After years of play, I've come to the conclusion that it is time to redo my plugins folder. I have a lot of BATs, many of which I no longer use, and after two computer crashes and having to reload from back-ups, its just hopelessly scrambled and I'm missing dependencies for whatever reason.
In other words, it is a mess. And its time for some spring cleaning.
Why I'm posting here? I'd like some pointers on how other people have organized their plugins folder so when I do rebuild mine, it will work better and be easier to manage should problems arise in the future.
Also is there an optimal folder structure (I know about the Z_file or ZZ_file trick) that will help it to load faster and less likely to cause crashes?
There is no optimal file structure to prevent crashes technically. However, organisation does help to keep track of your files. Here's a possible setup:
- a_Dependency packs (prop packs, texture packs, etc.)
- a_Packed Plugins
- b_Buildings
- b_Parks
- Fillers
- Pathways
- Plazas
- Prefab
- Misc
- b_Miscelaneous lots
- c_Mods
- Automata
- Game Mechanics Mods
- Terrain Mods
- Texture Mods
- Transit Mods
- Network Addon Mod
- T21 Exemplars
- z1_Texture overrides (Euro Textures, etc.)
- z2_Other overrides
Within the subfolders, you can arrange everything by author.
Hope this will help you organise ;)
Best,
Maarten
All good ideas. I think I especially like the idea of adding the alphabetical 'tags' in front of each folder so they should load in that order (as I understand it).
Not really looking forward to clean installing everything, but my plugins folder is really messed up after losing 2 hard-drives, so its just time to do it. &mmm
im thinking on doing a redo of my plugins as well, my biggest cities are crashing a lot when saving or exiting region, and freezing many times as well, everytime i save i start to pray "dont crash dont crash!!" because its kinda frustrating, i want to have a fresh start without stability issues. currently i have around 2.8GB of plugins, i was thinking if that could be the problem or some specific plugins, if that is the case, what is the kind of plugin that creates more problems? i have a huge mess with my plugins that i really dont know where to start and how to find the plugins that could be causing problems, since it only happens on big cities with like 1'000.000 or more population and it does not crash all the times. my computer is pretty good (i7 2600, 8gb of ram, Win7 64bit)
It is possible that you have data that are not modded correct in your 2,8GB.
If you want to decrease risks try to be careful what you download and install. Older lots from STEX might be troublesome, but of course are not always. There is certainly a lot of good stuff there.
You can start with SC4D downloads. These are scrutinized and checked. So they should be OK.
If you like certain lots or mods that could be troubelsome I'd say: Put some of them in a special folder. Start up the game in a test region and test the files. If everything looks OK, you can put them in the final directorty. This does take time. Of course. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Sorry... :(
Frank
I have a unique way to organize my Plugins, having done this since the beginning. This has been the same since 2004, adding files with each download. As you can see that the files are placed in folders of a date or time or so. I always know where to look for the files that I want to modify or delete/add.
My whole "Simcity My Document" folder is 21.08 Gb's and my "Play Plugins" which I use most of the time for my bigger regions is almost 15 Gb's big. (takes 8 minutes to load).....lol
There are several Plugins that I use and I will only rename them everytime I use them. Depending what I do, like using different regions, experimental, gmax rendering, LE building, modding files etc....I use different Plugins by only re-naming them. Example: When I want to do some LOTting in the LE, then I will rename the curretn folder to "Plugins2" and the "PluginsBuild" to "Plugins", This way you don't have to take out any folders everytime you use different ones. The game will only load the Plugin calles "Plugins". ;)
In the actual Plugins folder, there's a Testing folder, where everything that I download will be tested before they go into the newest official folder. (like for this time of year it is called "Spring/Summer2013), but which is not in the folder at the moment of taking the picture. Testing new uploads is a strict MUST. It will tell you if it is compatible with everything else you have in the Plugins and prevents a lot of crashes and headaches, believe me.
