Does merging packages make Sims run better?

Depending on your specs on your PC if it’s already running slow then chances are it’s going to run even slower with more packs. Upgrading your PC will make the game run more smoothly even with more packs. However, that doesn’t mean you won’t experience bugs & simulation lag at times.

No, merging doesn't help. Do check for duplicates and to remove any special characters from the file names. If you don't regularly access your Library area, you could move the Tray folder somewhere outside the Sims 4 folder (sometimes that helps). Higher-poly CC will slow the game more than lower-poly CC. As @Justin says, just having a lot of CC generally or more packs will slow the game depending on your system. Other things that slow it down: playing on bigger lots, playing on more stuffed-with-objects lots, and having more Sims with more relationships.

What I found with merging packs, is it will decrease your loading time, IF you have significant loading times that is. It does not actually "make the game run better".

I've never had any issues with TS4 lagging or anything like that tho.

Whenever I have 20GB-30GB of CC in my mods folder and nothing has been merged, it might take 15 minutes to load the game.

If that same CC has been merged into multiple packages (I always merge by creator, so I probably have about 200 merged packages), then my load time would decrease to about 5-7 minutes.

As @luthienrising stated, making sure you have no duplicates and renaming your packages so there's no special characters, helps with load times too.

I also know that if you have a very large tray file it can slow down loading times as well.

And, I did hear if you clear out your sims inventory that helps with some lag, but I can't confirm that.

"Chicklet453681;c-17880168" wrote:
What I found with merging packs, is it will decrease your loading time, IF you have significant loading times that is. It does not actually "make the game run better".

I've never had any issues with TS4 lagging or anything like that tho.

Whenever I have 20GB-30GB of CC in my mods folder and nothing has been merged, it might take 15 minutes to load the game.

If that same CC has been merged into multiple packages (I always merge by creator, so I probably have about 200 merged packages), then my load time would decrease to about 5-7 minutes.

As @luthienrising stated, making sure you have no duplicates and renaming your packages so there's no special characters, helps with load times too.

I also know that if you have a very large tray file it can slow down loading times as well.

And, I did hear if you clear out your sims inventory that helps with some lag, but I can't confirm that.

Clearing out your sims inventory will help.

"Chicklet453681;c-17880168" wrote:
What I found with merging packs, is it will decrease your loading time, IF you have significant loading times that is. It does not actually "make the game run better".

I've never had any issues with TS4 lagging or anything like that tho.

Whenever I have 20GB-30GB of CC in my mods folder and nothing has been merged, it might take 15 minutes to load the game.

If that same CC has been merged into multiple packages (I always merge by creator, so I probably have about 200 merged packages), then my load time would decrease to about 5-7 minutes.

There's no need to merge any packages for quicker game load times. All you have to do is turn off that CC List thingy that pops up when you start up your game (you can turn off the cc list in the options menu). Turn that off, exit your game and then start it back up again. You're loading time will drop down to just a couple of minutes at the most... the load speed will blow your socks off! :D

I have around 25 GB of cc/mods and my game boots up in under 2 minutes ever since I turned it off.

Here's a link to the thread where I first learned about this awesome little trick: https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/17592760#Comment_17592760

"luthienrising;c-17880152" wrote:
No, merging doesn't help. Do check for duplicates and to remove any special characters from the file names. If you don't regularly access your Library area, you could move the Tray folder somewhere outside the Sims 4 folder (sometimes that helps). Higher-poly CC will slow the game more than lower-poly CC. As @Justin says, just having a lot of CC generally or more packs will slow the game depending on your system. Other things that slow it down: playing on bigger lots, playing on more stuffed-with-objects lots, and having more Sims with more relationships.

Oh my gosh, how did I not know this?? Imma bout to use MCCC to delete my famous sim's 9000 relationships with his goofy fans!

"logion;c-17880300" wrote:

"Chicklet453681;c-17880168" wrote:
What I found with merging packs, is it will decrease your loading time, IF you have significant loading times that is. It does not actually "make the game run better".

I've never had any issues with TS4 lagging or anything like that tho.

Whenever I have 20GB-30GB of CC in my mods folder and nothing has been merged, it might take 15 minutes to load the game.

If that same CC has been merged into multiple packages (I always merge by creator, so I probably have about 200 merged packages), then my load time would decrease to about 5-7 minutes.

As @luthienrising stated, making sure you have no duplicates and renaming your packages so there's no special characters, helps with load times too.

I also know that if you have a very large tray file it can slow down loading times as well.

And, I did hear if you clear out your sims inventory that helps with some lag, but I can't confirm that.

Clearing out your sims inventory will help.

Uploading pictures and videos to cloud helps a lot too and helps when upgrading computers too backing things up.

It also depends on how big the file is as well as the specs of the platform that you are playing on. ;)

Years ago in a Discord chat, an experienced modders explained that merging cc can be an effective way to shorten loading screens if a person had a graphics reader? that was the kind that scrambled data as it loads. Apparently, there are other ones that do not. I'm not a PC person so I have forgotten the correct terms. The upshot was, that if you had the reader that randomized data it would help, if you have the other it would not.
Mine is a scramble one, I noticed a definite improvement when I merged my cc. My thought is, that the people who say it doesn't help have better PC's than I do and have the readers that don't scramble data to read it, therefore it doesn't help them.
My advice is to try and see if there is an improvement.

"luthienrising;c-17880152" wrote:
No, merging doesn't help.

What I'm finding with merged packages that have been in things I downloaded is that they often contain duplicates of things I had elsewhere, and I lose 'control' of how current those duplicates are.

I've had to delete a number of things because of 'bad / out of date CC' that crept in this way.

Now, that's not really your question - I gather you're looking at merging done on your own system. But I suspect it wasn't the intent of the mod makers I grabbed from to start putting out corrupt out-of-date files... But once you start merging, it's just going to be harder to remember what version everything is in various files. On your own system you increase your risk of doing what those CC-makers did with their merged packs - and forgetting that in 'that file over there' is an item that got a critical update due to a recent Maxis patch...