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[Stefrist]

'Allo,

I'm well aware of everything causing FPS to drop and the methods to increase the FPS. (but I never like to disable features)

Currently I'm on a fortress, which I will continue on for a long time, but already quite early on I was getting FPS drops.
This fortress is also posted in the thread "post your screenshot" and might provide some insight of why the drops are happening.

I'll place the screenshots from that other thread here as well:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=104631.msg3096360#msg3096360

1. Initial Fortress

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

2. Work-in-progress

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

3. Partially completed fort

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There are 2 things, which might effect FPS a lot. On the barren surface (no plants at all) there is a glacier, which is frozen most/or even all of the time and a tiny lake.
The lake might be 20x20 and is frozen maybe 50% of the time? (I am not too sure, because I really do nothing on the surface, except tossing out bloody Goblin parts).

There is 1 quirksome thing going on in the initial fortress. I've made a few rooms, filled with either kitchens/butchers, stills or craftsmen.
Whenever I want to 'q' those area's a lag occurs everytime I move my cursor and the shops are not really cluttered that much. (only exception might be the butcher's). This lag here is very doable, but it takes about a second, which is relatively long for moving 1 x/y position.

So I think my FPS drop might be caused by whatever is causing this lag in my initial fortress and I was hoping that when I would destroy my initial fortress completely, it might get resolved.

Also one very big thing in this fortress.. I am almost completely digging out 6 whole z-levels, constructing the new fortress on the 5th level (having 4 empy z levels above).
Is it an appropiate quess to say that all these rocks from the 6 levels cause the FPS drop? (and might never get resolved)

So I wanted to ask you folks about these 2 things and wether they are known to cause drops. (crowded shops vs. loads of rocks digged out).
Also my personal computer is probably compromised, but the FPS drops are of relative speaking

[schismatise]

Also one very big thing in this fortress.. I am almost completely digging out 6 whole z-levels, constructing the new fortress on the 5th level (having 4 empy z levels above).
Is it an appropiate quess to say that all these rocks from the 6 levels cause the FPS drop? (and might never get resolved)

Yes.

[AWdeV]

I'd blame the rocks and the fact you seem to have a high enough population that can sustain 25 idlers.

Lots of dwarves + lots of rocks = not a lot of FPS.

The melty-freezy lake is only to blame when it is transitioning between either state.

[Stefrist]

Yea figured out the rocks might be the evil-do'er.

I also got ~180 dwarves, but the drops started happening before.

Do you think this might get better after getting rid of most of the rocks? (I'm scared that they'll leave a memory imprint after use)
Do self-constructed walls and floors cause a lot of extra overhead? (vs. naturally carved out rock)

[schismatise]

Do you think this might get better after getting rid of most of the rocks? (I'm scared that they'll leave a memory imprint after use)

According to this thread, your fear may be correct. However, it will definitely net some improvement.

Do self-constructed walls and floors cause a lot of extra overhead? (vs. naturally carved out rock)

Nope.

[Stefrist]

Yea been reading that FPS bomb thread a little. (partially cause of my fear)

I quess I'll try several things out after I finish most of the normal construction. (fps is currently around 30 and still doable)

I'll make a backup and try several things:

1. Get rid of all the stones/other stuff by atom smashing
2. Use every single rock into something else (it be blocks, furniture, construction)
3. Abandon the fortress and see if a reclaim goes better (in the hope it might flush/truncate some entries)

[slothen]

oh come on, why does everyone always blame the rocks.  Must be resentment about having to hide/dump them.

[Flying Dice]

oh come on, why does everyone always blame the rocks.  Must be resentment about having to hide/dump them.

Mainly because lots of items = increased memory usage = decreased FPS. In other words, because lots of rocks will kill your FPS, and one of the most common resources in a fortress is a big pile of rocks.

[Stefrist]

oh come on, why does everyone always blame the rocks.  Must be resentment about having to hide/dump them.

I haven't dumped/hidden any rock.
Partially the reason why I love this fort.. simply been digging everything out and building over the mess.

Could make a screenshot of the bottom level, where you can also see how Dwarves decide to pick which stone to work with. (will take a lil, at work)

[Sorcerer]

Mainly because lots of items = increased memory usage = decreased FPS. In other words, because lots of rocks will kill your FPS, and one of the most common resources in a fortress is a big pile of rocks.

Except that theory seems to more or less fly out the window in Kohaku's experiment mentioned above, at least until you reach ludicrous amounts of items.

[thegoatgod_pan]

1. It is probably the surface--freezing and unfreezing is hell on f.p.s. Wait until everything is good and frozen and turn off temperature--it doesn't seem like you are making magma or freezing traps, so why the hell not?

2. Atom smash your extra rock

3. Pathing might be an issue since you are carving out large spaces (it looks like), designate high and low traffic areas.

4. 180 dwarves and dropping f.p.s. is good and normal

[Stefrist]

1. It is probably the surface--freezing and unfreezing is hell on f.p.s. Wait until everything is good and frozen and turn off temperature--it doesn't seem like you are making magma or freezing traps, so why the hell not?

2. Atom smash your extra rock

3. Pathing might be an issue since you are carving out large spaces (it looks like), designate high and low traffic areas.

4. 180 dwarves and dropping f.p.s. is good and normal

1. I will try to disable it when I get home. I don't think this is a big problem, is the freezing part itself does not happen frequently.

2. I want to avoid doing this for a while, because I'm using loads of rocks for colorcoded rooms.

3. Very much true, I myself think this might be 80-90% of the issue. Dwarves often try to retrieve a resource nearby, but turns out to require a long path instead.

4. True, I've taken the number of dwarves in account and I don't think I'll ever get a real high FPS because of them. But I think that around 30-40 fps decrease is caused by something else.
By the way it does feel like the new updates handle more dwarves better.

I can work with traffic designations a bit better when I've got more carved out, but will surely do this.

I'll try to keep all of you up to date, including the FPS Bomb operation

[Flying Dice]

Mainly because lots of items = increased memory usage = decreased FPS. In other words, because lots of rocks will kill your FPS, and one of the most common resources in a fortress is a big pile of rocks.

Except that theory seems to more or less fly out the window in Kohaku's experiment mentioned above, at least until you reach ludicrous amounts of items.

One experiment isn't enough to be conclusive evidence. In every fortress I have run, I have noticed a substantial, permanent drop in FPS after large mining operations, regardless of other factors (number of creatures on map, accessability of newly mined areas, etc.).

Apart from that, the experiment was directed at the potential possibility of items causing slowdown even after being atomsmashed or otherwise removed from the map, not the role of high numbers of items in decreasing fps. What the results suggest is that items removed from the map do not (seriously) affect FPS, not that items on the map don't affect FPS. In other words, after the experiment started, the number of items on the map was relatively stable, and the FPS stabilized at a lower point than the start, which reinforces common knowledge about the consequences of large numbers of items on the map.

[blue sam3]

Also one very big thing in this fortress.. I am almost completely digging out 6 whole z-levels, constructing the new fortress on the 5th level (having 4 empy z levels above).
Is it an appropiate quess to say that all these rocks from the 6 levels cause the FPS drop? (and might never get resolved)

From recent research:

Having something designated slows stuff down. Having it designated and accessible slows it down more. Having it actually being dug out slows it down even more. Having large open areas slows it down. Channelling out large areas slows things down (more so than just digging out the two layers). Collapsing those areas slows it down more than channelling, on a permanent basis. Having lots of items massacres FPS. Research is currently continuing on what happens with various different ways of destroying said items.