Merging mods to increase Performance!
Anach:
Quote from: Klinn on 2010 January 04, 00:22:46
Thanks for the quick response and info Anach.
Sorry, but I wasn't very clear in my post -- I wasn't looking for a description of how to tell when a mod is causing problems and isolating it, but the errors in the mods themselves that you happen to have come across. For example, if you've found a number of them with missing textures, or links to other components that don't exist, or whatever. Those examples are just guesses on my part, since I'm not too familar with Sims mods yet.
On the other hand, maybe it's too early to try to build up that Sims3 modding folklore, or things creators should keep in mind while building mods, since the tools may still be in a state of flux. As you mentioned:
Quote from: Anach on 2010 January 03, 23:27:22
Many mods out there were made before tools were working correctly, while others simply havent been made correctly.
I don't have any background in previous Sims games, but have dabbled in various areas of Sims3 modding, some retexturing, tweaking some meshes, some XML tuning, and some core modding, and I didn't want to accidentally repeat some typical noob errors you might have seen while examing other mods. If you happen to think of any common mod creation problems, great. If not, no worries, I'll continue to lurk & learn. ;-)
Back on topic, thanks for clearly describing how to combine packages into a .dbc file, I'm sure I'll find useful as I accumulate more mods.
At the moment I certainly don't see myself as experienced enough in s3 modding to give any more advice than I already have, in that people take a look themselves. Even those mods which are often broken or missing stuff, i'd find it very difficult to make myself. Like you, a lot of it is simply guesses and my own testing for obvious stuff , So other than my own personal quality limits, I wouldn't feel comfortable in stating any thing else. I'd kinda feel akin to some noob coming in and telling Pescado how to make core mods. :P
I prefer to simply advise people to be very fussy when it comes to installing mods, as not every mod creator has the same level of expertise or quality control and quite a lot of mods will break your game in one way or another.
However, I will say that Hair mods seem to be one of the most frequently broken mods I come across, and one to watch out for. I now have very few CC hair in my game simply because it was causing game issues or simply had ugly visual issues. I've set my own limit of acceptable quality on that, and even while I might use one or two hairs from a one particular modder, it doesnt mean every hair from them will be fine, and more often than not, its the hair I actually want to use, unfortunately.
The trouble with threads that list troublesome mods, is that everyone has a different level of acceptable quality, often modders will update and fix mods, and quite often they end up so full of nonsense that they end up being ignored anyway. As much of a pain as it is, there really is no way to tell without testing every single mod prior to adding it permanently to your game.
Updated the main post to simplify the process with the latest information.
Inge:
What about opening the original .dbc in s3pe, and adding the packages into that? (make a safe backup of the original first, obviously :D )
Anach:
Quote from: Inge on 2010 January 04, 10:16:24
What about opening the original .dbc in s3pe, and adding the packages into that? (make a safe backup of the original first, obviously :D )
A scary thought, as i'm sure it will break the launcher horribly, but worth an experiment. I like to keep mine as clean as possible, that's why i'm excited about merging possibilities, as I can keep my CC separate to my SC, and not have to scroll through that horrible launcher to find stuff, since I generally never uninstall store stuff.
*edit* Doesn't work either. Tried importing 200Mb of various object mods to my existing official .dbc. Nothing showed in-game, similar to when I tried a freshly created .dbc in my docs.
Inge:
Grrr! :( Makes you wonder why it's there! Maybe those xmls were more important than we thought. And there was some "unknown" What happens if you remove them even for the bona fide stuff already in there?
Moryrie:
I combined mine, and didn't seem to have any issues... when I was doing so however, I made sure none of the 'unknowns' or anything with a bunch of 0s (anywhere that I could see since I wasn't sure which column you were referring to) were deleted. It worked well. My game lags a lot less than it had even though I'd been running it with less CC than it has now. (I was only keeping what my sims were actively wearing in game.. anything else went to a folder on my desktop until I needed/wanted it).
I sorted mine into 4 files. 'Objects', 'CAS', 'Hair', and 'Patterns'.
Thanks for the guide though.
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