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[rtg593]

So I'm training an army to breach hell, I have a 146 z-level magma piston almost carved, and my fort of 200 179 is humming along nicely...

But the last couple years my fps has dropped dramatically. I started with a 200 cap so things zoom along, obviously that didn't last long, as expected. Now I'm down to 36 (28) fps. I tried removing the Phoebus graphic pack and going with the in-game graphics, 29 (25). Turned off in game graphics, went straight ASCII, 20 (18) FPS. Reinstalled Phoebus, back to 36 (28), so I'm leaving that in...

Anything else I can try?

At what point do you abandon due to low FPS?

What does the in parenthesis number mean? I'm thinking game fps (graphic fps), but I really don't know:p

[ohgoditburns]

I typically abandon around 30 FPS.

You can turn off temperature... but if you have a magmastack that's probably not a viable solution.

You can turn off weather.

You can atomsmash items.

[geail]

The most common things for upping fps is turning off temperature (especially if you are starting a magma pump, which you don't seem to be doing) and weather.
I don't abandon fort until single digit fps.
The number in the parentheses is the graphical fps if I remember correctly.  The number outside is the calculated fps for speed at which the game runs

[Quietust]

Back in 40d, I played several fortresses down to 15fps (even with temperature OFF) before giving up and archiving them.

[Kipi]

One suggestion is to drop the graphical FPS cap to something lower. I personally use 16 and it may net you some extra game FPS.

As already suggested you could turn off Weather and Temperature. The later should definitely net some speed. You could also go trough all the loose items scattered around your fortress and destroy/melt those you don't need. Or trade those, though I'm not 100% sure how much difference that makes. For example siegers tend to bring lots of crap which lowers down the FPS if the creature carrying those is killed.

Finally you could seal the portions of the fortress which are not used. Minin shafts and veins are such things.

[telamon]

see my signature. I used to play 40d on a windows 98 machine in my spare time, at less than 1FPS (55 frames per minute was high for me), and it was still 100% playable. dwarves are lazy anyway, so really what's the difference? =P

I was playing the game straight to the wall though and my computer was struggling. Fort had about 25 dwarves (that's a lot for a 98 comp!) and temperature/weather systems were on. Wasn't yet playing with magma but I had plenty of water action going on. I still managed to lay out a fair portion of a megaproject before I decided to start a new fortress.

[Flying Dice]

At ~40fps, I start looking for ways to increase it. After I've atomsmashed all excess items, turned off temperature and weather, and run dfclean, I keep playing till single digit fps then archive the save.

[rtg593]

Hmmm... good suggestions to try...

So... without looking too terribly stupid... Would 171 animals in a cage bring FPS down? lol.

I expected a single digit circus siege, was thinking of sending 100 war dogs down first to distract the HFS while my army moved into position down there. So I have a few dogs in a cage:p Along with a ton of turkeys, not that I need them... 3k drink, 1.8k lavish meals :p

Lol, irony, maybe I have too much alcohol :-D

[Robsoie]

It's not at a specific FPS that i just stop, it's when the game begin to regularly pause because it's struggling, it's not much fun when it's going down to this point.

But that said so far 0.34.x has never reached a point in which i had the game struggling, but i only play at pop 100 max (with children i can roughly get to 120) , i have been impressed because the game struggling occured in previous version in same settings.

Now that's for the fortress mode, the adventure mode is a different matter, the game struggle obviously way too much for me to play for long, it's sad as it's very fun but it pause so much that it gets frustrating .

[Broseph Stalin]

About 12 is my limit. I find that fiddling with G_FPS helps the most.

[doublestrafe]

Anything under 40. I'm depressed that I'm reaching that with 80 dwarves now. I thought it was having 200 that did it. I've smashed all my rocks and everything.

I refuse to turn off temperature, though. Magma must burn!

[Darksilverhawk]

I start looking for ways to improve it when I hit 40 or so, but I'll play fortresses down to 9. Anything lower than that and I find things just start taking too long and abandon. I find just having fewer dwarfs helps more than anything; I usually have my cap at 120, if not smaller.

I also refuse to turn temperature off, but mostly because I need my magma smelters.

[peskyninja]

Under 70-60, then I turn temp off. If it gets worse I usually make some crazy gigantic cave-in trap to kill & that crashes the game.

[ASCIt]

If it gets to zero I can't play any more, but other than that I'm usually a patient person.

[Edges]

Because I use a Jurassic Dell, I start fighting for FPS at embark. I have weather and temp off by default and only turn temp on briefly if snow need melting. I promptly butcher all animals (no matter how tempting keeping then may be), atom-smash all non-essential gear, seal all cleared veins, etc. I build with only efficiency in mind often at the cost of aesthetics. I have a pop cap of 80 and 5 max children. If a migrant wave sends me too far over 80, I send some out to die. I use DFhack to immediately clean mud/blood/vomit/etc. and to autodump with shameful frequency. I micromanage obsessively.

I have learned how to get about 8 years out of a fort before it hits 20 FPS menacing with spikes of 0 FPS. At that point, I'm out.

I dream of the day when I have a good computer and can do more than constant FPS CPR.

But somehow, it's still worth it.