Wait. How do stairs adversely effect FPS exactly?
Is it when dwarves 'collide' when one is going down and the other is going upstairs? Would'nt multiple staircases alleviate this problem?
Also, I'd point out that the spreading A* pathfinding dwarves use calculates up and down on every single layer. Notice this when stonecrafters will go down 20 z levels under their workshop to pick up a rock to make mugs out of, but the rocks on the periphery of the same level the workshop is are the last to be picked up.
I noticed other players have a preference for ramps over up/down staircases, but I figured it was because up/down staircases sort of boggle the mind in how they actually represent real structures. As an asthetic choice, rather then practical one.
Not a problem for me .
You have an envious number of cores in a excellent CPU, but remember DF only works off a single core. It is not a multithreaded program. Theoretically a duel core processor (one to handle DF, one to handle the OS and everything else) with a high GHz would be best. That said, the i7 multicore is probably still the best CPU commerically available to run the system, except what do you even have, 8 cores? That is probably overkill.