Is it okay to have JPGs in my downloads folder?

[FreezerBunny]

Hello! So I'm thinking about keeping my downloads folder more organized by adding some JPG's to it. Is this okay?


And this is how I have my folder organized, do you think you could tell me if you think it is not organized enough?

First, I have folders for Clothing, Hair, Makeup, Skins, and Defult Replacements.

Inside clothing I have: Male, Female, and Meshes. Inside both male and female I have: Adult, Elder, Teen, Child, and Toddler.

Inside Hair I have: Male and Female.

Inside makeup I have Misc (which is for effects like freckles, braces, etc) and I keep all the other makeup just inside the makeup folder.

I don't have any subfolders in Skins.

I don't have any subfolders in defult replacements.



And I'm thinkins of making a folder for every piece of CC with the .package and the JPG. What do you think? Opinions?

[Peni Griffin]

.jpgs take up space, but they don't screw anything up.

I've read "somewhere" that more folders = more load time, but I'm sure someone here knows better.

How much organization is right for you isn't something we can judge. As someone who's spent a far larger percentage of her life filing than she likes to contemplate, I can say that these are the questions you need to think about when filing:

Where will I look for this item?
Why will I look for this item?
What will I want to know about this item?
What can I count on myself to do every time I file an item?

The simpler the system, the better, as it will be easier to use and maintain. Since you don't have to share it with anyone, it only needs to be intuitive for you. If you need .jpgs to help you identify which filename goes with what later, and you can trust yourself to always bundle the right .jpg with the right file, and if this doesn't slow your game down significantly, then go right ahead. But if you're only going to do it haphazardly, it's about the same as not doing it at all.

[FreezerBunny]

.jpgs take up space, but they don't screw anything up.

I've read "somewhere" that more folders = more load time, but I'm sure someone here knows better.

How much organization is right for you isn't something we can judge. As someone who's spent a far larger percentage of her life filing than she likes to contemplate, I can say that these are the questions you need to think about when filing:

Where will I look for this item?
Why will I look for this item?
What will I want to know about this item?
What can I count on myself to do every time I file an item?

The simpler the system, the better, as it will be easier to use and maintain. Since you don't have to share it with anyone, it only needs to be intuitive for you. If you need .jpgs to help you identify which filename goes with what later, and you can trust yourself to always bundle the right .jpg with the right file, and if this doesn't slow your game down significantly, then go right ahead. But if you're only going to do it haphazardly, it's about the same as not doing it at all.

Thanks! Yes, I am a very organized person and I can count on myself to file my stuff correctly everytime, the thing I'm worried about it too many folders slowing the game down.

JPG's can slow the game down significatly? Do you think you could eleborate of that please? I most definitly don't have a top-notch computer, but it runs TS2 rather good, (no lag) with medium/low settings. I have not much RAM but a pretty good graphic card.

[Peni Griffin]

I don't know if .jpgs slow the game down or not. They take up space in the drive, certainly, which may or may not affect the computer's function - you know your system best. Whether they slow the game down depends on whether the programming tries to look inside them or ignores them as irrelevant because they're not in package format. The game can read .jpgs - that's how they store the storytelling pictures taken by the HUD camera - and I've demonstrated to my own satisfaction that households with shorter story albums take less time to load, but that doesn't mean the game wastes time trying to read .jpgs that aren't in the Storytelling folder.

The impression I got from whatever I read was, that the game has to take a little more time to open every single folder in the Downloads folder when it's loading the game - including entering lots - which means the same amount of CC would affect loading times less it were all in the Downloads folder unsorted than if it were neatly folded into dozens, hundreds, and eventually thousands of precise subfolders. But of course an unsorted Downloads folder would be a nightmare to troubleshoot. So if this bit of information is true, rather than being merely my muddled memory of something that was misinformation to begin with (which does happen), you'd have to make a cost-benefit analysis of the minimum amount of organization you can live with vs. the maximum loading time you can live with.

If nobody reliable comes along to confirm or deny this, you'll just have to experiment, loading the game with the folder in different configurations of the same amount of data, and see for yourself.

