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[Podonok]

I want to have a fortress with as much dwarfs as possible.

The ultimate goal is to have crowded city, preferably with skyscraper or two and a lot of individual housing. With economy running it may be something very interesting to watch.

The problem is - im not sure my PC can handle it.

What should I do with my 1) hardware (2.6 Ghz dual core 64, 2gb ram) 2) software (WinXP. task priority? DF version?) 3) DF init.txt (or other .txt?) 4) launch parameters? 5) ingame tips? (mapsize? kill animals off?) 6) maybe use some kind of simplifying mod to roughen pathfinding\tasks?

All that to get as much dorfs as possible running with decent FPS. Any suggestions?

[Vlynndar]

One of the most obvious things to do is to turn a lot 'off' in the init file, in the init folder. There's a list:

Use these options to remove features from the game.  Permitted values are YES and NO.  Removal might speed the game up in the case of temperature and weather.

[TEMPERATURE:YES]
[WEATHER:YES]
[ECONOMY:YES]
[INVADERS:YES]
[CAVEINS:YES]
[ARTIFACTS:YES]
[ZERO_RENT:NO]

Though you probably don't want to turn economy off

[BishopX]

init options:
-turn off weather
-turn off temperature
-set max dwarf pop up high (I would guess 200)

Map options:
Find a site without magma, HFS or water, preferably in a calm biome to minimize the number of non-dwarven creatures.

Embark on a 1X1 area to use less space.

Play Style:
Your big enemy is going to be path finding, absent fluid flows it's the biggest resource hog. Animals function like extra dwarfs in terms of path finding, so kill or cage them all.

Avoid choke points when designing your fortress, having many dwarfs moving through the same tile eats processor power.

[Vactor]

have wide halls, small embark size, no free flowing water (use aquifer or brook for water source), destroy all unwanted items and material (either via an atom smasher or a chasm dump) one of the big culprits in slowdown is spare stone.  No active pumping (use them to get some water somewhere, but redirecting a cave river up 10 levels will be a massive drain.

also, use DF 40d11

[Vlynndar]

also, use DF 40d11

YES. Especially that. My fps on an almost fullscreen game pre-openGL thingies was 40. After, higher than 2000. Digged into the side of a volcano: 300 fps.

[Impaler[WrG]]

I've read that people who use the Traffic settings to lay down a low cost zone through their main tunnels (but not the rooms) experience a FPS boost due to the greatly accelerated AStar* algorithm, it shoots down the corridors and checks less dead end space inside rooms.

[Fieari]

If the nano-fort utility worked with 40d11, I'd recommend that... it'd be an added challenge too, for extra fun!

[Podonok]

If the nano-fort utility worked with 40d11, I'd recommend that... it'd be an added challenge too, for extra fun!

Neither nanofortress or embarkanywhere currently work with DF40d11, but they claim to be working with DF40d9. Is there still a working link somewhere?

[Tormy]

also, use DF 40d11

YES. Especially that. My fps on an almost fullscreen game pre-openGL thingies was 40. After, higher than 2000. Digged into the side of a volcano: 300 fps.

You must have an old computer. 

[Narmio]

I have not tested this yet, but I have a theory whereby you should forbid all the worthless stone in your mining tunnels, un-forbidding only ores, gems, flux, pretty coloured stones.  There should be tons of stone inside your fortress proper (hopefully in garbage dumps near workshops) that can be used for tasks requiring it.  And it should prevent that irritating tendency for masons/mechanics/etc to go pick up a piece of stone from the middle of nowhere (or on a level above or below them) and us it to make something. 

Someone should also run some tests to see what structure of fortress helps A* the most.  Large open multi-purpose rooms, lots of closed rooms connected by low-traffic zones, ways to stop the algorithm needlessly testing paths in the mines or outside, etc.

[Sutremaine]

Neither nanofortress or embarkanywhere currently work with DF40d11, but they claim to be working with DF40d9. Is there still a working link somewhere?

Yeah, where are the old versions being kept? I did a search and found nothing, which is kind of annoying. Keyboard support is possibly less of a problem in d9 than d11, so I'd at least like to try d9.