Tips & Tricks: How to move your Sims 3 saves to any directory you want!

[KhaineGB]

Obligatory disclaimer: This requires messing around with the windows command prompt. If you aren't comfortable with the fact this CAN render your computer unable to boot if you aren't very careful, don't do it! Also, I cannot be held liable for any damage you do while attempting this, blah, blah, all that rubbish. As long as you only stick to using the MKLINK command, you should be fine.

With all the talk about using SSD's for The Sims 3, I decided to do the same myself. The problem I have is, I have a lot of app's installed on my SSD, and it's only 120GB. That's big enough to store The Sims 3 and all it's expansions, but not my save games, store content, extra worlds, mods, etc. The reason for that is because The Sims 3 stores all of this content under "My Documents", and I just don't have enough room on the drive to move the ENTIRE folder.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce you to the MKLINK command!

Using this is going to be a bit techy, and as far as I know, only works on Windows. You are going to need to use an Elevated Command Prompt (Windows Vista/7 users, click start, search for CMD, right-click the CMD result and select "Run as Administrator." Windows 8 users? Sorry, I have no idea how to do it in that, but try the same as Win7 and hope), which should look like this.



I'm going to use how I have my folders set up in this example, but you will need to change it depending on your own personal setup. The command you want will look similar to this.



Once you put that in, windows should say "Junction created for <text here>". If you go and check your Documents\Electronic Arts folder, you should now see this...



The folder is showing as a "Shortcut", which is exactly what we wanted! Whenever The Sims 3 tries to access this shortcut, it will find the files wherever you decided to put them (in my case, on my C: drive) rather than where it WANTS them to be (in the Documents folder on the D: drive, in my case).

I've tried to explain this with as little tech lingo as possible, but if anyone needs a better explanation or help, let me know.

[Magpie2012]

Uhm for the uninitiated: what the heck is an SSD drive and why is it helpful? lol

[KhaineGB]

Solid State Drive.

It's a drive that uses chips to store data, instead of the old, mechanical-type drives. Basically, they're a lot faster.

As an example, it takes me 10 mins to load my game. Sims96fan loads his in 2 minutes because he's got it all on an SSD. It makes a massive difference.

[Magpie2012]

Wow ok... Hmmm... Now I'm going to have to go on an SSD fact finding mission to see how much it's going to cost me here in South Africa lol Thanks Khaine *hugs*

[KhaineGB]

I'll see if I can find you some prices and PM you the links

[sims96fan]

Very nice find!  I kind of did the opposite though and just keep My Documents on the SSD, only I changed all the save and install directories for all of my other personal data and programs to my HDD.   So My Documents only has the EA folder, though this was possible only because I had everything on a fresh computer.

I'm also moving the older saves from the Saves folder to the HDD until I want to play them again so I don't have too many GBs of saved games on the SSD.  This will help save some space.

Magpie2012, I really recommend the Samsung 840 EVO SSD drives.  They have some of the fastest read/write times among SSDs and are very reasonably priced these days.  I just bought a 250GB model, and my Sims 3 game loads from desktop into save in under 2 minutes and games save in under 30 seconds.  It's the single best upgrade you can do to your computer if you want speed.   Feel free to PM me if you have any more questions.

[Magpie2012]

Thanks sims96fan. Khaine kindly sent me a link for the one he has and your one and I have to say I'm in lust lol now it's just a matter of saving up because things her in South Africa are darn expensive.

[KhaineGB]

Yeah, mine is about 70mb slower than sims96fan's SSD, but it's still a very nice drive and it's a bit cheaper.