[FreezerBunny]

I don't know if .jpgs slow the game down or not. They take up space in the drive, certainly, which may or may not affect the computer's function - you know your system best. Whether they slow the game down depends on whether the programming tries to look inside them or ignores them as irrelevant because they're not in package format. The game can read .jpgs - that's how they store the storytelling pictures taken by the HUD camera - and I've demonstrated to my own satisfaction that households with shorter story albums take less time to load, but that doesn't mean the game wastes time trying to read .jpgs that aren't in the Storytelling folder.

The impression I got from whatever I read was, that the game has to take a little more time to open every single folder in the Downloads folder when it's loading the game - including entering lots - which means the same amount of CC would affect loading times less it were all in the Downloads folder unsorted than if it were neatly folded into dozens, hundreds, and eventually thousands of precise subfolders. But of course an unsorted Downloads folder would be a nightmare to troubleshoot. So if this bit of information is true, rather than being merely my muddled memory of something that was misinformation to begin with (which does happen), you'd have to make a cost-benefit analysis of the minimum amount of organization you can live with vs. the maximum loading time you can live with.

If nobody reliable comes along to confirm or deny this, you'll just have to experiment, loading the game with the folder in different configurations of the same amount of data, and see for yourself.

Thankyou! I think I can deal with about 30 minutes of loading time, mind you I don't have that much CC anyways, not even a GB. My game takes less then five minutes to load.

And I'm still not sure about the JPG's. I think I'll try it out, and see if theres a giant negative effect on game. I can probably deal with longer lot loading times, I just hate lag.

[VerDeTerre]

I have jpegs in my download folders and I haven't noticed any lag. Maybe my computer is just good enough, I don't know. The jpegs are in subfolders with hairs, lots, and objects that are being tested out. Once I'm happy with a lot or an object, I get rid of the jpeg. However, I keep them with the hair.

[Simonut]

@ > > FreezeBunny like you I keep my download folder very organized, I do use sub- folders example for female Adult and Elders, male and female. I do the same for teens, Kids, Hair, Makeup, Objects, Mods all in it's place "Alphabetical."
I also type a very short statement of what the item is on the folder Like ( Mods ) and the creator and from where I got it ( like the site ) I also sometime will use a Text Document and add it in the folder. That comes in handy if I download clothes that is using the same meshes, so I will not have the same mesh repeated over again.

So I make a note of it in my Text Document and will mention each item that need that one particular mesh. By during that when I see a piece of clothing without a mesh I can read the text Document to see what going on. I like my setup because when I want to find anything I "Do Not" have to search, but instead go right to it. About the JPG just a month ago I started adding pictures to my download just for all the Clothes, Eyes, Hair, etc. that why knowing the creator name is important and the name of what you downloaded and from what Sims site that way you can go back and copy and paste a screenshot.

When taking a screenshot try to get the pictures with the small amount of KB, If the JPG KB is large you can always go into Create a Sims pick a Sims put the clothes on her or him and take a snapshot right there, once you get the Sims to pose just click on your in game camera key which is C on your computer keyboard. Come out of your game click on your EA Games / Sims 2 / scroll down until you see the word Neighborhood click on that. If you was in Pleasantview when you made the snapshot then that would be N001 enter then look for Storytelling it is here you will find your picture you just taken. The In Game camera is really small it is like 80 KB. Get the Snapshot picture not the thumbnail.

All you do is right click copy the picture and right click on a space on your desktop and paste, your picture will be there to use. I wanted pictures because I wanted to not only know but see what I have. ( Sometime you can download so much stuff over a period of time you forget what it look like. ) so JPG can come in handy, having JPG "Do Not" harm anything. Now the question do it slow down things ? I can say NO for me, but it also have a lot to do with your "Graphic Card" rams and your over all Computer rams and processor on a good computer with the good hardware and software it's no problem.

