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[Meph]

You need harddrive speed for saving/loading, a SSD helps immensly.
You need RAM only for worldgen. 4GB are fine if you use the LargeAdressAware patcher, otherwise 2GB are fine, DF cant use more than that.
You need a single CPU core for DF, so best use a good CPU with 1 core, or a double-core system with DF running on one, and the OS/Utilities running on the second core.

Thats all I can say about that. Rest depends on ingame stuff, like map size, creatures, pathfinding, temperature, weather, item count and fluids.

[mnjiman]

Windows Vista is horrible. Stop lying to yourself. I lied to myself for a very long time til I finally accept the truth, "I have something that sucks, that is Vista."

I now have Windows 7 and the improvement is huge.

[mifki]

Did anyone mention that it may take a long time until you learn to survive to the point when FPS becomes a real problem?

[Jake]

Ooh, yeah, I'm not a fan of those ultra compact things, have repaired so many of those things that I want to take an axe to them more then any software.
If it's a ddr2 or ddr3 system though it can probably support more memory then it comes with, most of those things do, although I would of course look it up before thinking of buying anything.

Quite possibly, but I don't plan to spend any more money on it; it's basically an interim solution until I get a proper gaming rig, at which point it's going to become a file server.

[enizer]

Yeah, I cant imagine getting too much gaming done on one of those systems,
I highly recommend the FM2 platform for very cheap systems, the A10-5800K I got on ebay is performing MUCH better then I would have imagined.
Especially that the built in GPU surprised me a lot by NOT being useless, as I expected from an onboard.
I would however not pick that for my main computer, I usually go for something a lot more powerful

EDIT: note that more then most other computer systems, the FM2 platform is VERY bottlenecked by RAM, so slow RAM is not an option there

[BoredVirulence]

... You need RAM only for worldgen. 4GB are fine if you use the LargeAdressAware patcher, otherwise 2GB are fine, DF cant use more than that.
You need a single CPU core for DF, so best use a good CPU with 1 core, or a double-core system with DF running on one, and the OS/Utilities running on the second core..

No, I've had DF crash because it tried to use more RAM than it could before it was LAA. Of course it was a large embark with 500 dwarves, but it can try and use more, and fail.

However, for pretty much anything normal in DF, 3 GB will be fine. 1 GB for the OS (which is more than it should need), and 2GB for DF (your usually hard pressed to use more than that, but it can happen, and it can happen outside world gen). A dual core is better than a single core, because while DF can only use one core, other processes will be running. No point in worrying about cache sizes though, not for DF.

[enizer]

I got the last lazy newb pack(34.11) with the LAA installed, and have used it a few times to make a 16x16 embark to inspect a curious height map I saw.
As far as I know however, there is no way to make a 16x16 embark be anything other then a slide show.

As much as I hate disabling parts of the game, you(OP) may want to get the Lazy newb pack, or the starter pack, as the windows version is called now, and disable temperature, weather, liquid depth, and aquifers, as well as setting a lower population cap, about 100, or maybe as low as 50, those are the biggest FPS hog features

dfhack also has a few helpful commands, the "Single Pick Challenge - Reawakened" lets play recently got a huge FPS boost by running dfhack clean all(although that's making 30 years of crap vanish, FPS gain with young fortresses may be much less)

I also admit being very fond of doing "dfhack cleanowned scattered", but that's mostly because pointless(untouchable due to ownership) crap like old socks scattered around every corridor and room, annoys my OCD quite bad..

And on the Vista hate, I used Vista for many years, upgraded to 7, ONLY because of driver support issues, I see no performance gain worth mentioning, I play every game I can with the FPS counter on, and I run a LOT of benchmarks regularly, to compare every time there is a graphics driver update, for example.
Disclamer: Windows Vista WITHOUT service pack 1, is still best compared to Windows ME.

[dwarf_reform]

Figure I'll throw in my low-end setup :> Craptop: 2.20ghz Core 2 Duo, 4gb ram, integrated intel graphics from 2007.. I generally don't get lag during fort mode, but do currently get lagged out in adventure mode when approaching sites with lots of entities and chatter going on.. I usually cut down 'max population after worldgen' option to 800..

