poll Plugin folder size: 2019 Edition (and beyond)

[Lucario Boricua 7,027]

To keep track of how players engage differently with their game over the years, I've decided to create a new poll consulting on the Plugins folder size, along with the size of the Regions folder and the size of the main active region. The last poll wasn't too informative because of the upper bound of the plugin folder size being well below the actual reality of most players, so I decided to expand the intervals to better represent the reality on the ground.

Bring your votes, fellow mayors!!  

[PaPa-J 778]

6.1gig and growing.

[CorinaMarie 29,568]

My total for Plugins is 268 MB with 176 MB being the two NAM folders so a net size of 92 MB for CC. Region folder size is 3.37 GB which is prolly 90% of all my regions ever (some of my earliest are still on another comp and not copied over). And my main, active play region is 619 MB.

[Cyclone Boom 16,851]

I like the idea with starting a new poll for this, and since the old one had choices which were large back when it was created over 12 years ago.

For me and my SC4 data is currently comprised of:

Plugins

374 MB  (392,313,086 bytes)
467 Files, 97 Folders

Quite a minimalistic approach for me at present, and almost half of the size at 181 MB (48%) is from the NAM.

Then a fair portion is from the terrain mod I use being Appalachian, and also other cosmetic mods for water, beach, and rocks. Then I've numerous smaller files for basic fixes, and lots of other selected content which soon adds up, including the NKO mod and Less Abandonment. I wouldn't say I've finished "building" my Plugins, and I'd like to go through and organise things a bit more too. There's also a few testing items which have been left inside, and I've got 4 other folders for dedicated experiments.

Regions

1.09 GB  (1,176,251,220 bytes)
995 Files, 22 Folders

Keeping all the default regions as they are, and then I've got a couple of sandboxes for testing purposes.

I've a few dedicated regions, and this includes Corillion, my very own 2x2 tile named Daffy Duckland, along with Cori's Castle. Also there's a few other dedicated tests like for the Deuteranpoia modding, and then others for gameplay experiments including one named Suleburg and others called "Silly Farms" and also "Copland".

Active Region  (Corillion)

620 MB  (650,804,569 bytes)
149 Files

It's worth mentioning how Cori and I share the same main region, which explains why the size is almost identical. We also made sure to download the same base content as each other, and that also helps for certain modding projects we work on.

For testing and I've got a sandbox region which was randomly generated with tiles, and that's 21.5 MB with 28 files inside. I've created a 2nd sandbox region recently too as I'm running a little short of space. With knowing how saving tiles also updates those neighbouring ones, ideally I like to leave gaps around them.

So yeah, that's my setup at present.

(Admittedly with site duties and projects I've not gotten around to playing SC4 recently much lately, but I'll get back to it someday.)

[markussaage 762]

Plugins: 5,61 GB and growing (18522 files in 2949 folders)

Regions: 239 MB

Active Region: 106 MB

My active playing (testing) is done in the Three Rivers Region... Huge map, and I doubt it that I will ever complete this map in my lifetime...

Kind regards!

[Haljackey 17,251]

Plugins is currently 6.74GB, the largest size I have ever had

I have one mega-region, where I have merged most of my old regions into. Region is the Ring of Fire and is currently 1.89GB

https://i.imgur.com/9lVuHZq.jpg

 

https://i.imgur.com/HDmFwYA.jpg

Region:

[carlosmarcelo 968]

I don't want exceed 2 GB to active plugins and 1GB to each region. I believe this way I keep  a very good performance with SSD disk. 

Please, I suggest to add a other question: 

4. Storage inactive plugins files (out off main plugin folder)

My: 2,72 GB

How someone can play with 8GB of plugins??? 

[CorinaMarie 29,568]

49 minutes ago, carlosmarcelo said:

4. Storage inactive plugins files (out off main plugin folder)

Oooo. I might win this one (if having the most connotes winning). I have complete offline copies of the STEX and the LEX which together total 59.9 GB.

[kschmidt 6,151]

SimCity 4 at home is devided into a left hand and right hand drive instalation.  UK and regular wich makes relastic world cities posible like Tokyo or Indosnesia (left) and the rest all right hand based or just a fantasy, victual no purpose ! Multiple locations below the standard installation, so called UserDir gives room for as many installations as you would like. Mayon Province 2.0 got the largest plugins by about 6.8 Gb encompasing about anything you could find except a large colleciton of skyscrapers. Europa ANNO is the future of plugin setups, no more than a standard dvd+r 4,5 Gb plugins and regional files so backup storage isn't a problem.

