After a survey of members at N99, it was found that it is best to keep your Sims 1 Downloads folder below about 2.5 to 3 Gigs - that may sound like a lot but it can be achieved very quickly by a dedicated downloader! (This doesn't include walls, floors, or skins.) If you go over this (for some it is as high as 4 Gigs) - you MAY avoid random unexplained crashing of your game. Of course, more common causes of such problems are insufficient space on your hard drive, not enough RAM (memory), or failure to defrag the drive regularly, or use the checking programs regularly, for both skins and objects.
Also, the size of the total downloads folder is relevant. So, if you have many, many lovebeds, for instance, which are quite large files, your Downloads folder is "heavier". (Downloads CAN be put into FAR files, ie merged. Rick Halle, inventor of the SimEnhancer programs, estimates FAR capacity of the game at 2 Gig. Downloads should be set to read-only.)
If you find you have masses of downloads, one idea may be to make a dedicated folder of Themed downloads - say Christmas - with its own Hood of course - and write the whole thing to a CD or DVD; pulling it in as required. This avoids those nasty culling sessions when you have to choose what to delete and just KNOW you will use it one day... This process is MUCH easier to do with SimEnhancer Object Manager. Simply move the item to a folder elsewhere on your drive for temporary storage while sorting. You can even name the folder something innocuous but meaningful to you, such as "Christmas Things" and leave it inside your The Sims folder (but not inside Downloads!). The game only sees the folders it KNOWS to look for, so should ignore this folder.
The legendary 200 limit was not a wall/floor limit, but an object limit in the Build Mode categories (Windows, Doors, Stairs, etc) for those playing with the Base Game only.
For some people, there is a limit to downloaded Build Mode objects. 200 items in each category
This can result in the following things happening to your game:
- too many doors -> windows become doors
- too many columns -> swimming pool ladder and diving board disappear
- too many fences -> swimming pool ladder and diving board disappear
- too many plants -> fireplaces become plants
- too many windows -> staircases become windows
This tends only to happen when you've got more than 100 downloads in one of the above categories. Usually solved when you have the expansion Unleashed.
Some people say you can have as many as 19,000 files in the Skins folder.
It might help to put the .bmps into Textures and Animations into Animations. The .cmx and .skn files should then be alone in the Skins folder.
YOU CAN make .far files with skin TEXTURES, ie .bmps. (But if you use SimEnhancer 3D to check skins, it will not find those textures.)