Is there any way I can permanently remove the Featured Items Folder?

No, not that I know of. You can remove everything in it though, and then take away permissions so it doesn't generate anything new inside it, closest you can get.

"cameonet1950;13069584" wrote:

"dreamerz13;13069462" wrote:
No, not that I know of. You can remove everything in it though, and then take away permissions so it doesn't generate anything new inside it, closest you can get.

WOW! I've never paid any attention to that folder until reading this. Questions:

So what happens when you remove the pics in it? They aren't content files...just thumbnail PNG pics. I have 1,209 and many are screenshots of objects I don't even have.

Are they slowing down the performance of my game?

And how do you "take away permissions so it doesn't generate anything new inside it?"

Hope you can get back to me soon. I'll bookmark it. Thanks in advance and thanks @LaBlue0314‌ for posting your question. (*) Boy! Ya learn something new everyday! B)

I found it slowed my game noticeably enough that I wanted to change it, and it sped up once I figured out how to deal with that pesky folder. I don't know how commonly it does that for others, but it made a difference for me.

To take away permissions you just have to after you've deleted everything (you might be able to delete everything in it after too, idk. I just deleted it all first) go back out into the main folder and right click on it, find properties and then in properties security, and then from there you can allow or deny a bunch of different permissions, I just denied everything as I didn't know what one(s) I'd need to deny.

I still get sometimes the yellow store content boxes in my game, I don't know if I need to disable something in game too it doesn't bug me enough to figure out. It doesn't display anything in the boxes though and seems to run faster when it doesn't need to handle those 1,000+ icons sitting in that folder.

I routinely delete that whole folder when I clean out the cache folders, about every other time I play. (The game doesn't care if you delete it, it generates a new one). When I think about it, I just turn off wireless before starting the game, then it doesn't do anything at all in regards to online features and my game loads and runs faster. It's easy to do since the wireless logo is right at the top right of my screen.

I always delete the content of that folder after playing, together with the caches folders and the content in sigscache, thumbnails and Worldcache. I also delete all .temp files and missing.deps in DCCache, and ofcourse everything except ccmerged in DCBackup. It noticeably makes the game start-up and run smoother. And with Nraas everything is just a piece of cake! :D

Hi @Cameonet1950!
There are lots of files you can safely delete: Refresh caches, indices, and thumbnails
These are temporary files that are saved by the game to make loading certain information faster. If these files have incorrect or corrupted data, it may prevent your game from loading. The game will regenerate fresh copies of these files each time it loads, so deleting them is perfectly safe, and it's normal for them to reappear.

Do them in order as follows, one by one and then, test. If that doesn't work, carry on with the second, and then test, and so on.
Cache Files: CASPartCache, compositorCache, scriptCache, simCompositorCache, socialCache

To delete your cache files, navigate to The Sims 3 in DOCUMENTS folder. Inside, will be a number of cache files. Delete any or all of these files you have. They would be re-generated when you next start Launcher or the game.

If you have installed or do activities related to:
- CAS parts that appear in Create-A-Sim, remove : CasPartCache.package
- New objects that would appear in Buy/Build mode remove : compositorCache.package
- Mods or Hacks remove : scriptCache.package
- New Sims, default skins remove : simCompositorCache.package
- Simport-related (maybe?) and other social data, if you use the wall to integrate with your MyPage on thesims3.com site
remove : socialCache.package

Launcher files
These files appear to be some sort of index or cache repository for the Launcher. If it gets corrupted when Launcher or the game crashed, then the next time you try to start Launcher or load the game, they would either stall and never completely loads, or crash again.

Filename:
missingdeps.idx Location: \Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims\DCCache
dcc.ent Location: \Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims\DCCache
*.bin Location: \Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims\Downloads and Location: \Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims\SigsCache
Downloadedsims.index Location: \Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims\SavedSims
*.* Location: \Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims\IGACache


Thumbnails
• To delete Thumbnails files, navigate to The Sims 3 in DOCUMENTS folder.

• If you installed a CAS-part or Buy/Build mode object, or anything that has a thumbnail picture, sometimes it is necessary to force the game to refresh its Thumbnails cache.
• One of the patches also introduced In-Game-Advertising to thesims3 Store, and so EA introduces the FeaturedItems folder.
• Delete ALL files inside these folders. They are like the caches above, and would be re-generated fresh if they are removed.
Filename:
*.package Location: \Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims\Thumbnails
thumb_*.png Location: \Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims\FeaturedItems



WorldCache
Optional, for Windows only - do NOT do this on a Mac.

To delete WorldCaches, look inside the WorldCaches folder (if you have one) and delete these files inside that folder.

Don't worry if you don't have a WorldCaches folder, or if it's empty - some people have WorldCaches and some don't - it just means that you do not have Riverview, other new worlds, or the Create-a-World tool installed.

Good luck! :D

Thank you for this list.

"LaBlue0314;13080522" wrote:
Thank you for this list.

You're welcome! It has helped me a lot too.

Since I started deleting those files, I can't even believe how much better my game is running. I really wished I had known this a long time ago, it might have made a difference on many of the games I had to start over because of the lag.

"cameonet1950;13082921" wrote:


I think you should post this under the TS3 "Technical Discussion" category. It's still a bit confusing to me but I'm sure you could simplify it even more for us slow people. ;) So far, deleting all of those PNG/pic files in the *FeaturedItems* folder along with the 5 caches files has REALLY made a world of difference. But I'm confused about deleting the others you mentioned or just scared to. :pensive:

<3 Cam

Don't worry, it's perfectly safe! :D And you will notice the difference - it's become a habit for me to delete all mentioned above when I finish playing...

Very helpful thread. Thanks @jillbg