I always use either small island or small region preset maps (the smallest possible, and I don't use these to save on FPS, but to keep the amount of creatures and sites in the whole world lower and more manageable, along with turning the population cap down and using 2-3 civs total instead of 5)

My embarks are usually 3x3 and lag-free, but I recently did a 2x8 (maybe 2x10) long embark to try and build an ocean-spanning bridge and didn't get any extra lag.. Can also do 4x4 or 5x5 with not much speed difference from a 3x3.. I generally enjoy smaller embarks for the same reason I enjoy smaller civs and worlds, easier to keep track of :> I also love NanoFort, I believe its called, that allows you to do a single-tile embark size..

I've just noticed these "Building a super-computer just for DF!" stuff, when I'd previously thought that any moderately strong system (mine included in this assumption) were plenty strong for playing DF.. I even did a couple embarks recently (the bridge-project being one of those) where I brought 206 cats along with me, and didn't notice much difference compared to taking no cats along.. Maybe I should try setting up a 300 vs 300 battle in testing arena and see how it goes.. And I do recall this one kobold cave I went to on an older version.. once I came out of quick travel I came to a 3fps crawl because there were about 500 cows/bulls at the cave along with about fifty kobolds :|

Overall, though, I think you can have a pretty rich DF experience without having a majestic computer, even with decreased embark sizes and using accelerated mod.. I'd say my craptop hasn't stopped any fun :>

[enizer]

I think the biggest reason people like high end machines for dwarf fortress, rather then simply whatever meets the minimum requirements, is for long fortresses, megaprojects, and pretty much any use of liquid in constructions.
there were a couple of times where I built things like indoor waterfalls, to maximize mood(which worked WELL for that, AND kept everything clean) but after that project, my FPS never went over 40 again(was min 80 before).
I ended up giving up on that fortress about a year later when it had gotten down to under 20 average FPS.

And then you are left with a nagging feeling every time you play:
"man, indoor water projects are AWESOME.... too bad my computer cant handle them"

[EuropeanDorf]

1.61GHz and 1.5GB RAM, runs on about 20FPS. :p

"AMD SempronTM Processor 2800+" thing on Windows XP Professional SP3 with "NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Model 64 (Pro)" as graphics card.

SHOW ME YOU MOVES PC

[Icefire2314]

In terms of improving the game without spending any money to upgrade your computer:

For world gen, reduce world size, civs, history length, and sites. Each of those tend to have the largest impact on FPS during world gen.

In game, in dwarf fort mode,
Impose a population cap. Whether you do this through modded means or... more... imaginative ways, is up to you. This goes for mooches i mean babies all dwarves and animals too, since not only rabbits tend to breed like rabbits.
The more exposed tiles (don't quote me on this, I'm PRETTY sure but not entirely so) I think increases the workload on the computer; meaning, more tiles revealed=slower fps

There is probably more that I'm not thinking of, but I'm exhausted, had a long day and need to sleep. Those couple things will help out FPS alot so try them out and see what you can do.

[LeoCean]

I believe it is the amount of tiles they have access to, as it is used for pathfinding and calculating the quickest routes. So if you mined out a area or want to have areas not calculated in that you need to make a door to that area then lock it. The one exception being hell, if you lock that door (maybe even make one for it) there's fps issues.

[enizer]

When you mention it, I have a strong suspicion that more exposed tiles reduce FPS, there is a certain point in all of my forts, where I head for the caverns, and my FPS usually drops quite a bit once I have the caverns explored

[LeoCean]

That's because when the dwarves path to something they calculate all areas they can go to, not just ones between them and the object they want to get to. I may be wrong about that though.

It should be why idle dwarves cause the most lag in pathing regards because they calculate pathing more than other dwarves doing their jobs.

*Edit:Ah yes I do think the more exposed tiles (tiles you know about) will slow the game down since you can use dfhack to show the map without the "fog of war" which causes slow down/ lag if you don't toggle it off before you unpause. Unless you are mining out huge swathes of underground going down 50+ layers I don't see why it'd cause you much lag though from them being visible.

It shouldn't be noticeable unless you use the reveal command or what ever it's called in dfhack.

[enizer]

Somehow it is a visible difference though, and it's not a little difference, on a 5x5 map, exploring all three caverns cuts my FPS by at least a third, sometimes more.

The only thing I'm not quite sure of is WHY that happens..