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[dfTruF]

Greetings!

I have a turtle like computer (pentium 600 MHz, 320 MB ram). I generated small world and tried to save the game after embarkation. Loading of this game takes about 7 minutes, so I'm forced to observe DF game "from afar". I read wiki sometimes and watch how people react on this game, but I don't play in such a slow conditions.
Is there any approach to this game with slow computers? More memory optimized options or versions?
Then maybe DF can be ported to handheld consoles (gp2x, etc.) in the far future?

[irmo]

Greetings!

I have a turtle like computer (pentium 600 MHz, 320 MB ram). I generated small world and tried to save the game after embarkation. Loading of this game takes about 7 minutes, so I'm forced to observe DF game "from afar". I read wiki sometimes and watch how people react on this game, but I don't play in such a slow conditions.
Is there any approach to this game with slow computers? More memory optimized options or versions?
Then maybe DF can be ported to handheld consoles (gp2x, etc.) in the far future?

Aside from downloading an old 2D version and playing that, I don't think anything can be done about this. DF uses a huge amount of memory because fortress sites are big and full of stuff, not because it's inefficient.

[dfTruF]

I don't talk about reducing deepness and complexity of the game. I just wonder if there is any possibility to do optimizations only for saving and loading game (after generated world). Everything else is quite playable in speed.

[NW_Kohaku]

If your computer is that old, I really doubt it. 

The fact of the matter is, you're saving/loading several megs of data - about the only thing you can do, aside from buying a computer with a hard drive that has faster read/write speeds, is have less to load or save (which means trying to shut off caverns in the worldgen, and having very small embarks, like 2x2, as well as having small worlds with very short worldgen times, like 5 years so that there is less history to save an dload)

[Maklak]

I think someone wrote on this forum, that loading/saving is much faster with a RAMdisk, but seeing as you barely have enough to run the game and OS, I doubt it would help.

If your disk is swapping during a load/save it means you need more RAM. I have a Pentium 4 with 1 GB RAM here and it is barely adequate. In fact, I have to close the web browser to play DF.

[NW_Kohaku]

Yeah, I think that, honestly, your best bet would be to just get a faster computer. 

Considering as people throw away computers with more power than that, you should probably be able to get a used computer dirt cheap that would still be an upgrade.  Look around for local sources for used computers.

[Bohandas]

Perhaps a cap (changeable in init.txt or d_init.txt) on the number of vertical levels per embark area could be implemented.

[NW_Kohaku]

Perhaps a cap (changeable in init.txt or d_init.txt) on the number of vertical levels per embark area could be implemented.

That's what turning off the caverns does, and why I suggested doing it. 

It's a part of worldgen, because deleting the things in those layers after worldgen is complete would cause problems. 

If you reduce down to one cavern layer, you cut about 40 z-levels out of an embark.  You can also lower the "ceiling" of the sky down to about 5 z-levels. Plus, you can remove the "lowest layer" if you are the sort of player who never touches the hidden stuff, anyway. 

In fact, you can remove all the cavern layers, magma sea, and lowest layer if you want, while squeezing down the sky, and reduce the number of z-levels down to only around 15 if you really try, I believe. 

[Tierre]

I think that if he has that old a computer then he is possibly not from USA... and then that may mean that nobody throws away good computers where he lives. If he could've bought a better PC he would've done it so maybe it's better not to suggest getting better PC... I really think he wishes better PC from the bottom of his heart anyway:)
As for the question - maybe try to reduce different types of things... like "masterworks" options to get all skins to only 5 types, reduce soil and stone types. It can increase perfomance pretty much and maybe even work in this case.

[G-Flex]

There's really no feasible way to trim the game down so much that it would run on today's portable devices or a computer that, quite honestly, sounds like it's from last century.

That effort would be much better spent optimizing the game so that it runs better for everyone.

[dfTruF]

I think that if he has that old a computer then he is possibly not from USA... and then that may mean that nobody throws away good computers where he lives. If he could've bought a better PC he would've done it so maybe it's better not to suggest getting better PC... I really think he wishes better PC from the bottom of his heart anyway:)
As for the question - maybe try to reduce different types of things... like "masterworks" options to get all skins to only 5 types, reduce soil and stone types. It can increase perfomance pretty much and maybe even work in this case.

Very funny and nationalistic but I'm not so DF-holic to buy better computer only for this game. I think that even in USA sane people don't throw good computers.

Pocket size world with shortest history is the solution in this case.

[Mushroo]

In your /data/init/ folder there is a file called init.txt and the very last line of this file is the setting to toggle compressed saves.

Toggling this setting to:

Code: [Select]

[COMPRESSED_SAVES:NO]
will speed your load/save time on old hardware (but require more disk space).

[NW_Kohaku]

Very funny and nationalistic but I'm not so DF-holic to buy better computer only for this game. I think that even in USA sane people don't throw good computers.

Pocket size world with shortest history is the solution in this case.

Actually, the typical corporation throws away all its computers every 5 years, as that is the extent to which they can get a tax deduction for their purchases. 

It's a bizarre policy to some degree, yes, but you can generally get what once was a mid-range computer five years ago dirt cheap from them.

[Mr. Palau]

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. 

[dfTruF]

In your /data/init/ folder there is a file called init.txt and the very last line of this file is the setting to toggle compressed saves.

Toggling this setting to:

Code: [Select]

[COMPRESSED_SAVES:NO]
will speed your load/save time on old hardware (but require more disk space).

Thank you. At last some constructive answer.