Plugins need Weeding?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

There seems to be some false pride around on the number/size of plugin suites. This is a fallacy, and I am curious to know who has this disease, and what you are doing about it.

You should only have plugins that you use. The STEX isn't going away, so you shouldn't load yourself down with plugins you might use someday. Quite often, your tastes and syle changes, and someday never comes.

Well?

[EyeofMobius 27]

I wish I could handle an immense plugin folder on my system for general play. Right now my plugin folder is mostly full of the basic essentials, mayor mode plopables & parks for nature and then the BATs are all currently low density R C and lots of agriculture. This is the stage my project is at currently. If I had the power I would have a plugin folder to cover all stages of development but for now if I want to go big I have to go Maxis.

I think the ideal stage I would like to reach at some point with this game is to have plugin folders that are dedicated to very thematic projects where I create a lot of the custom content as I need it.

[mido1960 19]

Let's say you want to clean your plugin folder, how would you get started? Is there any tool which shows you which buildings are present in a city? I am asking this because you would have to tear them down before removing any plugins.

[Timmystwin 201]

My Plugins folder is 5gb...

Its got several duplicates, and is full of growable skyscrapers. Ploppables too.

Then theres the MASSIVE amount of Mayor mode ploppable...

parks...

Civics...

Yeah i might weed mine out soon.

[longhorn 25]

I would weed mine out, but that is a monumental task at this point.

[RiCHBoyZ 75]

make a list of your Plugins would be helpful by doing this:

Right-click on your plugins folder...

In CMD command prompt these...

[dir /s >Pluginslist.txt]

and press enter. The text list will be generate in your plugins folder.

Now your can easily review all plugins you had without clicking folder by folder.

[mido1960 19]

I keep a good control over my plugins folder by using DL Catalogue to install them. But what happens if you want to get rid of a plugin and don't remember or know in which city they are plopped or have grown? Is there a tool which tells where the plugins are present?

  Edited May 16, 2011 by mido1960  

[Androgeos 73]

I slimmed down my plugins folder this afternoon, after my sister complained that I was adding way too many buildings that I wouldn't use, such as SOMY's Microwave Rectenna Plant, Guggenheim and The Cobb Tower. I still have basic NAM, CAM, the Opera House fix, Air Filtration Plant, Large Medical Center, Lottery Ordinance, Plasma Grasification Plant and Crime Doesn't Pay installed, in addition to every single plugin and landmark Maxis put up as an executable on their website. If I recall, the only landmarks I downloaded from here that are still installed are the Space Needle, Belfry Ghent, Library Tower and Vienna Tower.

[Mithrik 562]

I actually have a very "organized" plugin folder (taking into account that I am actually a very messy person).

I have a fake Plugins folder in My Docs. There I store the plugins I don't use and different themes (like MBEAR mediterranean style).

Then I have a special Modds Folder where most of my MMP and different terrain mods are stored.

And finally in my true Plugins Folder, I have a special Essentials Folder, where there goes the stuff I think that my game actually needs for every region. Normally this is the only folder I don't remove when managing my almost 2GB of plugins.

And is a very effective and simple thing for me, which is great. I recently started to weed out my unused plugins for a bit more space in my hard drive. And I also made a big move out of most of my custom content to start with my first (and really small) CJ, with minimum plugins. With just NAM, BSC Parks, some fixes here and there, the appropieate Props and textures, and a few CS BATS by JMyers, among all (I still ahve to move the SPAM to the Essentials).

So, What you think?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I guess I am a real piker, because my plugins folder, which is on a free-standing HDD, is only 265.2Megabytes of which the biggest item is the NAM and its friends.

It is a good idea to clean up occasionally, however, and take stock of what you are using. I don't keep many old regions lying around because when I am though with them, I am through and no longer have any interest in them, not even historical.

For people doing CJs, or who have a serious dislike for Maxis stuff there is always the Maxis lots stopper mod, then you may have stopped them from appearing, but they will still be in memory from the default files. I suspect you can do nothing abut that.

Doesn't Cleanitol remove duplicates by default? I think that's probably the best tool for this purpose. People who use the DatPacker have another problem unless you kept all the input files somewhere, I can't see how you can edit the .dat files short of using the Reader.

