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Author Topic: Sudden framerate death  (Read 5210 times)

Harudoku

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Sudden framerate death
« on: December 01, 2010, 11:05:08 pm »

I'm not sure why, but my tiny little fortress (15 dwarves) suddenly has a framerate of around 10 with major skipping. It was at 100 before I saved and closed earlier. There's one known cavern level, but nothing that should be causing a fps drop of 90. It freezes up every few seconds, as well. It's nothing to do with my computer; my 138-dwarf fortress is running at 55ish. This is the one with HFS open and the bottom two cavern levels explored fully. Any ideas?
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Comrade

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Re: Sudden framerate death
« Reply #1 on: December 01, 2010, 11:25:30 pm »

Welcome To Dwarf Fortress! Only The Finest!
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OrionKale

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Re: Sudden framerate death
« Reply #2 on: December 01, 2010, 11:45:50 pm »

The most common cause for sudden framerate drop is a few undiscovered ambushes or thieves.
I had this problem for a bit, and sent out my military to scout. I found 4 ambushes and about 10 thieves.

How long has your fps been low ?
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Ubiq

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Re: Sudden framerate death
« Reply #3 on: December 02, 2010, 03:47:02 am »

It's probably an ambush party or two on the map somewhere as OrionKale said, but there are two other possibilites.

The first is weather related. Are there are large water features on the surface like a major river or lake?

If so, check to see if they froze or thawed out. Large bodies of water freezing often makes the game skip or freeze while uneven amounts of freezing can cause major amounts of lag as liquid water tries to path through the ice or runs off the map if the ice is upstream. It may eventually overflow if the upper part of the river never freezes or merely freezes later.

If so, that's going to be a yearly thing if temperature is left on.

The second is that you've uncovered a map feature that was previously hidden and it's affecting things negatively now that it's out in the open. A downwards passage can do this if you have a lot of animals on the map or if it's stuck out in the middle of your cavern's lake.
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Raap

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Re: Sudden framerate death
« Reply #4 on: December 02, 2010, 08:37:29 am »

I have had huge fps drops when I've dug out adamantine veins and thus attracted countless fun from below. Seems like there's so many of them hiding down there sometimes that my fps goes to hell. Sealing it up again doesn't help either, the fps stays low.
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alpha

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Re: Sudden framerate death
« Reply #5 on: December 02, 2010, 10:04:49 am »

Welcome To Dwarf Fortress! Only The Finest!
Beyond Quality.
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thijser

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Re: Sudden framerate death
« Reply #6 on: December 02, 2010, 10:15:09 am »

Another problem could be that some kind of creature is stuck trying to path everywhere but unable to reach anywhere (bonus if it's a forgotten beast capable of both spit and flying those guys in a large area can cause serious fps drop just by sitting there. )
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Marthnn

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Re: Sudden framerate death
« Reply #7 on: December 02, 2010, 10:29:58 am »

I have already observed FPS drops when a group of wild animals spawned at the edge of the map, particularly flying ones like buzzards. Their pathing gets screwy it seems, until they hop around my soldiers...

Cavern creatures must be able to create the same drop.
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