[maxon]

When you sub-folder, I'd set it up with a system so you can find anything you download easily. This, as Peni pointed out, will depend on what your particular weakness is. <ahem> I have a thing for skins - especially skintones and other genetics but I also have piles and piles of clothing. What I have found - and I am telling you this directly from irritating, frustrating, hair-tearing experience - is that it's not a good idea (especially if you have LOTS of skins) to store the meshes separately from the textures. If I were you, I would put clothes together with the meshes they belong to. This might sound like a bit of a PITA, because, ideally, you need to keep track of clothes you DL on separate occasions which use the same mesh and put them together in the same folder. Personally, I use a double-checker programme to do this - that is a (freebee off the net) programme that looks for identical files in Downloads. I have one that can check for files with the same contents though differing names and use it to search for double copies of meshes and sort out from there. As I said, this might sound fussy but I can assure you that trying to work out whether a mesh has been orphaned or not in one of your deleting sprees is an epic PITA, especially if you are anal like me and want to remove every last non-working file from Downloads in order to keep things tidy and reduce loading times as much as possible. If you do it properly (i.e. what I mean by properly) deleting stuff is a breeze because all you have to do is either delete the entire folder for the skin you want rid of or you can delete in game and then look for folders with only the mesh file left in them.

I do sub-folder obsessively. I have also heard it said that this contributes to loading times. However, I have a moderately sized (compared to some people on here) Downloads folder and the game takes just over 5 minutes, at the moment, to load with all the sub-foldering I do. I haven't tried it with all the files in together with no sub-folders to see whether it's shorter (I might try that). OTOH, this is a big rig which I bought especially for gaming. OTOH2, it's about three years old now (so no-longer a whizzy beast of a machine) even though it's had a few upgrades. What I'm saying is YMMV.

[VerDeTerre]

I've started adding labels to the recolors of meshes such as "__goeswithMeshLliana004x". That way I can keep my subfolders simple and limited to EF, EM, FA, MA, etc...

[joandsarah77]

From what I have read and seen the more subfoldering you do the longer it takes to load. It's far better to spread them out. So instead of going (folder) Clothing/ (sub folder)Male/(sub sub folder) ‘Adult’ use 'Clothing Male Adult' (one folder) 'Clothing Female Adult' (one folder) 'Clothing Male Teen' (one folder) When you open Downloads it looks like tons, but there were really tons more by doing more subfoldering they were just hidden. If you use the same word to start with ‘Clothing’ they will all be together in alphabetical order as well. That's what I am trying to do with mine anyway.

[VerDeTerre]

Yes, me too. All the clothing is "C" in the downloads folder, so there is a subfolder "C_MA" and another that is "C_FA", etc...It is not all under "clothing" then "male", then "adult" - that's way too much subfoldering (new world).

[Simonut]

From what I have read and seen the more subfoldering you do the longer it takes to load. It's far better to spread them out. So instead of going (folder) Clothing/ (sub folder)Male/(sub sub folder) ‘Adult’ use 'Clothing Male Adult' (one folder) 'Clothing Female Adult' (one folder) 'Clothing Male Teen' (one folder) When you open Downloads it looks like tons, but there were really tons more by doing more subfoldering they were just hidden. If you use the same word to start with ‘Clothing’ they will all be together in alphabetical order as well. That's what I am trying to do with mine anyway.

I understand what you are saying but just typing the words Clothes and everything going there in that folder can take you on a "long treasure hunt search" if you are looking for specific Male Ad or Female Ad, items etc.

I like to label my subfolder as Clothes Ad F, Kid B, Or Kid G, everyone have their own way of doing it whatever better for each and all of us. This work for me when I want to remove a kid clothing if it's a boy I can go right to that folder.

[Liv Lukas]

I did a downloading tutorial here:

http://livestre.am/3VRwD

Where I show you how to be organized and cut your load times down SIGNIFICANTLY.

I have had many report back with much success.

Basically it boils down to organizing without subfolders, but still get the subfolder information

[joandsarah77]

Liv I totally had in my head when replying up there ^ "Sub folders are naughty" lol, from your livestream.


I understand what you are saying but just typing the words Clothes and everything going there in that folder can take you on a "long treasure hunt search" if you are looking for specific Male Ad or Female Ad, items etc.

I like to label my subfolder as Clothes Ad F, Kid B, Or Kid G, everyone have their own way of doing it whatever better for each and all of us. This work for me when I want to remove a kid clothing if it's a boy I can go right to that folder.

