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Scholar
Original Poster
#1 Old 7th Jul 2018 at 3:29 PM

This user has the following games installed:

Sims 2, University, Nightlife, Open for Business, Pets, Seasons, Bon Voyage, Free Time, Apartment Life
Default Windows 7 copies all CC files as the game boots
I've had a recurring problem the past few months where I need enough free space on my drive to match my Downloads folder, because my hard drive gets full whenever I boot the game up.

For example, I currently have an 8GB Downloads folder, and only 5GB of free hard drive space; when I boot the game up, the hard drive will steadily get more and more full until it is at 0 free bytes, and the boot screen will freeze up and never load anything. If I have enough free hard drive space to fit the folder into, the hard drive expands but the game ends up loading fine. Problem is I don't want to be constrained in how much space I can actually use, so keeping an enough free space to match my (ever-expanding) Downloads folder isn't a viable option for me.

Taking out the Downloads folder solves this problem, and Windows doesn't seem to do this with the other folders the game is trying to access, or any other applications on my PC - I also have only seen this problem recently, I've been playing TS2 for a decade and never had anything like this before. I suspect it's a VirtualStore problem but I can't find where the files are being copied, it doesn't seem to be there. I'm running the Ultimate Collection on Windows 7, if that is relevant. Any help is appreciated, cheers.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jje1000
If this succeeds, then we will have driven a stake through the metaphorical heart of pudding.

♥ Receptacle Refugee ♥
Now also on Tumblr !
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Mad Poster
#2 Old 7th Jul 2018 at 8:18 PM
I'm no expert, but it sounds like Windows may be running out of RAM and is trying to use some of your hard drive space as virtual memory. You may need to look into changing the settings for your paging file. In my game, I notice in Task Manager that my games uses a lot more RAM with my 10Gb Downloads folder in place.

How much RAM do you currently have and is it possible to add more to your computer? Adding more RAM may help alleviate the problem, but I'm concerned that you only have 5Gb of space left on your hard drive. This is likely to cause some kind of problem sooner or later. Is there anything else on that drive that you could back up or move somewhere else? (I get nervous when my free hard drive space drops below 50Gb.)

Quote: Originally posted by Windows 7 help file
What is virtual memory?

If your computer lacks the random access memory (RAM) needed to run a program or operation, Windows uses virtual memory to compensate. To find out how much RAM your computer has, see Find out how much RAM your computer has.

Virtual memory combines your computer’s RAM with temporary space on your hard disk. When RAM runs low, virtual memory moves data from RAM to a space called a paging file. Moving data to and from the paging file frees up RAM so your computer can complete its work.

The more RAM your computer has, the faster your programs will generally run. If a lack of RAM is slowing your computer, you might be tempted to increase virtual memory to compensate. However, your computer can read data from RAM much more quickly than from a hard disk, so adding RAM is a better solution.

Virtual memory and error messages
If you receive error messages that warn of low virtual memory, you need to either add more RAM or increase the size of your paging file so that you can run the programs on your computer. Windows usually manages this automatically, but you can manually change the size of virtual memory if the default size isn't large enough for your needs. For more information, see Change the size of virtual memory.

Alchemist
#3 Old 7th Jul 2018 at 8:36 PM
not sure, but following sticky might be applicable in this case.
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=610641
Alchemist
#4 Old 7th Jul 2018 at 9:22 PM
I'm not sure what you are describing exactly, but I agree with RoxEllen, 5GB of free space on a hard drive just isn't enough. Many programs need some hard drive space to operate, it's not enough just to store the files. This game makes files as it runs as do many other programs. I run UC on a laptop with Windows 7 and two hard drives. I have 54GB free on one (where Sims2 runs) and 47 GB free on the other (for the OS) and I just cleaned off some old stuff to make that because I felt it was getting tight. I store all my unused downloads and other old Sim stuff on an external drive.
Scholar
Original Poster
#5 Old 7th Jul 2018 at 11:36 PM
I have 16GB of RAM, plenty left over while the game is booting, it's not a RAM issue - and even if it were, my paging file is in a different partition, so I'd see my C: drive expand, not the drive my documents are kept on (F: in this case). As for 5GB of free space not being enough, again, this has never been an issue with TS2 before for me, nor is it an issue with any other program I run, and I run some very RAM-intensive editing software, as well as games that are far more resource-heavy than TS2. And I am 100% sure it's not the game running normally and making files as it boots, because this has only recently begun happening, and when I remove my Downloads folder the issue disappears entirely, and it really seems it is just copying the Downloads folder to some temporary location while it boots.

Thanks for the link to the memory overflow patch, I already have that applied. I am 99% certain it's an issue with my Windows 7 installation and how it is treating these files, not a problem with the game itself - I downgraded from Windows 10 recently and no similar issue there.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jje1000
If this succeeds, then we will have driven a stake through the metaphorical heart of pudding.

♥ Receptacle Refugee ♥
Now also on Tumblr !
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