The Nexis folders contain more than 1500 of my own LOTs and BATs. Folders that start with 0_ in their name can be and will be taken out when I don't need them. Example: When I play in a big City in the middle of a land region, I surely don't need the "Canals, Farms, Harbours, Pipelines, Seawalls, and Ships/Boat" folders, so they will be taken out for the play in this specific tile.
There's also a Props and Texture folder, where I keep neatly placed all my props and Textures that I have. (probably all props and textures that are available on the net.) This helps me finding the specific props that I need when needed, but all load when I play.
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg404.imageshack.us%2Fimg404%2F1439%2Forganizer1.jpg&hash=12910dd96245cd5ea2990143b183c31cefcfaeb9)
Then there's my C//:/Programfiles/Maxis/Simcity4/Plugins folder, which is only 382 Mb's big, but which contain every possible mod that I have installed in the game, and believe me, there's quite a few of them. Also the MMP's, NAM, SAM, Automata and Terrain and other mods are included in this folder. Carefully having been tested thoroughly before, so there are no interferences with other mods, they are nicely packed in different folders to find them easily.
The reason why I put these modfiles into my Maxis folder is that these files load first and improves my loading time by almost 10 % as when I would have put them into my Documents Plugins. A little trick that I found while testing all kinds of ways to speed up my loading time, which I sometimes find so booooooring. Usually I make myself a coffee, get a beer or heat the stove or something. That time is a little faster once the region is loaded and entering/leaving different citytiles.
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg824.imageshack.us%2Fimg824%2F893%2Forganizer2h.jpg&hash=071c4d086790a47b1b416b2a99225dd04e11cb6b)
So, that is my way to organize the Plugins. The letters "ok" at the end of some folder's name indicate a recent clean-up that I stared this winter.
Maybe it will give you some ideas for your own Plugins. ;) Have Fun.
Fred
Fred, that is amazing. I thought I had things pretty well organized, but you gave me a few ideas on how to keep things even more organized. Thanks!
That's really well thought organisation Fred. Long time I have different plugins folder (Lotting, NAM, compressed,...)and change the name to "Plugins" when I have to use them. It is really helpful and I take the idea some years ago from one post from you.
Now I take the idea of the "Testing dowloads" folders. Thanks :thumbsup:
Wow, some really organized folders there.
While I will certainly take all this into account, I may not need quite so many folders (as I am not a content creator). But the ability to be able to pull or put in folders that are pre-dat packed for certain situations is a good idea. There are times that is just isn't necessary to load every thing as has been pointed out.
What I can say is that this will be a long, tedious process for me, as I am more or less starting over from scratch. However, the cleaning out of unused files, preventing of future conflicts, and a hopefully reduced crash tendency due to those conflicts will make it well worth it.
One thing I am planning on also doing is putting BATs from different websites into separate folders. Just makes it easier to find and locate any problems that could arise from any older files that have compatibility issues.
Example: Plugins > Dependencies > (LEX) or (STEX) or (PEG) etc.
And here is another dumb question:
Essential Files (IE BSC Essentials, CSX Essentials): Are they best put in under regular dependencies and packed, or put into a separate Essentials folder and left unpacked?
I have my BSC, SBFT, CSX etc essentials in the specific folders of the same name under props and textures in the MyDoc Plugins. I recommend to keep them there also, easier to find when looking for them. Too many subfolders are like not enough, getting quickly to a point when you're lost again. ;)
Here's another thing I do with my Plugins Organizing. In the first picture you find the "PlayPlugins" folder. This is where I keep all my folders that start with 0_.(Hi-Risers, walls, harbours, airport etc....) Whenever I need one, some or all of these, I choose them by rightclicking, copy and paste them into my Plugins that I will be using and, instead of turning them back where they came from, I simply delete them after use. Since I only made a copy, the originals are still there for the next time. It's faster than taking them in and out of the folders.
