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[sonerohi]

I'm trying to up my computer's power so I can manage DF without my computer shooting pea soup and emitting the keening wail of a thousand dieing babys. My question is: what needs upgrading? Will more RAM beef it up? Is there a way to assign more processor power to it (currently only 50% will ever be used when I run DF)?

[Ampersand]

A better CPU is really the best bet when it comes to improving DF's performance.

[SolarShado]

And that 50% thing is probably because your new-ish computer has a dual-core processor. DF can only use one core, since it's not multi-threaded (that's a whole different can'o'worms).

You could try turning off weather and such in init.txt. As for your hardware... faster CPU's about all you can do, assuming you're not running out of RAM. There could be a bottleneck in the motherboard chipset (the hardware that moves data into and out of the CPU), but that's not too likely.

[Sowelu]

Remember that 50% CPU use doesn't mean 50% speed, either.  A large part of what a program spends time on, is waiting to read stuff from RAM, so a dual core shouldn't ever be seen as a bad thing or anything.

...I wonder if faster RAM would help DF significantly.  It just might.

[sonerohi]

Well, I just might see about upgrading both. If I do, I'll run a little experiment: old cores, more memory vs. new cores, less memory.

[Ampersand]

The quantity of the memory shouldn't matter much, as long as it can hold the program. The speed of the memory access may make a difference, though.

[Mr Tk]

What are the specs of your computer. (CPU, ram, graphics card etc etc). Also desktop or notebook?

In lieu of specs here are some things to look at when upgrading PCs.

CPU - Remember it's more than just the speed of the CPU which counts. Look at things like the size of L1 and L2 cache. The bigger these are the more expensive the CPU will be to replace but you'll get the added benefit of increased speed.

RAM - Not just the size but the frequency of the RAM as well. If you are running 32bit then you don't need anymore than 3Gb. Anymore and it's just wasted space. Also try to get the ram that matches the ram currently in your PC if your adding more ram. If your replacing the ram then get the fastest ram that your mainboard can handle.

GPU - I'm not as clued up on this as the other parts, but if you are running of an integrated graphics then switching to dedicated card is going to make a big difference.

And then just some general maintenance.

Spring cleaning - because computers are dust traps. Dust means insulation, insulation means heat, heat means computer will not run as well as it should.

Run all the usual bits and bobs, defrag, make sure that your computer isn't loading a thousand and one things on start up through msconfig and make sure that you have plenty of free space on your hard drive as windows needs it for virtual memory.

[Tormy]

A better CPU is really the best bet when it comes to improving DF's performance.

This. Get a better Mobo & CPU. Having more RAM won't help, because the FPS in DF is based on "CPU power".