Save and Tray folders question

egwarhammer

I'm playing a brand new game. Which I butchered. I got rid of EVERYBODY, and started with one sim. Also, I deleted a bunch of map lots I don't plan to use. (Replaced a couple with other things, but that was later.)

Question about when I was reducing the lots in my hood, why does saving things to my Tray evidently increase my Save file size?

This morning I went through and copied all the mapped lots to my library (I started it fresh again not long ago). As I put them in the library, if I wasn't planning to use it for now, I bulldozed it in the game.

Shouldn't removing data like that make a save file smaller, not bigger? I was REALLY surprised to see its size increase between lot deletions.

I'm wondering how it works... are they NOT really separate things? I'm confused.

rosemow

Hello
Each time that you do something in the game and save the file, the game has to capture what the game looks like/what has happened in the game during the time that you played the game. The saving captures that moment when you saved, and the game is capturing with your game that the lots are empty. The changes in the save file sizes refiects that you have done a lot of altering of the worlds between saves.
I think that may be what is happening. I am probably totally wrong though. There will be other simmers that will be able to explain it much better.

Nectere

hey @egwarhammer how many Slot files do you have for one game save? I have two for one save file and one for another save file and I cant figure out why. Like when I load the Main game and hit save (with file explorer open to the save folder and watching what it does) it updates both Slot_00000001 and Slot_00000002, while the game file Test Save is listed as Slot_0000000b and when it is saved the game only generates and updates that one file. (I am not talking about scratch either) The main save Slot1 updates itself plus versions 0-2, while Slot 2 updates only itself and version 0 (all while hitting save while in Main Game), and finally Slot b only updates itself and no versions (when saving from Test Game).

patterns...I cant find them, well except 3-2-1 but...why? go boom?

fwiw: My main save(s) is listed at just over 17mb (so 34 since there is two of them for the same game save for some reason) where my test save is just under 4mb

egwarhammer

Nectere wrote: »

hey @egwarhammer how many Slot files do you have for one game save? I have two for one save file and one for another save file and I cant figure out why. Like when I load the Main game and hit save (with file explorer open to the save folder and watching what it does) it updates both Slot_00000001 and Slot_00000002, while the game file Test Save is listed as Slot_0000000b and when it is saved the game only generates and updates that one file. (I am not talking about scratch either) The main save Slot1 updates itself plus versions 0-2, while Slot 2 updates only itself and version 0 (all while hitting save while in Main Game), and finally Slot b only updates itself and no versions (when saving from Test Game).

patterns...I cant find them, well except 3-2-1 but...why? go boom?

fwiw: My main save(s) is listed at just over 17mb (so 34 since there is two of them for the same game save for some reason) where my test save is just under 4mb

Just in case I'm not following what you're asking me, here are pictures of my games list and my saves folder. I have 18 actual SAVE files and the rest are extra versions.

I do wonder why they felt the need to dump up to FIVE copies of ONE file on us when we save... y'reckon they've known all along this game has been an explosion just waiting to happen? I don't think I've ever gone back farther than 3 .ver files... if it comes to that I'll just REALLY back up and reload my last save file. <shrug>

Does this help? Tell me what you figure out, I'm VERY interested.

egwarhammer

rosemow wrote: »

Hello
Each time that you do something in the game and save the file, the game has to capture what the game looks like/what has happened in the game during the time that you played the game. The saving captures that moment when you saved, and the game is capturing with your game that the lots are empty. The changes in the save file sizes refiects that you have done a lot of altering of the worlds between saves.
I think that may be what is happening. I am probably totally wrong though. There will be other simmers that will be able to explain it much better.

@rosemow I get what you're saying. I don't expect you to know everything about everything, y'know. None of us could do that. I have my areas where I'm happy to bow to other folks, too. Probably way more of those for me than you have, TBH. (You're like Wonder Woman!)

I just don't get it. I completely understand why a save file would increase when you add a lot to the map. More stuff going in, that makes perfect sense.

What DOESN'T make sense is, when I wasn't doing anything except moving lots off my map and into my library, why that made the Save size increase. I had the window open, I checked it before and after each edit. It didn't get smaller at all.

And it wasn't, in this case, because of new incoming sims (that's happened recently)... I looked at that too, and I still only had ONE sim when I finished all the "terraforming." (I like that word.)

I just didn't think the saves would be so *directly* connected to the Library and Tray. If that's even what's going on. I obviously don't know.

IngeJones

Maybe it was the Undo buffer growing? Tho I didn't think Undo's save to disk

Nectere

@egwarhammer looking at your file list at the save time and date stamps plus file size it looks like your game is updating more than one main slot file per save also. Thanks