Also the Simcity folder holds a Plugins that is called "Plugins OutofGame". This is my biggest folder of them all, holding almost 7 Gb's of "old" files. These are all the files that I deleted from my regular plugins with the years, files that I don't use nor like anymore, but I keep them.....just in case, you never know, and sometimes I remember that I had this n' that and I go back to re-install them into my Plugins. There are files in there that are dated 2004 and before.....lol.
Plus, to finish my organization subject. I have some 75 Cd's and more than 30 DVD's full of downloaded zipfiles that include Mods, files, tuts and some 1000+ nonfinished and finished Gmaxfiles of Nexis. In other words, every SC4 file that I ever downloaded, I still have a copy of it. Some of them disappeared from the net many years ago. It's my treasure island.......lol. I sometimes go (partially) through these retro files and find something useful for today, like this gmax model of mine that I will finish soon. I started this in 2005...... ;)
mrb
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg607.imageshack.us%2Fimg607%2F7798%2Fsunpower.jpg&hash=3a4b6125ef9e59e48a15c75b93b233ec04b1cc01)
Those are pretty...and would look lovely in my futuristic city. :thumbsup:
I will heed your advice on the essential files. You are correct, getting too many folders just makes it harder to find stuff in the end. Also the copy - paste then delete thing does seem much easier than constantly moving files back and forth.
I've also decided that this will be the last time I have to do this. I'm going to invest in a 500 GB to 1 TB external drive as a back up not only for my current plugins folder, but also the previous working version, as well as any BAT I download. I did have that before, but unfortunately the drive I had the copies on also failed (I lost a computer to a lightning strike through the cable modem taking out basically everything). I've got other modded games I want to be sure to have backups of as well, so getting a fairly large drive makes sense. Eventually I'll get two of these drives (in case one fails for any reason).
I've come to the conclusion that you can never have too many backups. ;) Also, I've learned to put the back ups on a removable drive that you can store in a drawer! A second internal HD on the same computer is still in danger if something happens to the tower.
I figure if I be sure to keep the previous working version, then add in the newest after I install any new BATs, if I run into a problem at worst I just copy the older known working version back into my libraries and problem solved.
This is how I set my plugins up for my cities
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg580.imageshack.us%2Fimg580%2F3517%2Fpluginsl.png&hash=8208e0c2151d3d67abc43e8a2d438049402de75d) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/580/pluginsl.png/)
In the z_cities folder, I have other mods for each individual city
wow, 21GB of plugins!, and i thought i had a lot with just 2.8GB lol. thanks for those tips, im already using some of them to organize my plugins.
Also, i thought that the plugins you place in the "C//:/Programfiles/Maxis/Simcity4/Plugins" folder would not work and that they all needed to be in Mydocs, whats the difference between these 2 plugin folders and which kind of plugins is recomended to place in each one?.
I have several regions in dedicated directories.
To play SC4 I use this command:
Code: -UserDir:path
Specifies the directory where the users game directory is. If the default subdirectories of "Regions\", "Plugins\", and "HTTPCache\" aren't found, then it creates an instance of, (in the case of Regions, it copies the default set over). The default game data directory defaults to being the same directory as the game installation directory. Quotes are necessary if the path name has spaces. Make sure there is a "\" on the end of your path or it creates directories like "testPlugins\" and "testRegions\"
I have made shortcuts to all my region directories.
In these directories I find the plugins, but also the regions themselves.
I use the C//:/programfiles etc for all plugins that I need in all my regions: NAM, buildingprop_vol1 and vol2 etc.
By this method I have one region that is full of seaport stuff, one that is full of agricultural beautes, one that is dedicated to Dutch looking props etc...
@FrankU-Do you use Simcity 4 Startup Manager (SUM)? I find it easier to organize my plugins.
No, I don't. I use only the Userdir command. It's simple and effective.
Another quick question:
On the folders you copy in only when wanted. If a city is built with them, and you leave and come back, is it necessary to reload the files every time you want to visit that particular city?
I'm going to assume yes, but assumptions are often wrong and I'd rather find out the easy way as opposed to the CTD hard way. ;)
@FrankU-Do you have a tutorial?