I agree and mine are sub foldered inside of that. I do have 'Sleepwear' , 'everyday' etc, but the OP didn't say she had them separated any further. It still means to get to male sleepwear I only have to go 'Clothing Adult Male/Sleepwear' rather than Clothing/Male/Adult/Sleepwear. So two folders deep instead of four. I have a lot of folders when I first open my Downloads although not nearly so many as Liv has. :lol:

[Darby]

I keep all CC/mod "support" stuff - documents, pictures, etc. - in the backup folders, which basically mirror my in-game folders. So in-game is ONLY content files. Backups contain the content files AND whatever extra stuff comes with, or that I create. Keeps the game leaner, I think.

I need to check out Liv's tutorial, though. I'm fairly organized, but I still haven't worked out a system I'm completely happy with.

(eta: Congrats on the impending nuptials, Liv! :beer: )

[Selly_2009]

I may have to re-do my Downloads folder (again)... cutting down on load times will be VERY useful! Thanks for the tips Liv!

Don't get me wrong, I used the loading time yesterday to empty the washing machine and hang the clothes on the line, but it's not every day I'll have something like that to fall back on... normally it's a quick loo stop and making of coffee!

To the OP, I only keep JPGs of hair in my Downloads - if something's wrong with the mesh or I want to get rid of one quickly and am not 100% sure which it is by name but know it by sight then they're useful. Pictures of default replacements (especially with umpteen options eg. baby clothes or tableware) in the back-up files are also handy to have, but there's no point to keeping them in Downloads - just takes up space on the hard drive in my opinion.

[d_dgjdhh]

Well, I guess I have one of the shortest sub-folders list ever. Since I don't have much downloads, I don't really need much folders, especially since I have either mods or clothing recolors.http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/4/3/1/2/8/9/5/MTS_d_dgjdhh-1304187-downloadsfolder1.jpg

[joandsarah77]

How many sub folders are inside those folders though? Of course if you haven't got hundreds of clothes, hairs etc it doesn't really matter. I probably have 5,000 clothing files alone so it really can't be put all into one folder- well it could but I wouldn't recommend it. :lol:

[d_dgjdhh]

None. Just package files in each folder.

[FranH]

There is another hint I'll give everyone (whether they need it or not :) ):
Walls, floors, and terrains do not have to be in the downloads folder to work.

They can be in the main game folder, and they're just fine. The reason I do this is that it does cut down on the load times-especially when you have thousands of walls and floors, like I do...bad me.

They're what they call "static" items, which do not change over the course of time. They're fixed in their size, and complexity. They don't take as much space as a normal file does, and to keep them separate in the main folder is just sensible.

But I didn't realize that neighborhoods with lots of jpgs for the storytelling could be a bad thing. I guess I'm going to have to cut down on taking pictures in game...:(

[joandsarah77]

FranH I had no idea that floors, walls and terrain could be outside of the download folder! I'll have to try that as my 18 minute loading time is really pushing it. I do clean my house while it loads which is good, but still.

Also in case you don't know I'll return the favour and tell you, you can remove your pictures to a folder on your desktop. They won't show up in the picture area of a lot that we used to use for uploading to the exchange but who does that these days? Also you can delete all the thumbnails that each snapshot makes, those were also only for uploading to the exchange.

[Peni Griffin]

I don't know that lots of .jpgs in the storytelling folder are a "bad" thing per se; but I do know that everything I do in Strangetown, where I'm not being as conscientious about writing the story and where in any case I have been playing less than a sim week, takes less time than everything I do in Drama Acres.

The picture thumbnails are not only used for loading things to the exchange, which I never do, but for organizing your story album. If you delete a thumbnail, but not a .jpg, you won't be able to locate the .jpg to put it into the story. If you use the same picture in more than one story, it will have as many different copies as you have albums you've used it in. And I have read on here that someone, at I think he said 5000 (but don't trust me; I can't remember my husband's work number reliably) or so, suddenly found his album wiped - he had apparently exceeded the file's capacity. Like I said, don't trust my memory on that. The .jpgs don't seem to cause lag during the game, just increase the times of loading screens.

