Is it worth putting TS3 on an external hard drive?

DarkSuperNinja

I already know how to do it and all, I just don't know whether it's going to make the game load slower or run worse? If anybody has put the game on a hard drive, please let me know how it runs! I have every expansion pack and tons of CC and mods, if that changes much.

As a side note, the game runs near perfectly normally, and it usually loads pretty fast too, so if the load times aren't significantly worse, I don't really mind.

TadOlson

It's better to move files crowding the main hard drive over to the external one if the main one gets too full.I've been dealing with my main hard drive being too full and my game slowed down recently because of it.This would make more space for the game to load faster and the computer won't have to search through so much to find the files it needs.

DarkSuperNinja

TadOlson wrote: »

It's better to move files crowding the main hard drive over to the external one if the main one gets too full.I've been dealing with my main hard drive being too full and my game slowed down recently because of it.This would make more space for the game to load faster and the computer won't have to search through so much to find the files it needs.

@TadOlson Thanks a bunch! I guess I'll try it then!

phoebebebe13

The game is not meant to run on an external hard drive. Yes it will run worse. @igazor input please Thanks

DarkSuperNinja

phoebebebe13 wrote: »

The game is not meant to run on an external hard drive. Yes it will run worse. @igazor input please Thanks

@phoebebebe13 That's the sort of reply I was expecting! xD Most games aren't meant to run on external hard drives, but from what I've read, it purely affects load times. Like I said, if it's horrifically bad load times, I won't be doing it. xD

It's annoying that TS3 is so huge; I can't just transfer it over quick and see what happens; I don't want to be wasting hours of my day if it was inevitably not going to work in the first place lol.

igazor

Hi there. Not sure where you were reading this about purely affecting load times. You can't just move an installed program from one drive to another if this what you meant, you would have to uninstall it, clean the registry, and reinstall it that way. And then repeat in the other direction to put things back. Or maybe you meant only your user game folder in Documents? That's a little more doable, but to an external is still not a great idea.

We're not just talking loadup and save times here. The game's executable runs from the Program Files folder of the drive on which it is installed. The game also reads and writes to the hard drive on which it's installed throughout play at least somewhat. Not as much as some programs might, the ongoing game data actually being played is already loaded up in RAM, but it caches, for example, and has to load up images stored in catalogs within your user game folder and within the base game core files and EP/SP installs. Making the game reach out to an external for all these operations tends to make it unstable and very slow. It might not work at all. If the external connection is USB 3 or faster, ehhhh...maybe on the Documents folder. Still wouldn't recommend it.

Absolutely try to clean excessive files out of the drive you are running from and store them elsewhere, but not the files the game actually uses. Unless you have a second internal, but I'm assuming not. How large is this hard drive and how much free space do you have left on it?

phoebebebe13

DarkSuperNinja wrote: »

phoebebebe13 wrote: »

The game is not meant to run on an external hard drive. Yes it will run worse. @igazor input please Thanks

@phoebebebe13 That's the sort of reply I was expecting! xD Most games aren't meant to run on external hard drives, but from what I've read, it purely affects load times. Like I said, if it's horrifically bad load times, I won't be doing it. xD

It's annoying that TS3 is so huge; I can't just transfer it over quick and see what happens; I don't want to be wasting hours of my day if it was inevitably not going to work in the first place lol.

@igazor was better at explaining why I paged him.

Do you have more than one internal hard drive on your PC? Do you have a desktop? If so you can redirect your documents folder to your second internl hard drive. If you don't, you can store extra saves , screen shots, cc files on a usb flash drive or some other external device.

igazor can also explain save cleaner for your game to clean it out.

Milan14

Nah. Ive put mine on an SSD and i only noticed faster loading times, no gameplay improvements whatsoever

DarkSuperNinja

igazor wrote: »

Hi there. Not sure where you were reading this about purely affecting load times. You can't just move an installed program from one drive to another if this what you meant, you would have to uninstall it, clean the registry, and reinstall it that way. And then repeat in the other direction to put things back. Or maybe you meant only your user game folder in Documents? That's a little more doable, but to an external is still not a great idea.

We're not just talking loadup and save times here. The game's executable runs from the Program Files folder of the drive on which it is installed. The game also reads and writes to the hard drive on which it's installed throughout play at least somewhat. Not as much as some programs might, the ongoing game data actually being played is already loaded up in RAM, but it caches, for example, and has to load up images stored in catalogs within your user game folder and within the base game core files and EP/SP installs. Making the game reach out to an external for all these operations tends to make it unstable and very slow. It might not work at all. If the external connection is USB 3 or faster, ehhhh...maybe on the Documents folder. Still wouldn't recommend it.

