You can also try 1x1 embark - get nano fort utility. 42*42 tiles is little space, but it is huge performace boost and lowers memory consumption too - that embark should not lag and be much faster to load and save.
And since this is suggestion thread: I suggest that game should allow 1x1 embarks by default. Maybe little warning that is its too small embark for most players, but it should be option without having to use utility.
Too shallow idea? Player needs for green and earthly space on which spontaneous wind can frolics between oceans and lands.
Nano Fort
will help the game on your computer. I strongly reccoment it. You can't have your cake and eat it.
You could also try:
* Nerfing map height. Say from ~100 layers to 20.
* Removing caverns from map gen
* Removing the magma layer
* Removing the Circus (not sure if you can actually do this, if you cant though dont dig into it as Clowns are FPS crushing enough on modern computers)
* There was a mod that substantially simplified everything in the game (eg only several rocks, several metals, simplet bodies etc). Cant remember what it was called though.
* Removing other civs
* Reducing the number of wereX's, forgotten beasts types, Clown types etc.
* Atom-smashing as much stuff as possible constantly. Especially large pile of rocks.
* Pretty much removing as much as is possible/desired. They should shrink the save size, and save/load speed, and reduce memory usage.
* (If not using Nano Fort) 2x2 embark on a reasonably plain-and-empty area.
If you can, I strongly recommending picking up a faster PC.
If you cant, try to pick up some memory up to ~1gb, and use a RAMdisk. This will substantially speed up load/save times.
very substantially.
I think that even in USA sane people don't throw good computers.
Lol, nope. It happens all the time. Look at safe ways to dispose of an old computer. http://www.microsoft.com/business/en-us/resources/technology/hardware/3-pc-ways-to-get-rid-of-an-old-pc.aspx?fbid=mdjSHf28wbZ
Old is three, or four, years. According to Murpy's law, a computer from three or four years ago is 2.5x times less powerful than one from today, so that is a pretty big diffrence for those that care. Not to mention you need to keep up with everyone else buying new computers too. I know tons of kids at my school that instantly ditched thier PCs when Macs became the new cool machine.
Yep. I picket up a Core 2 Duo and an geforce 8800 (!!!). Someone threw it out, and it works fine. And an AMD Phenom quad core. Again, works fine. People are very wasteful with their computers. Its like christmas but a year or two lag and free.