[joandsarah77]

But what use is using the story album unless you plan to upload it to the exchange which last time I looked was broken if you have any more then base game. I guess you can look at it in your own game and that is about all.

[Peni Griffin]

What's the use of keeping a diary that nobody else looks at? This way I can go back and read through it, and refresh my memory. Also, where do you think my captions come from? Most of the good stuff is copy/pasted straight from the webentry file. I do wish I had some other way to read them, though.

[FranH]

Peni, how do you copy/paste from the webentry file? It's not in text format to do that with, I do recall-unless you're using an outside text editor that can read the entry?

Another item that can be placed in the main folder (in case anyone's using the files) is the set of Maxis item hiders from Garden of Shadows by Almighty Hat-it was made to hide nearly every single item in the game all through to the last EP, and has thousands of tiny hider files.

It works just as well outside of the downloads folder.

[Peni Griffin]

I don't have a text editor that can read it with the pictures, but .xml files will open in a web browser, which gives it to you in code view, with all the tags. Since there's no tags in the text, I can just copy/paste in the usual way - CTL-C, CTL-V. So the procedure for posting a picture that has a lot of text to go with it (if it's short it's easier to just type it) is to copy the image tag from photobucket, paste it into the reply box, open the webentry file with the same code string in a new tab on the browser, open it, scan visually for the appropriate text (since I'm usually posting within a few days of playing, not an onerous task), copy, tab, paste. Simple.

There should be something out there that shows the pictures, too, as long as it's on the computer where it's stored, but I'm a late adopter and don't have anything I don't actively need. I don't even know what programs read .xml outside of the game.

[joandsarah77]

I've never done anything like that. I’ve seen those web entries and not knowing exactly what they were deleted them. Occasionally I have put a picture over in story editor and typed in a caption. I do my stories up in Word. I use insert picture and type underneath it. If I put any captions into story editor I just Ctrl C and Ctrl V it over to Word. From Word I save it as a PDF and upload to Slideshare and embed it in my Live Journal. A lot of people I know use Power Point instead of Word, but I've never got the hang of that and Word as far as I can tell does exactly if not more of the same things.

[Peace]

My downloads folder is very organized! Defaults/walls/floors/rugs have their own folder and i have a folder for each creator. Whoa i just checked and it said i had 803 folders! DuuuuuuDE......... O.o

[maxon]

FranH - do you have them in their own folder or are they just loose in the main folder. I knew you could put some stuff elsewhere (since the game reads the whole folder while in play) but I've never tried it other than putting skins in Saved Sims for a while.

[ForeverCamp]

There is another hint I'll give everyone (whether they need it or not :) ):
Walls, floors, and terrains do not have to be in the downloads folder to work.

They can be in the main game folder, and they're just fine. The reason I do this is that it does cut down on the load times-especially when you have thousands of walls and floors, like I do...bad me.

Blew. My. Mind.

*stares at what essentially amounts to iCad and Pixelhate's entire creative genius in her downloads folder*

[FranH]

I have them in the main game folder-outside of the 'downloads' folder in a folder named "Walls". Floors are also in a separate folder named the obvious way.

I wasn't kidding about the size of my walls and floors folders.

Just looking at one set of walls (but they're duplicated in the other game, as well):
2,390 files. The floors are a little over 1,000 files.

That's why I put them outside in the main game folder. It saves loading time.

I don't know when I decided to do this, but I had heard that it was better this way a very long time ago-and never looked back.

And just for another hint: compressorize every single download you get before you run the DDO (Delphy's Download Organizer). Compressing the files will free up space in your game and also cut down on loading times.

JFade has the program: http://forum.jfade.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=170

[Lerf1950]

And just for another hint: compressorize every single download you get before you run the DDO (Delphy's Download Organizer). Compressing the files will free up space in your game and also cut down on loading times.

JFade has the program: http://forum.jfade.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=170

Except when it corrupts the file and your game crashes every time you load. And when I run DDO it throws errors for every single compressorized file.

Result--I no longer use either program.

[FranH]

Well, I did mean it as 'general' advice-if it corrupts your dl's, there isn't much need to compress anything-but I, myself, have never had the problem.

Not that it doesn't exist, though.