As these project comming into the finale stages, Mayon Province will be reviewed, some bat's wich crashed the game are allready removed, still some to go in the lightpole department and some highway walls or less necesary bat's or lots removed. This will not reduce it much but makes the instalation more workable. The new way localizing installations wll have some common overhead, NAM, Megaprops, loved various Bat's but if you build a european city like Berlin or Paris, you will only have related files into these installations, nothing more or less, unless you choose so !

[redfox85 659]

So..

Main Plugin Folders (... yes plural): 10.7GB .. 43,520 files & 4,899 folders. Spreadout across 5 Folders. Why? I like to have each region look different slightly (with terrian etc) so will often move stuff around to depend where I'm working.

My dev plugin folder ... currently at 832mb with 514 Files, 117 Folders (yes there is some fun stuff in there).

My Main region atm ... 30mb. 36 files... I had just started it before my motherboard went kaputs.

My total region folder ... 2.87 GB. Including one region that is 1.04 GB with 614 files. 

And a ton of other stuff that clocks in at 5GB (most of that is abandoned plugins).

[kschmidt 6,151]

24 minutes ago, redfox85 said:

So..

Main Plugin Folders (... yes plural): 10.7GB .. 43,520 files & 4,899 folders. Spreadout across 5 Folders. Why? I like to have each region look different slightly (with terrian etc) so will often move stuff around to depend where I'm working.

My dev plugin folder ... currently at 832mb with 514 Files, 117 Folders (yes there is some fun stuff in there).

My Main region atm ... 30mb. 36 files... I had just started it before my motherboard went kaputs.

My total region folder ... 2.87 GB. Including one region that is 1.04 GB with 614 files. 

And a ton of other stuff that clocks in at 5GB (most of that is abandoned plugins).

Large ..! Mayon Province, is that aswell, Resulting startup time of SimCity 4 is about a minimal of 5 minutes. Another aspcect of gameplay wich is crucial for one's liiking; this is at first start, if you have to restart most files are in memory, but still loading your cities may take up to 5 minutes,  dependably of development ! Time might be a aspect how much the game is enjoyed beside size or richness of a plugins folder !

[eaglesong 108]

My current plugins is 6gb, it is a complete revamp I've been working on over the last few months. (I've taken some breaks for the newest Diablo3 season and World of Warcraft patch )

I am almost ready to datpack this folder. I'm currently testing it on a small region of 9 large cities that I'm terraforming myself. I expect to be working on this region for at least the next 2 years.

[Prophet42 1,500]

Plugins - 3.17 GB

Region - 477 MB

Hebron (currently played region) - 204 MB

[carlosmarcelo 968]

21 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

I have complete offline copies of the STEX and the LEX which together total 59.9 GB.

WOW! But I confess I expected much more: they are the most (or almost this) plugins files library of the internet. So, we can conclude people that have 10 GB in plugin folder, have around 16,6% of all plugins of the world! 

 

[CorinaMarie 29,568]

5 hours ago, carlosmarcelo said:

So, we can conclude people that have 10 GB in plugin folder, have around 16,6% of all plugins of the world! 

Not quite. There are (and were) numerous other sites which have other content.

[luvs2draw 295]

My main Plugins folder is 6.86 GB, Region is 413 MB, I am only playing the Prince Edward Island map, and 1.15 GB storage on an ext. hard drive. I have 2 folders saved (on my ext. hard drive) with an extra couple of my Plugins folder, Dat Packed and Non-Dat Packed. This way if my computer goes haywire and I have to reset it I will have copies and I will be able to get back to playing the game after I have restored the game.

[Wiimeiser 436]

My plugins folder is at 4.65GB while my regions folder is less than 1GB, though I'm not doing much as I'm still trying to figure stuff out and experiment and I'm also waiting for the NAM to update (also for other things that'll probably never come if I don't actually commission them)

[APSMS 1,892]

On 7/6/2019 at 7:45 AM, CorinaMarie said:

Oooo. I might win this one (if having the most connotes winning). I have complete offline copies of the STEX and the LEX which together total 59.9 GB.

