Apparently many Simmers are having issues with custom content in .package format where it causes their game (at least patched and/or with WA installed) to run very slowly and lag, as well as load the game in a much longer time.  However, when they tried the game with just .sims3pack files (specifically from the Store), their game ran just fine like before.  People are still speculating and seeing what needs to be done as far as .package format.  Now it makes sense why my game was extremely unplayable before my desktop was taken to get fixed but was fine on my laptop.  On my lapotop, I only have Store content (for now) and I had both those and .package files in my game on my desktop.  I guess for now if you want your game to run its fastest, rely solely on .sims3pack format until the issue is solved.  Of course if you only have a couple of .package files, it may not be so bad.

A summary of the issue by Claeric @ MTS:

We have pretty much undeniably determined that package files are in fact slowing WA considerably.

What SEEMS to be happening is the game doesn’t understand how to use them. .package is the default filetype the game uses for important game files it loads. And as a modding community, we’ve basically forced the game to use ours, too.

But WA’s infrastructure seems to be making the game think of them as core game files. This makes the game take an eternity to load at startup(as it is loading each file as if it was a major one), as well as making the game lag during play(as it is loading/”using” the files even when they aren’t on screen or anything close to being used.)

And we have, through lots of testing with lots of people, found that Sims3Packs do not usually have this effect (and if/when they do, it’s likely an outside problem). Sims3Packs, when installed, are all clumped into ONE file- ddcache, which is somewhere I don’t know where. But that one file contains all Sims3Pack stuff that has been installed. Therefore, the game only loads it, and the game doesn’t try to load it during play- both load time problems and gameplay lag problems cease tp exist when there are no .package files and only installed Sims3Packs (assuming the player doesn’t have lag to begin with).

So what is needed is either a way to further fiddle with the game’s infrastructure to make it load the .package content properly(I wouldn’t recommend it, as one expansion managed to destroy the work already done here), or a way to mass convert drag-and-drop .package files into sims3pack files for installation.

This would undoubtedly fix any and all CC-based lag and long loading problems.

We’re forcing the game to do something that, from base game to expansion, it no longer understands how to manage. Who is to say it won’t happen again with the next expansion? We can’t keep using a file type that will require a revamp of the system to use each time. The safest solution is to only use Sims3Packs, it seems.

For more details, you should read the following two threads that are currently discussing this issue (they are the only ones I went through so far but there could be more sites):

MTS
TSR

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