[MEGA TUTORIAL] Increase the game loading time!

[april]

Slow computer?

Copyright © April AC. Please don't plagiarise. It's against the law and you know it!

I know, this usually works with people who has a crapload of downloads in their computer (and that includes me. Having over 5GB of downloads in your game does hurt). But here are some tips and tricks to get up loading speed!

I'm using Windows XP, so I'm not sure if these work with Vista.

If you seem uncomfortable when it comes to modifying Program Files, are a bit inexperienced when it comes to Program Files, then I highly suggest NOT to try the steps that includes that folder. Program Files is a secure folder and you aren't supposed to fiddle around with it, remove one wrong file and your computer is doomed. And no, I'm not joking here.

1. Look for spyware and sneaky viruses of your computer's pants! Sometimes, these things install programs that aren't necessary, and usually they take up a lot of space. So, using your virus scanner, scan the whole computer and delete unneccesary things. Note: The most popular virus scanner is McAfee, then Norton. I'm not sure if there are any free virus scanner softwares around (legal ones, must I say), and if you do know one, please do tell. 2. Delete the intro movie! This can be optional. But I find that really annoying that added it in my list. You can find the intro movie at: C:\Program Files\EA Games\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\Movies And there should be a file name called: intro_eng_audio Send that to the recycle bin. Or if you hate the movie that much, delete it from your computer entirely. That should make the game load faster. 3. Remove temp files. What are temp files, you might ask? Temp files are short for 'temporary files' these includes website cookies, web history, more cookies and so on (and no, the cookies I'm talking about aren't the cookies that you eat). You can remove these temp files using CCleaner. CCleaner is a free software, so you don't have to pay for it. When you finally have the CCleaner... . Install it and open it up, of course! . The thing should look like this: . Uncheck the files that you don't want files to be deleted from (you will be warned in the program as well that the files it would delete would be PERMANENTLY GONE, so choose wisely). I suggest you uncheck the Internet Exporer one, but it's your computer. . Select 'Run Cleaner'. A warning should pop up. Just press OK. . Wait for it. . And it would show the files that were deleted and how many GB/MB of storage was saved. Pretty nifty, huh? I saved almost 3 GB from that thing! 4. Defragment your hard-drive. To anyone who has done this before, you did realise that this took AGES, didn't it? If you are young, I suggest talking to your parents about it. Defragmenting sometimes causes hard drive crashes. OK, so here's what you should do. ~ Right click on the Start button, and choose Explore. ~ Go to your main hard drive (usually C:/ but sometimes it changes). Right-click and choose Properties. ~ Go under the Tools tab, and there should be three options with different little icons. ~ The middle one is the Defragment one. Choose 'Defragment Now'. ~ There should be a new window that contains the list of the hard drives in your computer and two weird-looking graphs. Choose 'Defragment' and wait... This thing usually takes about 5 hours or more if you only defragmented your hard drive for the first time. Why Defragment? What does it do? Too many Simmers asked that very same question, and the answer will be the same, to organise the drive, silly! Sometimes, the hard drive isn't really that organised (even though it looks like it), and it takes programs longer to load (because your system need to dig out the appropriate files in those stacks of folders in your computer). Defragmenting solves this; it organises files and put them it the right folder, etc etc. And there's your answer. 5. Do a disk clean-up! Now this is one technique I learned for my mother. It doesn't hurt having a computer genius in your family. This is like defragmenting and cleaning temp files, but Disk Cleanup removes temp files and compresses some folders. My mother told me though, that this should only be done once in a Blue Moon. Or in other words, rarely. So don't do it every day. It causes crashes, and we don't want that. You can find the option at: Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup 6. Compress those download files! This is a nifty trick that has been helpful to me (though my game still loads slow). My downloads folder was once 10GB and now it's somewhere around 4GB or 5GB! Now that's cool! Compress your downloads folder using the The Compressionizer by DJSims. Along with the download is a PDF file that will tell you what to do.

I hope that this would've helped you, even just a little bit!

If you want a PDF version of this, so you can view it offline, drop me a PM and we'll negotiate. Remember, it is still copyright, so you can't just re-distribute it anywhere and everywhere!