Purging of the plugins

[Toichus Maximus]

I confess--I have FAR too many plugins. The game takes about an hour and half to load from desktop to city. The game barely allows for passage of time anymore. So, I've decided to purge most of my files.

I have a problem, tho. I have no organizational system, so I have no idea what to delete. I've thought of just deleting the entire plugin folder, but decided against it--several rather important files have been deleted from the STEX or may be impossible to relocate.

So, what do you advise? Delete everything? Test each file, which will take me about a year? Just delete all the lots so as not to lose the dependancies?

I plan to do this when RHW 2.0 with the MIS beta comes out, so a good bit of time yet.
Thanks for your input!

[rooker1]

I would suggest that you move everything to a back up folder and than slowly move back in the things you want to keep.  But this time come up an organizational plan. 
I do it by person now, although soon I will be redoing my pluggins and I will be doing it by type.  I also think I will keep a log in excel of name, desription and a picture and this time I will not have any where near the amount of files in my pluggins folder.  Just the best of the best.

I hope that helps.

Robin 

[DFire870]

I would follow Robin's advice, by moving everything out the folder then moving them back in one at a time and have the folder organized.

For my plugins folder, first I have them organized in several main folders, grouped by type (Agriculture, Civic, Commercial, Dependencies, Industrial, Landmarks, Parks & Recreation, Residential, Rewards, Transportation, Utilities), then in each of those folders I have the author names, and I put the plugins in those folders. It helps me find and delete/update plugins easily.

-- John

[SC4BOY]

If your pc is that slow, I'd take the other's advice and

1. backup your plugins (probably zip them together with all relevent side folders of iinterest)

However what I'd do after that is

2. start COMPLETELY NEW

with or without CAM (if you use CAM you must be cautious as you can easily find yourself blowing your plugins back up to HUGE). I'd go only with a NEW DL of the things you want. And even, after you have the folder back up to what you think is "workable", I'd consider actually extracting the INDIVIDUAL DEPENDENCIES instead of the megapacks in my final folder (this is some work and you may consider making a "building plugins" folder and extract things to your "working plugins" folder as you go. IF you do this you will find that, even with a pretty large set of custom lots.. especially if you tend to stick to a family of "customs".. that you will make MAJOR REDUCTIONS in your working plugins folder and SC4 startup. Of course your "building" folder backs you up in case of some issue.. and the "oldies zipped" plugins folder allows you to recreate anything at any time.

So you'd end up with
1. A working plugins folder with great, fresh, up-to-date stuff that loads like lightening and is FUN to play.
2. A "building" folder with the full content of your currently installed stuff
3. A complete, compressed archive that would allow you to contribute to the Smithsonian someday..


Also as I think on it, you can use your "building" folder to put in things that you may only use for specific regions or city tiles.. for example you may want the SNP military files on one city only, but nowhere else. You could move it in and out for that specific city tile and keep your slim, fast folder for "normal" play. Hopefully I've been clear on what i mean.

[Toichus Maximus]

Alright, guys, when the time comes, I'll try this. Hopefully lot names will match up well with whatever arbitrary dependencies they had included in them.

Thanks!

[tkirch]

I also recommend using the DATPACKER. 

I have a huge Plug Ins Folder 11,539 Files 3.96GB.  But using DATPACKER my load time is only 2 to 3 minutes tops.

So I would use that, it is amazing tool.

You can see how I have it organized below I also pull things out in certain cities like stated above.  If I don't need skyscrapers in that city I pull them out, military out, no farms out.  Helps to make it easier.  And when I download new things just delete old compressed folder, install new stuff and redownlad.  Works great.

[SC4BOY]

Alright, guys, when the time comes, I'll try this. Hopefully lot names will match up well with whatever arbitrary dependencies they had included in them.

Thanks!

You cannot trust that method.. you must use one of the SC4 tools to properly identify the dependencies (for extraction purposes). This is ok, since as far as I know the only way to extract the dependencies out of the "packaged files" is with various tools as well..

As far as Datpacker, I dont think it will be of great benefit in your case since you obviously are pushing your pc very hard.. of course nothing prevents using Datpacker no matter what method you use to arrive at your plugins' content.

edit: Also be SURE your folder loads SC4 properly and playably without datpacker.. if it doesn't it isnt likely datpacker will fix it. (rare case is you have too many file handles open for the OS).. After you have it working, feel free to datpack it.

Good luck

[Toichus Maximus]

hmm, I think I'll try and re download most stuff. I should find and isolate bldgprop2 then. Anyone know if the update that fixed nightlighting on custom BATs was a plugin file or just an update?

[SC4BOY]

hmm, I think I'll try and re download most stuff. I should find and isolate bldgprop2 then. Anyone know if the update that fixed nightlighting on custom BATs was a plugin file or just an update?

Go here to Greyveil's Thread. It is a very old thread, so when you get down to the "NAM" installation, quit following it. Considering how old it is, it is an absolute classic complete with links. When you get to NAM and later, you need to follow more current material.

[Xiziz]

The BAT-Nightlighting Patch was a hardcoded patch, it updated the Simcity4.exe file, so theres no plugins there.

i guess everyone has there own way of organizing, i do it by:
Main Subfolders, CAM(Cam Essentials), BAT(All plopables, has its own set of subfolders for each type of ploppable), Depenances(All Megapacks/Proppacks/Textures i need for my installed plugins), Owens Lots(Im planning on modding these someday so they go into the correct menu, but atm there just everywhere in the parksmenu, so i like to be able to remove them when im not activly using them), Mods, ZZZ-Mods.
Then i have a totaly different folder for Growables, since i like to control these, Four Main categories here, Agriculture, Industry, Residential and Commercial. R and C have additional folders per style(Euro, Huston, Chicago, New York), and then again depending on stage(1-3, 4-6, 7-15), Industry has similar but only two folders for stages. I currently remod every growable i download so it comes under the correct tileset and grows on the correct density level(and will once X-Tool is out, also make sure there all CAMpatible, atm there just guessed to be somewhere close to CAMpatible(the density vs stages)). Though i dont have very many growables atm, since i just started this new system today, after trying to play with all my growables ingame at the same time and noticed that 90% of the ones i use are High Density Euro Styled buildings, so i started remodding them to appropriate density and spreading the styles out(All germany w2w in Chicago and all Amsterdam ones in Houston for example).

[SC4BOY]

Ya that building thing and "style" becomes an issue.. and the XTool is looked forward to by many..
And of course the "spreading of the menus" has got to be a buggaboo of everyone who uses custom content..

[Toichus Maximus]

Alright, thanks everyone! I'll start slashing when the MIS comes out.

[LoneRanger]

I rebuild my plugins just a month ago or so.
What I do is keeping two P.U. folders, one uncompressed and on compressed.[ehm an one compressed_old
Besides that I keep a log on what I use and never use.
It's a real hard thing to get that perfect folder and you realy have to find your own way I guess.
I realy wish there was some way to reverse datpacker coz I have an old folder datpacked without backing up.[my fault for not reading the readme.txt]
Or Wou has to come up with a program that can tel what you are missing to succesfully load a city you build after a ctd.   
But realy, keep a compressed and a uncompressed PU folder before you start datpacker and use them cleantool files, safe's you a lot of trouble.