Hello everyone! I know this has been discussed before, but this will be my personal attempt to combat the issue and I will report my results in this topic.
The purpose of this topic is to test and find out the most effective way to play Dwarf Fort FPS wise. It's for both high and low end computer users, as to me it seems even the best computers face FPS death eventually, at least if the forts are not managed correctly.
I will use some unorthodox methods to eliminate FPS, including creating stone or metal from thin air instead of mining it to avoid the decreased FPS from mined out areas, and quatum stockpiling. Pretty much everything it takes to make a sustainable fortress design completely focused to be as great, big, and impressive as possible while trying to eliminate all the controllable sources of decreasing FPS.
If there is ANYONE here who DOES NOT get FPS death, please tell me the specs of your computer and how complex fortresses you are building. The fortresses immune to FPS death that are interesting regarding this topic are the ones as massive as possible (allowing people to have as much grandiosity as possible in their fortress design), spreading across the map and to the core of the earth. In other words, just how big fortress (both population and construction wise) are you able to build without FPS death and what are your computer specs? And have you tested this fortress design to be actually sustainable for a long in game time?
Personally I have been playing this great game since 2006 but the problem is every time I truly get addicted I for my misery find out that Dwarf Fortress is just too intense for my current computer. Every time I have gotten a new computer I sooner or later get the latest version of DF again though and get again addicted. Unfortunately to this date I have not been able to run DF to my complete satisfaction because the inevitable FPS death always claimed my mega projects and great citadels.
For reference, my newest computer is a pretty decent gaming laptop, as far as such things exist, with the following specs: i7-4700MQ (3.2 GHz when overclocking during DF), 8 GB RAM, AMD HD8970M for GPU). Unfortunately even with this setup my recent project also faced the FPS death although I managed to develop it further than ever before, to become a quite impressive 70 year old fortress with very complex magma moats, tree and obsidian farms, complex channel systems (while FPS drain from flowing liquids was minimized) and pretty much almost every cool thing that came to my mind. But unfortunately it was completely unplayable due to FPS of 20 to below 10 in the end.
Let's get to the point then, how to eliminate/Minimize the FPS Death.
What we know about FPS death? (borrowed from the great research of previous topics I have seen here)
- Creating objects decreases FPS, destroying objects helps to improve FPS at least after save/reload
- Mined out space decreases FPS, apparently even if sealed off later on.
- Path finding decreases FPS
- Large stockpiles are bad for FPS
- Dead creatures apparently stay in the games memory forever, possibly having the potential of affecting FPS forever. However, just how many dead becomes an issue I do not know so whether this truly is an issue in the long run is unknown. In DF mass death resulting from invasions of hundreds of enemies is in my opinion one of the better parts of the game and hopefully we do not need to turn invasions off.
Unknown effect on FPS (at least to me personally), BUT VERY IMPORTANT:
-Do constructions (walls, fortifications etc.) decrease FPS? Especially if above ground. Could we compensate the lack of mined out space below ground with impressive above ground citadels?
Methods to decrease FPS:
- I will be using the accelerated DF mod, as it promises an estimated FPS increase of around 25%. The trade off is losing some gem and stone types, but the core gameplay is unchanged.
- I will use modding to create a workshop that can create metal, stone, and gems without mining. This is to eliminate the FPS decrease from mined out areas. This is of course cheating, but it is probably necessary to keep the fortress immune to FPS death. Anything to keep the fort running smoothly.
- I will use quatum stockpiling in some cases to eliminate the FPS decrease from large stockpiles. I'm quite sure that not all stockpiles should be quatum stockpiles, however (plant stockpiles for example). I will experiment with my designs later on.
- It is necessary to create as few objects as possible at all times. It for example probably doesn't make sense to create more than 2 years worth of supplies of drink and prepared meals or too much clothing and armor etc.
- Path finding will be optimized with traffic zone allocation while the fortress is constructed. And it's a pain to do it afterwards for a large fort anyway.
- Excess items will be destroyed by manual dumping and atom smashing as this is apparently the best way to get rid of them FPS wise.
Please post anything you can think of to help with the FPS death immune fortress design.
My initial plan is to embark on a 3x3 embark space on flat lands with 1 cave system and with no flowing water (as these decreases FPS). Flat lands because I want to know if above ground construction can be used to compensate the inevitable limited mining below ground. Initial population cap is 60, hopefully with good frot design we can increase it above 100 later on. All designs that involve flowing water or magma will be replaced by creating a source of magma and water with DFHack in a contained area to eliminate FPS drain from pump stacks and such and overall the FPS drain from flowing liquids will be kept at minimum by careful design. I will try to keep mining out of below ground to the minimum as well although it probably is not too bad to mine out apartment complexes and workshops below ground. The plan is to have all industry on one level as there are rumors path finding through z levels might decrease FPS. Mining for minerals will be replaced with modding a workshop that gives these materials from thin air, though. An alternative might be obsidian farming and glass and clay block creation legitimately as this does not require mining. Same for wood as tree farms are not feasible considering the large space they need, while it is also legitimately possible to survive with the above ground tree chopping (in my last fortress I had 10 completely mined out floors only to grow trees underground and it was still sometimes a bit slow to get the wood I wanted). Only guard animals will be allowed in the fortress, all other animals will be butchered or caged.
I will post my designs and results later on as I design and construct the new fortress.