How Big Is Your Folder?

[slydishere 4]

I looked at my documents , plugins folder the other day and noticed it was at the 1.29GIGs,,,had 4022 files.....got me thinking,,,,, was this odd or not..Do other people have this many mods on their games? Has modding become an addiction? another game I play installs at about 4.5 gigs,,,by the time I'm done it's 21 gigs!!!

So..tell me PLEASE How many mods you fine folks run on your games,,,on average

[Mikeaut1 261]

I have about 1GB of custom content downloaded to my external hardrive. However I keep my plugins filled only with a certain city's custom content. For example I'll create a city and work on that city first, having only the plugins appropriate for that city in the plugins folder. I have subfolders within my Plugins that I've named "DO NOT DELETE" which are plugins that are shared in every city. But my plugins folder is constantly being changed and replaced with different folders so that the game does not lag.

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

5.32GB here, mostly compressed. I should organize better since I operate several distinct styles (20th century North American, soviet, and stuff in between).

You have a comparatively small collection I certainly don't have the largest, I think mrbisonm had something like 12GB of plugins at one point.

[Biriali 58]

I have 5,05 GB in my plugins folder. Mostly compressed too. I have been up on around 8 GB once, but that was a long time ago. Now I'm a bit more picky, and I only download stuff that fits with my particular building style.

[Terring 6,476]

3 Gigabytes. No need for more yet

[Cleaner475 150]

I hope this thread title isn't a euphemism

Mines 2.4gb, it's always been around that number. I recently cleared out a load of old files but recently I've been downloading some more so it's remained pretty stable over the last year or so

Regards,

Richard

[jim 546 43]

I'm comparatively at the other end of the scale, clocking in at 439 MB of plugins. I haven't started looking to replace Maxis buildings with custom content yet which may explain some of that, plus I usually only download a few things that I really need.

[AdoxxBE 289]

500 mb of plugins atm

[hittwice99 619]

My plugins folder is currently 3 GB, containing 1.94 GB of dependencies. I organise the dependencies into separate folders for easy reference when making my lot projects.

[Grumbs64 27]

5.3 GB, 18,550 files in 3,143 folders. A certain small portion of that is .txt files, pictures, etc. The bulk of it is custom content and dependencies.

I'm not nearly done though - I've been rebuilding my plugins collection (after a hard drive crash two years ago) by going page by page through the STEX and downloading what I want. I'm on page 221 out of 792 (going backwards).

[Mithrik 562]

About 1.3 GB in total.

[Mister Giggles 310]

3.9 gigs. I'd really like to cut it down some, but I <3 variety. Ironic, since most of my cities end up skyscraper forests composed of a couple dozen different buildings.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

At this very moment, it is zero. SC4 is not currently installed on this build. When I get around to it, it will be around 400MB.

[slydishere 4]

Hey! Thank you for your input,,It seem my problem is not as bad as I had thought,,I had wondered about this for awhile,but have always been afraid to ask.

@ mikeaut1,,Great idea on the subfolder system,,so simple,,yet the idea never dawned on me,,I will impliment it right away as I think we all have those "core" files we use all the time..I keep my folder clean,I remove all text files and images,I keep those up 1 level.

@cleaner475, never offend..

@grumbs64,,,been there, done that. lots of pepsi.

Now that gets me wondering about the most efficient file structure, will it make the game run smoother with less folders,,,grouping .dats that sort of thing?

Thought i seen a post about that a while back,,,gonna have a look.

Thanks again for your time everyone,,,,and I love the new look of the sight,,I was worried for a while.......keep the game growing!!

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

In a word, the organization of your plugins folder is irrelevant after the game load. All the plugins are loaded into memory tables and stay there. Some of them modify existing slots in the standard tables, and other increase the size of the plugins block. The game loads pretty small, and then the Maxis tables load, and then the plugins. When you are all done you can have quite a big patch of memory. Then, when you open a city, a huge table comes in for the city, which is also memory resident until you close it.

