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[pisskop]

Long story short my fairly obsolete comp busted and I am using an old XP running unit until the college semester starts.  What should I make sure I pick up to be able to run some of the larger projects I here about?

[GreatWyrmGold]

As powerful of a single core as you can. DF can't multithread yet.

[Azated]

You can run DF on practically anything. You'll only encounter issues if you have a big map, alot of dwarves or some sort of large-scale liquid movement. Other than that, you should get reasonable FPS on a potato.

[weenog]

Other than that, you should get reasonable FPS on a potato.

I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry that my old desktop can't do it.

[Chronas]

It should be able to run on lower range comps if you dial back a few settings.
This guide should help.

[Firehawk45]

Requirements to play this game flawless all the time.... well, we got a nice little computer here in germany, that should be able to fit your needs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperMUC

[10ebbor10]

Requirements to play this game flawless all the time.... well, we got a nice little computer here in germany, that should be able to fit your needs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperMUC

Well, technically, dwarf fortress is single core, so it won't run that much better then on your average computer. (Though this one can run 147456 copies at exactly the same time.)

[Wellincolin]

I thought DF was dual-threading already?

Anyway, don't worry about FPS death, because either you won't get this far without being experienced, or you'll be experienced enough to avoid it. Atom smashing is pretty much enough if you want to avoid fps DEATH (by death = complete death of your fortress due to unplayability). Basically, the game stores every single item on it's memory, so the older your fortress is, more objects your game is processing.
Also, liquids and temperature kill the game pretty easily. If you get into a peculiar situation with flooding or something like that it is very likely you won't get to see much of it's action or get your game frozen. If you're a novice, you probably won't want this to happen though and these situations are not particularly easy to trigger accidentaly (don't embark near aquifers ever).

[toomanysecrets]

I know I tell people this over and over who ask about FPS death but I can't help myself: try lowering your GFPS to 15, or even 7-8 is good for me. Massive FPS difference.  Oh yeah, and atomsmashing or "autodump destroy" to clear out useless junk.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Other than that, you should get reasonable FPS on a potato.

I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry that my old desktop can't do it.

If it makes you feel better, I believe Azated was referencing Portal 2.

Requirements to play this game flawless all the time.... well, we got a nice little computer here in germany, that should be able to fit your needs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperMUC

Sadly, 147,455 cores would go unused.

I thought DF was dual-threading already?

Not to my knowledge.

[pisskop]

You are welcome to try running DF on my comp... 10 dwarfs and the framerate plummets...   My Refresh rate is a hearty 25 right now, and I cannot bear to turn off temp... Magma in Fortress and snow in Adventure would be useless!

[Wellincolin]

What's with the mistery? Post up your hardware.

If it runs XP it shouldn't be lagging with 10 dwarves. What's your embark size and where did you embark?
Considering you're new to the game, are you following any guides? Until college semester starts (and if you still want to play DF then) you could also try running an older version. You shouldn't have many problems with gameplay since the wiki keeps the older version articles.

Also, DO try lowering the g_fps settings.

[GreatWyrmGold]

You are welcome to try running DF on my comp... 10 dwarfs and the framerate plummets...   My Refresh rate is a hearty 25 right now, and I cannot bear to turn off temp... Magma in Fortress and snow in Adventure would be useless!

Snow isn't deadly in adventure mod by its temperature, but by its item-ness.

And which would you rather have: A functioning fortress where goblins drown in magma rather than burning, or no fortress at all?

[i2amroy]

Requirements to play this game flawless all the time.... well, we got a nice little computer here in germany, that should be able to fit your needs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperMUC

Well, technically, dwarf fortress is single core, so it won't run that much better then on your average computer. (Though this one can run 147456 copies at exactly the same time.)

Technically if you run it on STANDARD or any other print mode without "2D" at the front then it can run slightly dual threaded in the sense that the game runs on one core and the graphics/print portion runs on a second. So you can actually get some slight improvements with a two core machine (as well as being able to do things other then DF at the same time, like listen to music for example). With my Intel i7 I think about the highest I've ever seen it go was 117% (100 of 1 core and 17% of the second).

[Quietust]

As powerful of a single core as you can. DF can't multithread yet.

I assume that, by this, you mean "whatever multi-core CPU has the most power in each individual core" - after all, you'll still want the other cores for everything else running in the background.