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[Psieye]

Caravans make the FPS take a large hit. I'm not sure how you would remedy that, though.
Avoid using pumpstacks unless when absolutely necessary.

Caravans you get rid of by deleting all pack animals. Also consider getting rid of diplomats in the name of FPS (they probably don't have a long-term impact but you sound like you want any improvement). Actually, go look into the Masterwork DF mod that has options to cull the raws down to a lean size.

Pump stacks, if you need them, should be built from top to bottom to create a zero-delay pump stack.

Use ramps instead of stairs. Saves on pathing costs.

I disagree - I built a fortress using a spiral ramp in the center, and I got a significant framerate increase when I added several columns of stairs in the center.

Agreed with Quietust. I use ramps but not for FPS saving reasons.

More than anything else, it helps me on my PC to use a 2x2 (or 3x2 at the most) embark map. Seems like keeping track of all that aboveground stuff, even just weather, is intensive. Small map, small load.

There is a utility called Nanofortress for 1x1 embarks, if you really really want to keep it small.

[daishi5]

My current fort is a 4x4 embark, with 220 dwarves, and I am maintaining 140-160 fps after 17 years (I have a nice new i5 machine slightly so these results are not typical).  I have tried several things many things to try to keep my fps up, I will go ahead and list as many as I can remember as well as my impressions.  I will include my thoughts on how I believe each part impacts my FPS in (), but most of this is wild guessing on my part. 

All of my non-critical dwarves are in the military, and set to no schedule.  I have each squad set to its own small barracks so idle dwarves train in small rooms rather than gather together.  This seems to be my biggest FPS saver.  I am not sure why, but having a large number of idle dwarves seems to be my biggest FPS killer.  I once had 40 idle dwarves at 120 FPS, I told them to dump all the damaged shirts and pants (probably 500 items), and my FPS went up to 170.  This surprised me a lot, because I basically had 40 dwarves pathfinding halfway across my fort and down 130 z-levels for several hundred items.  I expected that such a huge number of pathfinding jobs over such a large distance would kills FPS.  Instead my FPS climbed quickly, and topped out before many of the items were destroyed.  It is possible that the pathfinder is able to reuse paths, so having a large number of dwarves pathing to the same spot may actually be very less intensive than letting the stupid little guys wander to wherever they want to go. 

I kill every animal I can, they seem to work like idle dwarves.  I have no meeting halls, I think having all my dwarves in small groups in small rooms is much better for FPS than having them all stand around in a big room.  Every dwarf has his own small room, I just build them, designate them as rooms and let the dwarves claim them.  This does the same thing as the training rooms, keeps dwarves isolated in small rooms.  I use large custom stockpiles that are set to store almost everything, I thought this would hurt FPS but I keep adding stockpiles and FPS stays high.  I try to keep all my old clothes purged, but it is very management intensive to dump all my xSocksx.  Dumping the items does seem to help fps a bit, but not a huge increase.  I use a 3x3 central staircase, I have tried ramps, didn't seem to help. 

I also try to keep most of my fort on a single z-level, the only z-levels that I use for something not on my main level are out of laziness rather than good design (or mining for ore).  I usually use dfhack  to clean my map every year, but that doesn't seem to impact FPS, it just makes my fort look cleaner.  I am not using a dwarven bathtub.  I have sealed off the caverns.  I frequently claim my outside map of all goblinite, I also dump all goblin corpses into magma rather than letting them sit in the sun.  Temperature is turned off. 

[kaijyuu]

Concerning dwarf jobs, my FPS shot up from 40 to 170 (!) once when I drafted them all into the military and had them station to fight happy fun stuff.

After defeating said happy fun stuff, my FPS plummeted again after getting them back to work.


I don't think it really had anything to do with pathfinding, but (yet again) item numbers. ~70 magma smelters running full time, and over 10k ore and 10k bars of metal lying around. Game hangs for a bit when hovering over the smelters to assign new jobs.

[Corai]

Download Masterwork mod, and on the GUI turn everything off to get normal. 25% higher FPS.


It, on my bitchy, crappy, awful computer has never dropped below 180 ONCE on masterwork.

[andy_t_roo]

Use the Masterwork mod - it deceases the number of actual *types* of items (eg: generic leather and wood), people report up to 25% fps increase from that.
Besides, it's generally a cool mod to play with with a nifty GUI to enable/disable many things.

[Tharwen]

If you're on a mac, remove DF from your list of folders for spotlight indexing.

[Garath]

used some of the advice given, mostly on cutting down on animals and my own clothing thing, I've gotten an increase of 25 fps (15 to 40). Sealing off areas did nothing for me.

[Ivefan]

About items. Does chasmed or magma dumped ones still float around in the memory somewhere?
I haven't  played for along while now but it always seemed like even when selling or destroying items, I gradually lost fps even when keeping a similar amount of items. (And dwarves)

[Garath]

that does indeed seem to happen. atomsmashing doesn't seem to help either.

[kaijyuu]

While I don't know if they're completely gone, I can confirm dumping items into magma flows boosts FPS. Dunno if it's the "ideal" solution (over atom smashing or red glowing pit dumping), but I believe it's at least better than handing stuff to caravans.

[AWdeV]

If you wanted to keep your FPS high you shouldn't be playing DF.

[Hotaru]

used some of the advice given, mostly on cutting down on animals and my own clothing thing, I've gotten an increase of 25 fps (15 to 40). Sealing off areas did nothing for me.

Um, I thought I said earlier, it won't help. You must not dig them in the first place. This was documented in the thread I linked.

[Garath]

sorry sir 

[Vanaheimer]

Play Masterwork. Does wonder for FPS I find.

If you don't need it, don't make it. No matter what it is.

If you use DFHack, make use of the autodump destroy function. Be rid of all the worthless stone. Not sure what long term FPS benefits it brings, but it's never hurt my FPS at any rate.

For mining, use small exploratory shafts and only dig out what you need. Don't dig out that entire gigantic vein of hematite unless you need all of it.

If you find magma, get every building that needs fuel down there ASAP. No need for coke=less digging you need to do.

Use smaller worlds with shorter histories. I tend to use medium worlds with 180 year histories, one cavern layer, and a bottom layer to guarantee magma.

When the surface gets cluttered, destroy the clutter. I make us of autodump destroy here yet again.

[Canisaur]

used some of the advice given, mostly on cutting down on animals and my own clothing thing, I've gotten an increase of 25 fps (15 to 40). Sealing off areas did nothing for me.

Um, I thought I said earlier, it won't help. You must not dig them in the first place. This was documented in the thread I linked.

If you're using DFHack, theoretically the 'revflood' command might help you reclaim lost FPS from those walled-off areas (it hides everything that doesn't have a path to the tile under the cursor).  I haven't tested this, however.