Absolutely try to clean excessive files out of the drive you are running from and store them elsewhere, but not the files the game actually uses. Unless you have a second internal, but I'm assuming not. How large is this hard drive and how much free space do you have left on it?

@igazor The hard drive is 500GB, and it's practially empty, barring a few stray Photoshop and Illustrator files.

What I was planning on doing was uninstalling and removing TS3 (and everything that comes with it) from my laptop, and reinstalling TS3 onto my hard drive (I think that's how I've done it before; I'm usually half asleep at 1am when I attempt these things, so I'm not too sure, but I've done it multiple times with other games either way (granted I usually do it with smaller games like Guitar Hero 3; I've never tried any games this huge xD).

ANYWAY, if it'll be to much of a trainwreck to try, I'll probably just try to move over some smaller and less heavy games here and there, as TS3 has so much pumped into it that I'll probably accidentally screw something up! :P

I just realised as I was typing all this that TS3's expansions take 2000 years to install, so I'll probably try installing it to my hard drive using my desktop so I can at least get some work done while I'm waiting (at this point, I genuinely just want to see if it's plausible and usable to do this). xD

igazor

What I meant to ask was, how large and how full is the hard drive already in the laptop. Not the one you are installing it on. I was trying to help figure out how low on space you already were.

You cannot install a program like TS3 to a hard drive and then move the drive around to different computers. At least, I don't see how you could. Windows and the Registry wouldn't know to expect it there. But good luck if you do find a way to make that work.

DarkSuperNinja

igazor wrote: »

What I meant to ask was, how large and how full is the hard drive already in the laptop. Not the one you are installing it on. I was trying to help figure out how low on space you already were.

You cannot install a program like TS3 to a hard drive and then move the drive around to different computers. At least, I don't see how you could. Windows and the Registry wouldn't know to expect it there. But good luck if you do find a way to make that work.

@igazor Oh! Sorry! xD I have around 63.1GB free out of 256GB. I like to have a lot of space, so I don't want it getting too full.

igazor

It's okay, I didn't ask the question very clearly at first. Yes, 256 GB can be tight to work with, especially if you use your laptop for other things aside from sims. I would never want to let free space go below around 50 or 60 GB, so you do have a challenge there.

DarkSuperNinja

igazor wrote: »

It's okay, I didn't ask the question very clearly at first. Yes, 256 GB can be tight to work with, especially if you use your laptop for other things aside from sims. I would never want to let free space go below around 50 or 60 GB, so you do have a challenge there.

@igazor I didn't expect to fill the SSD so fast though! It's only been 6 months! xD I guess all the Photoshop files and games fill it up pretty fast! xD God bless the existence of enternal hard drives!

SimplyJen

If you had a desktop then internal drives are easier to install than you would think and probably cheap to have installed... but by the sounds of it, you have a laptop I'm guessing. Sorry if that's been mentioned already.

DarkSuperNinja

Simasaurus09 wrote: »

If you had a desktop then internal drives are easier to install than you would think and probably cheap to have installed... but by the sounds of it, you have a laptop I'm guessing. Sorry if that's been mentioned already.

@simasaurus09 Yeah, I've got a laptop! xD I would have 100% gone for an internal drive if I could have!

SimplyJen

Yeah 250Gb is tiny... good for a small amount of files and OS but quickly fills with games. After the warranty on your laptop ends and if the laptop allows for it, you can transfer the current drive to a bigger internal one that fits your laptop. You can find this info in the manual or on the manufacture page. Some laptops have space for two drives but small laptops won't have the extra space.

DarkSuperNinja

Simasaurus09 wrote: »

Yeah 250Gb is tiny... good for a small amount of files and OS but quickly fills with games. After the warranty on your laptop ends and if the laptop allows for it, you can transfer the current drive to a bigger internal one that fits your laptop. You can find this info in the manual or on the manufacture page. Some laptops have space for two drives but small laptops won't have the extra space.

@Simasaurus09 Interesting! I didn't know it could have extra space for two drives! It's quite a big laptop, so I'll definitely look into that!

Noree_Doree

TadOlson wrote: »

It's better to move files crowding the main hard drive over to the external one if the main one gets too full.I've been dealing with my main hard drive being too full and my game slowed down recently because of it.This would make more space for the game to load faster and the computer won't have to search through so much to find the files it needs.

what files are safe to move to the D drive? I need to free up space for TS3. Ironically TS4 is taking up majority of the space (-____-)