Moving Game files to SSD?
I recently got an SSD just for my games, but I'm not sure if I am using it properly. I copied all of my Sims games files from C:/ProgramFiles(X86)/Electronic Arts onto the SSD drive. I loaded the game...
Forum Discussion
You can't actually move program files around that way in Windows, at least not those that use Windows Registry settings to control them. If the files aren't where the Registry expects them to be, they are bound to malfunction (maybe not on the next launch, but usually so). If this were an Origin or Steam controlled install, there would be a function available to move an existing installation to your S drive -- doesn't always work, though. For a retail disc or other type of install, and likely now regardless since you have already tried moving the files around manually, the way to do this would be to uninstall entirely, clean the Windows Registry with a tool such as Piriform's CCleaner (the free version is fine) to clear out the outdated entries, create a new folder yourself on the S drive (call it Program Files or whatever you like), and reinstall onto that. You can't install directly onto a drive letter like S:, that would produce an error saying so, it would have to be something like S:\(folder name).
For the TS3 user game folder in Documents where your saves, caches, and added content live, the best way to shift that over to S would be to instruct Windows to redirect your entire Documents library to the SSD. There are ways to shift just the TS3 folder to S and leave the rest of Documents on C, but if you have enough space on S to work with there usually isn't much benefit to splitting things up with symbolic links as would be required. The game doesn't really care which drive the Documents library is on, as long as it can find it.
Running the game program and having the Documents user game folder both on S should stand to improve startup times, saves, travel transitions, caching, CAS, Pattern, and Build/Buy catalog building (these can be huge) but actual gameplay itself won't be much different. Some other games like TS4 don't really get much benefit from running from an SSD. But how dramatic the difference is will depend on the rest of your system and how much content you are throwing at the game and tends to vary widely by player.
Also, this hasn't been mentioned but is your new SSD an internal drive? If it's external, it's not actually recommended to run resource intensive games from it because the latency introduced by an external connection no matter how good it is will usually far outweigh any benefits gained by having a faster drive.
For the TS3 user game folder in Documents where your saves, caches, and added content live, the best way to shift that over to S would be to instruct Windows to redirect your entire Documents library to the SSD. There are ways to shift just the TS3 folder to S and leave the rest of Documents on C, but if you have enough space on S to work with there usually isn't much benefit to splitting things up with symbolic links as would be required. The game doesn't really care which drive the Documents library is on, as long as it can find it.
Running the game program and having the Documents user game folder both on S should stand to improve startup times, saves, travel transitions, caching, CAS, Pattern, and Build/Buy catalog building (these can be huge) but actual gameplay itself won't be much different. Some other games like TS4 don't really get much benefit from running from an SSD. But how dramatic the difference is will depend on the rest of your system and how much content you are throwing at the game and tends to vary widely by player.
Also, this hasn't been mentioned but is your new SSD an internal drive? If it's external, it's not actually recommended to run resource intensive games from it because the latency introduced by an external connection no matter how good it is will usually far outweigh any benefits gained by having a faster drive.
