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[elvenspirit]

Is there any way to get more consistency in DF as far as FPS (editing the init file for example)? I made a mistake and did a 6x6 embark I've been fine now until i had a half hour haul at 37-50 FPS (which i understand probably isn't something to complain about) where about 150 dwarves started clearing out a huge stone load that i intend to turn into a stockpile (yea i guess this is a trash management issue as well)

If it affects what settings should be enabled for DF i have:
Nividia GeForce GT 430
12g ram
vista 64bit

[NecroRebel]

Well, you could set your FPS cap low. If you had set it to, say, 30, your FPS would've been consistently between 28 and 32 or so for that entire time when you were clearing stones.

Look into maximizing framerate if you want to have better and also consistent FPS.

[elvenspirit]

Yea i guess i was a bit unclear, I'm trying to figure if i can change something like this without any problems.

"* PRINT_MODE is another init setting. It controls the method Dwarf Fortress uses to draw the screen.
 * More advanced methods allow DF to make more use of OpenGL features and therefore your graphics card. STANDARD is a good starting point.
 * More advanced methods may still have bugs. 2D is more likely to be reliable. "

I saw an older post on it http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=63667.msg1478550#msg1478550 I'm just looking for more recent information in a format that i can understand as to how it relates to (as in what i can expect from as far as FPS/stability wise) my personal game-play usage of such information.

I had actually read that page and set FPS to 30 earlier (as well as some of the other options) as i figured i probably wouldn't notice a difference between 30 and 50 anyway, i just don't understand certain bits of the information listed.


Simply put is there anything i can set that will prod DF to take advantage of my system to run the game better (that might not be an out of the box setting due to -incompatibility with/probability of exploding- older PC's) than it is already?

[NecroRebel]

Ah. Well, that's not something I really know about, myself; I once did simple trial-and-error on the various print modes to determine which A) didn't cause graphical glitches, B) seemed unlikely to cause the game to crash, and C) ran the fastest, but that's on my own system. As far as point C) goes, I found little difference between the different modes, maybe 5% up or down, so that turned out to be the least important point (I decided on 2D).

You can change those settings freely during a fort as much as you want, so there's really little stopping you from testing them. There's, what, eight different modes, maybe ten if you test several PARTIAL numbers, and at least a couple are likely to make DF completely incapable of displaying anything, so that'll take maybe an hour to run through all of them.

Really, though, those are graphical settings. The primary limiter of your FPS is your actual processor's clock speed and how many calculations you're making the game do. Changing graphical settings won't affect nearly as much as simply minimizing the number of computational cycles you're eating up by the methods set out in that wiki article I linked earlier.

[elvenspirit]

Haha pretty stupid question i guess in retrospect, force of habit.

Anyway thanks for the help, i had read that article right before posting but i have a better understanding of it now.