Because I switch decors (operating systems) frequently, I keep my entire SimCity 4 environment (both the Program Files and the Documents files) on a separate, free-standing HDD. I also have copies of the Registry Entries over there as well just in case something should happen or I need to do a reinstall of the registry (which, on my machine is faked). All I have in the current HDD for the operating system is a set of short cuts: One to the user space (SimCity 4) and one to the install space (Maxis). In my operating system these are called links, and the file system thinks they are real folders when I access them as long as they are on-line.

So I load my DVD drive with the play disk, bring the external HDD on line, and play. It is as simple as that.

I don't know if this would work on Windows, but since it has links, I can't see why not. I can't test this because the file system I run is a Linux ext4 journaling system similar to those found on most secure UNIX machines.

My friend in Calgary, for about $150 or less you can get a free standing 1 TB HDD with a USB interface and give this a whirl. You would not have a limitation on your plugins then.

Oh, one more link. My Downloads folder for for pulling in things is on the external disk too. I also have a second external disk that I use to duplicate my backups. Call it paranoia, but disk is cheap and my time isn't.

[Vern 29]

I keep a good control over my plugins folder by using DL Catalogue to install them. But what happens if you want to get rid of a plugin and don't remember or know in which city they are plopped or have grown? Is there a tool which tells where the plugins are present?

Try looking at the SUM.

https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/files/file/21376-sc4-startup-manager/

I use the SUM to limit what gets loaded into memory. While it does nothing to reduce the size of my plugins folder, it does help me manage memory resources better. Why load up CAM when I'm not going to need it on a SPAM tile? It also allows me to create a development profile so when I do want to use LE I won't load the whole plugins folder - just the one's I want.

  Edited May 16, 2011 by Vern  

[x493x 446]

I have a ton of plugins in my folder. But most I actually do use, now of course I don't use all of them all the time though. I only use somee buildings every once any a while when others I use everyday so I think my plugins folder size is justified.

[hamsterTK 93]

I just have a folder for unused plugins. That way I don't have to download and reinstall things. I basically download and collect BATs that I like/fit a certain theme, and then don't necessarily use them but keep them on my HD, since I have plenty of room.

Right now though my plugins folder is a bloated 1.29 GB monster, though I have a great PC and it can handle it. My cities look great though, I basically have everything ever made by SimGoober, Jmyers, etc. Also I have a bunch of personal BATs that are too sucky for the STEX but serve a particular purpose in my own cities.

The worst offenders to me are stuff like airport and port packs, because you only have a few of those facilities your cities, but they are so elaborate Then again, I'm on a boat kick right now. My new barge terminal, made from a bunch of stuff I forgot I even had installed:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

  Edited May 17, 2011 by hamsterTK  

[EyeofMobius 27]

My friend in Calgary, for about $150 or less you can get a free standing 1 TB HDD with a USB interface and give this a whirl. You would not have a limitation on your plugins then.

Space is not the issue for the plugins. Raw processing power and RAM is the issue. The more diversity I run in my cities the lower my system's population cap becomes. When I had a huge plugin folder I was only able to squeeze 40,000 sims into a tile. Running with just the NAM for congestion ease I was able to get up to 80,000. The problem would come shortly after the nice skyskraper BATs and Big industry BATs and the ability to afford lots of eyecandy and parks in a city; basiclly I would either have a massive slowdown followed by my computer shutting itself off or get a Corrupting CTD when I would try to save. These days most large tiles don't go over 10,000 sims and I spend a lot of time farming (insert smiley with a cowboy hat chewing on a grain of straw).

[Vern 29]

My new barge terminal, made from a bunch of stuff I forgot I even had installed:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

I myself am on a water kick at the moment. What seawalls are those, BTW?

Nevermind..LOL..I found them...Riprap seawalls FTW.

  Edited May 17, 2011 by Vern  

[Androgeos 73]

I added the Uniform Street Lighting Mod and the Extra Cheats Plugin .dll to my plugins folder last night and spent quite a bit of time tweaking with the former.