You've got me beat by a bit there. I definitely do not have complete copies of the exchanges, although my ZIP folder where I store extracted Zips and installers and unused Plugins is apparently 23.6 GB. Saving the .zip files allows me to see if I've already downloaded a given plugin, which is handy especially now given that I'm on datacapped internet.

My plugins folder is about 7 gb. Regions is only 896 mb, which makes sense given I haven't played in a while.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

My plugins folder is only 1.7 GB.

[Grimdeath99 3]

My plugins folder is around 15 GB. My region folder is aobut 0,5 GB and my main region is about 0,25 GB

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

Plugins (packed) is 2.43 GB; unpacked isn't much more. My only active region is ~650 MB. Both fit together in a 3.2 GB RAM drive that is loaded automagically when I boot, changed files copied back to disk whenever I exit the game.

[mrbisonm 1,620]

My Plugin is now 7.71 GB. I have reduced it from 11.8 GB a month ago, seeing that mt cities started having problems at rush-hour with details on. Besides, there was still a lot stuff from the first year of custom LOTting and BATting in it, many I don't even use anymore since years.

 

Fred

 

[Lucario Boricua 7,027]

To commemorate the 50 valid votes on this poll, gonna add a screenshot showcasing them! Will do the same once it reaches 100 valid votes (and please make sure to actually select options!).

 

[spiritualfire 138]

I'm at 6GB and slowly building up a custom region.....

I can't understand though how my computer takes about 5 minutes to load the game, and then another 3 minutes to load the city..... It's a large tile but only 2,000 residents so far. Hoping to (eventually) make it a decent size city. Takes about 20-30 seconds to load the landmarks menu.

[Lucario Boricua 7,027]

When the game loads, it must search and put into memory all of the custom content every time a city is opened. With such a beefy plugins folder, paired with SimCity 4's 32 bit architecture, it can't handle the 6 GB all at once and actually has to swap content to display it to the player.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

18 hours ago, spiritualfire said:

I can't understand though how my computer takes about 5 minutes to load the game, and then another 3 minutes to load the city...

That would be the first city. After exiting to region and then loading a city (same or different one), the load time should be much faster.

[spiritualfire 138]

@jeffryfisher I might give that a try in reloading the city after exiting to region. Currently because it takes so freaking long from starting up I tend to just keep the game running overnight so I can jump right into playing when I get home from work.

@Lucario Boricua Yeah, I kinda figured it would end up being something to that effect. The load time is aggravating as it is, and my gameplay is between choppy and smooth. It varies frankly. I was looking around here for something that would help the game load faster if possible. I've organized my plugins best I can, but still need a method of finding which types of plugins need to load first to last. I read that in the forums somewhere.

[CorinaMarie 29,568]

5 minutes ago, spiritualfire said:

I was looking around here for something that would help the game load faster if possible.

The number one best thing is to use a solid state drive. I was amazed when I switched over. I ran several tests using a stopwatch and I believe it came out like 50% faster from a cold start to inside a fully developed city. ( @Cyclone Boom might even have those percentages since he saves our chat logs. )

[spiritualfire 138]

@CorinaMarie Thank you Corina, as always. I know the SSD has come a long way but I remember their longevity being in question. What is the best brand to look into?

[CorinaMarie 29,568]

@spiritualfire

I read several articles and watched a few vids on YT before I bought any. It seems the longevity has been completely solved and the good quality ones are ranked as good as, if not better than, the common platter drives. The key thing is to not totally fill them up. Each cell of the SSD does have a limited number of writes it can do before being worn out, but it's a high number and the circuitry of the drive makes sure to shuffle things around so that they get used evenly. Therefore, keeping at least 25% free will improve the life of the drive as it has more room to move the data around. They also have their own hidden area for that purpose so whatever size you buy plan on only 80% or 90% of that being available for your OS and data.

I have multiple computers and I've used Samsung, Kingston, and Crucial and I'm happy with each one. However, you'll have to ask me again in 5 or 10 years for me to say which is the best since they are all still alive and well atm.

I can say at work (where the SSDs get much more of a workout) that they've been in use for around 3 years and no trouble there. The one on the server gets the most use and it prolly shuffles data 10 or 20 times more often than any I have here at home.