Is There a Maximum to Customizable Lots?

[BauerME 2]

  Here is the theoretical question:  Assuming that all my custom lots/models/textures/props, etc. had no overlapping instance ID's, what is the maximum number of these items that I could have?  Is there a limit (aside from system resources)?

  While we are at it, if I had custom versions of all the default game content in my plugins folder, it is the custom versions I see in the game (because we load the custom versions/properties over the default ones).  The question is whether this information is actually 'written over' or if both flavors are sitting in memory, so in essence I have two sets of content sitting in memory.

[BauerME 2]

Maybe I should ask this in a different way...

  What is the most number of custom lots, buildings, etc. that you have ever had in your plug-ins folder before you started to see performance dip (and what were the machine specs)?

[mightygoose 92]

1.8gb of stex on a 3.6 with 1024 ram and 256 graphics performance slowed until graphics options were lowered in quality

[yoder7652 21]

I currently have 1.6 gig of custom content and my machine is pentium 4 2.8ghz with 1.5gig ram and 256 graphic card. I've noticed that performance lags, but not bad enough to get rid of my custom content. I try to hang around 1.5 gig of custom content if I can. The worst is that at the furthest zoom, the game usually boots me out...not sure if that is due to the custom content or the past use of cheats (hehehe).

[BauerME 2]

  These are good data points.  Thanks, guys!

[Constantina 5]

I have around 595 MB of custom content and 494 mb of RAM. The computer with this amount performs fine, and takes a couple of seconds to load graphics. In my scenario, I have the target of My Documents set to an external hard drive, with a high transfer rate.

[sim1234 62]

I have 1.23 GB of plugins with 512MB of RAM. My game now runs very slow and I am planning on deleting some plugins and getting more RAM.

[bourneid 13]

I have 2.39GB of plugins which is 13277 files....and dont ave much lag...cities thend to load a lot slower than running without...but on a newer region this isnt an issue.....

though as far as I can tell fom these types of threads I have an high middle range computer setup....

AMD 64 3500+  2.20ghz

2.75 PC3200 400 ram

Nvida 7800GT SLI (second card soon   )

Gaming profile with unnecicary sevices/ background task sut off

[BauerME 2]

  This is all great data.  Thank you all!

[Duke87 1,070]

No limit other than system resources exists.

However, most pugins don't really seem to slow down the game at all (thank goodeness, it's molasses as is), but they do make the game take longer to start up, and they do make saving/loading cities take longer. It can take a good couple of minutes for me after starting it up before the EA Games logo shows up.

The only issue is that having a lot of plugins seems to make the game more likely to randomly crash.

For me, the game only crashes when a building is placed either by me or by the simulator. But it happens often enough that I can't ever run the simulator (with zones in place) for more than a couple minutes without crashing the game. No wonder I never play SC4 anymore....