Question regarding hardware and the loading of thumbnails and patterns
KawaiiMiyo:
Hi hi,
Okay I just have a question regarding TS3 and hardware. After all the new expansions I decided to have a new computer built specifically for TS3. I ended up getting a Intel i3 quad core 3.1ghz with 6 gigs of ddr3 ram etc... Anyways it seemed really nice compared to what I had before. I also went ahead and got one of those 8gb flash cards to use as that "ready boost" thing because I heard that helped. Well I'm able to play my game with all the graphic settings at their highest without any lag, and the game runs wonderful for me.
But here's my question. I didn't mind playing with lower graphic settings or small lots. What I did mind was the painful task of creating a Sim when it took ages for all of the thumbnails of clothing categories to load up, and decorating household objects was even worse. Because of the slowness I always set a few colors in "Misc" to color everything which was ugly, but faster than waiting for other categories to load.
My new computer did make things faster with this, and I have been able to take advantage of textures and patterns more since, however it's still not to my liking. Thumbnails still take too long to load, and I want to make it faster. I am wondering what is it I need to upgrade to make this specific part of the game load faster?
I had heard it could be my hard drive, that even though having a lot of ram or a high end processor will make the game run faster, it still has to pull things like the thumbnails from your hard drive, so if you have an old hard drive that part might be slower? Is this true? I got a new hard drive with this computer but I hadn't cared much about it at the time. Is it indeed a hard drive issue or does "MOAR RAM" apply to the loading of thumbnails and textures as well? I always hear things on lag or slowness, but I haven't heard much on loading textures or thumbnails.
kissing_toast:
It may just be the game, I play with all settings on high too and I have to wait for cas and pattern thumbs to load also. Usually it's not long but it is annoying, especially when you wait, for example, for everyday pants to load, switch to shirts, wait, then go back to pants and have to wait again.
jezzer:
I'm guessing it clears the cache of loaded thumbnails each time you switch categories, because I get the same thing. I think each thumbnail loads faster on a better machine, but it still has to reload all of them. Having lots of cc doesn't help, but I'll be damned if I stick to just EA's stuff.
wizard_merlin:
In my game it varies, every now and then they load super fast, with no waiting at all, other times, it seems to take a few seconds. I have noticed that it is worse the first time after I clear the caches before playing. Once they have been loaded, they seem fine after that, until I decide to delete the caches again. The longest I have had to wait for the thumbnails is around 5 seconds, and this is rare. It has been suggested elsewhere that your anti-virus or spy-ware program might be slowing things down by scanning each item as it loads, not sure if it is accurate or not, but something to look at if it is running. Some of those cheap and free versions often do all sorts of weird things, while others work like a charm, even expensive ones like Norton are known to do bizarre shit.
Quote from: KawaiiMiyo on 2011 June 29, 14:18:55
Thumbnails still take too long to load, and I want to make it faster. I am wondering what is it I need to upgrade to make this specific part of the game load faster?
What do you classify as "too long"? 5 seconds, 30 seconds, 2 minutes, what? It might be that you are seeing normal loading times and just think a super machine somehow has magical powers, or it could be something else, and given everyone has a different definition of what "too long" means, times would help.
Quote from: KawaiiMiyo on 2011 June 29, 14:18:55
I had heard it could be my hard drive, that even though having a lot of ram or a high end processor will make the game run faster, it still has to pull things like the thumbnails from your hard drive, so if you have an old hard drive that part might be slower? Is this true? I got a new hard drive with this computer but I hadn't cared much about it at the time. Is it indeed a hard drive issue or does "MOAR RAM" apply to the loading of thumbnails and textures as well? I always hear things on lag or slowness, but I haven't heard much on loading textures or thumbnails.
A new HDD doesn't mean it is fast, or good. Many places when building computers now use the so-called "green" drives, which use slightly less power, spin slower and have slower read/write speeds, all in the name or protecting the environment.
KawaiiMiyo:
Quote from: wizard_merlin on 2011 June 29, 17:51:52
What do you classify as "too long"? 5 seconds, 30 seconds, 2 minutes, what? It might be that you are seeing normal loading times and just think a super machine somehow has magical powers, or it could be something else, and given everyone has a different definition of what "too long" means, times would help.
For larger categories such as geometric or themed it could take about 20-30 seconds to load each time, woods take about 10 seconds.... smaller categories like misc take about 3-6 seconds depending on how many colors I have there. When I'm browsing outfits with disableClothingFilter active it can take about 1-2 minutes to load everything. None of that is too horrible... but when you're creating several sims or decorating a new house from scratch it all adds up and can be horribly time consuming.
Quote from: wizard_merlin on 2011 June 29, 17:51:52
A new HDD doesn't mean it is fast, or good. Many places when building computers now use the so-called "green" drives, which use slightly less power, spin slower and have slower read/write speeds, all in the name or protecting the environment.
This is why I was wondering if I should upgrade my hard drive and look for something better. That is the one thing I didn't pay attention to with this new computer. Though for what it's worth, the one I got is a 1TB SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive 64MB 7200RPM. I don't know how decent that is though. And also I haven't considered antivirus programs scanning files as they load... I have been leaving it running in the background, I'll switch it off and see if that helps.
Quote from: jeromycraig on 2011 June 29, 16:14:40
I'm guessing it clears the cache of loaded thumbnails each time you switch categories, because I get the same thing. I think each thumbnail loads faster on a better machine, but it still has to reload all of them. Having lots of cc doesn't help, but I'll be damned if I stick to just EA's stuff.
I'd believe this, that's the worse part. Recoloring several objects and constantly reloading the same categories over and over when you just had to wait for it on the previous item. It is faster than it was before and somewhat tolerable on my new computer, I can deal with it, I just wondered if there was something else I can focus on to speed it up.
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