Dependency Package - April 2012
Every dependency... ever - all in one simple, easy to install file.
Over the course of the past eight years, additional files required for the correct functioning of many custom creations, also known as dependencies, have become an unavoidable necessity for anyone seeking to extensively modify their game. However, due to the inability of many to read or understand readme files, very few people can actually boast of a plugins folder containing every dependency file required for their needs.
Today however, thanks to a revolutionary breakthrough in the field of file compression, we plan to once and for all put this issue to rest.
Approximately 10 months ago, RippleTurbine, a prominent member both here at Simtropolis and SC4inmotion.com, discovered a way to drastically reduce the filesizes of the DAT file format - the file format used to store dependency files. In a nutshell, he found that by compressing the Hex value of an exemplar to better suit the games fundamental attributes, code could be shared across various files in incremental stages known as TGI's. It sounds complicated (I know I didn't understand it at first!) but basically what this means is that a DAT file previously weighing in at about 85MB could be reduced to only as little as 265KB via this code sharing technique!
The implications of the discovery were huge. Not only would it mean that loading times could be reduced from minutes to seconds, but that dependencies would never again work in the same way.
Over these past 10 months, I, along with various others in the community, have been working together to construct a mega-dependency-package to end all other packages. We've systematically purged every major exchange in the community, along with several of the prominent non-English sites, to bring you a in a single download a file containing almost every dependency ever created. Best of all, uncompressed, this file came to an astounding 2.65GB, but by using our compression technique, we have managed to bring the filesize down to just a little over 1MB!
Got a lot that's missing a base texture... don't know where on earth to find it? Lost the readme? No problems! Chances are, it's included in this download. You'll never have to go hunting again!
Now admittedly, we haven’t got everything. Some creators were reluctant to give us permission to use their files, and others simply could not be contacted. We do estimate however that we have between 96-98% of all dependency files ever uploaded to a major exchange. Perhaps most importantly, the major ones are all there, including all files from the BCS, Network Modd Addons and SimPig teams.
Although, despite our efforts, we know that new dependencies will not stop popping up just because of this upload. To remedy this, we plan to update this file once a year on the 1st of April.
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