In these days of virtual memory, you don't need to be concerned much with this, except to keep your system clean, and make sure your swap file (virtual space) is big enough and hopefully in one piece. If you look around over in Bugs and Technical Issues you should be able to find lots of information about disk management and swap file control.

If you want to ask a question in that forum, please remember to include the technical specifications for your machine and the game. There are pinned threads over there about how to go about this.

[Jazzmaster 716]

In a word, the organization of your plugins folder is irrelevant after the game load. All the plugins are loaded into memory tables and stay there. Some of them modify existing slots in the standard tables, and other increase the size of the plugins block. The game loads pretty small, and then the Maxis tables load, and then the plugins. When you are all done you can have quite a big patch of memory. Then, when you open a city, a huge table comes in for the city, which is also memory resident until you close it.

In these days of virtual memory, you don't need to be concerned much with this, except to keep your system clean, and make sure your swap file (virtual space) is big enough and hopefully in one piece. If you look around over in Bugs and Technical Issues you should be able to find lots of information about disk management and swap file control.

If you want to ask a question in that forum, please remember to include the technical specifications for your machine and the game. There are pinned threads over there about how to go about this.

That's pretty interesting...I had no idea how all that stuff for the plugins loading worked. i just knew two things...1.) it loads in alphabetical order and 2.) changing your plugins after the game loads won't be 'applied' until you restart the game. Cool to know the technicality of it, though.

I'm running on about 4.5 gb of plugins and growing here I've compressed about half of it but haven't since when i realized it opens up a whole other can of worms. I did thankfully keep a copy of that old uncompressed plugins folder, named 'Plugins_Fat'. And thankfully, too...because I don't know how I would possibly resolve issues with conflicting plugins or wanting to switch out cosmetic mods otherwise...

[Cob92 360]

682 MB. I'm planning to add in a bit more, but I'm not one to go plugin crazy. I use them to supplement the Maxis content, not replace it entirely.

[stormlover 16]

775MB of well organized, clean, and aberration-free files.

1.) Organizing the plugin folder is itself a learning curve. It took a few years but after several revisions, I've finally reached the point where I can actually find what I'm looking for without much bother.

2.) By clean, I mean there's nothing in my plugins folder that doesn't belong there. Non-auto load read-mes and photos go to the recycle bin unless they're key or complex; in which case I save them in a desktop folder.

3.) Any lot that gives the slightest hint of being anomalous to realism gets checked out in the iLive reader.

a.) Ploppables: I've had to enter iLive reader and alter the exemplar settings (specs) on about 1/4 to maybe even 1/3 of my ploppable lots. Plop cost, bulldoze cost, power consumed, number of employees, item cost (monthly dollar drain), patient capacity...and on and on and on....all for the sake of "keeping it real" and avoiding the use of cheats.

b.) Growables: I don't know how to alter the specs on growables. If a growable acts weird; I simply delete it.

I love the game, and certainly appreciate the great effort modders put into their lots - but am forever confounded by how little examination there is when it comes to setting the specs on a lot.

When I plop something and get an unexpected power zot....I'm forced to either send the lot to the recycle bin or fix it in iLive reader.

When I plop something and get an unexpected water zot...

When I plop something and my next financial update shows a huge increase in monthly expenses....

Etc.

One can only wonder how many beautiful lots are technical disasters...disasters that often end up in the recycle bin; and all the while the modder thinks it's a marvel because of all the downloads people have made.

I'm aware cheats get around this, but I'm of the type that thinks "anything worth doing is worth doing right." And I know I'm not alone...

Stormlover from the beautiful coast of North Carolina

[Sgt Pepper 864]

I only have 1.12 GB...sort of a surprise. I guess I can hold more... More....more...moar plugins...

[Forthwall 1,118]

I have 3.70 GB (3,980,115,968 bytes )

I never knew I had so much junk in my folder

My folder is divided

- My Bats (My stuff)

- Japanese Work (Stuff from Japan)

- STEX

- LEX

- PLEX

- PEGBETA

- OTHER

- Finnally a group of random files that I'm scared to delete cause I do not know if they are importent

[Paulobergonci 673]

i think my folder has 1,5GB

and very well organized