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[Azated]

I asked this question once before shortly after the 40xx release, but there wasn't alot of helpful information at the time.

To put it simply, my game lags as soon as I embark. I was able to play every previous version with >100 fps for the first 5+ years and the inevitable fortress ending lag only hitting single digits some time in my second or third decade, depending on how badly I've broken the map. Ever since 40xx, my top limit is 50-60 right on embark, and I'm now single digits before the end of my second year.

Every fortress in every world on every fresh version has this issue and it's incredibly irritating. Is there some sort of bug around that I haven't heard of, or is this just a personal thing limited to me and my system?

[origamiscienceguy]

A few questions:
How big are you making your embarks?
How savage/evil is your embark?
Is there any exposed magma on your map?
How many units do you have?

[jturnera]

Also post system and other relevant information so the techie people can help

[utunnels]

There are new trees in 40.xx. Try switch to another level without trees to see if fps is improved.

[Azated]

A few questions:
How big are you making your embarks?
How savage/evil is your embark?
Is there any exposed magma on your map?
How many units do you have?

My embarks are 3x3.
My savagery is maxed out at worldgen, but my current embark is a non-evil or highly savage forest.
My embark is on a volcano, but the problem occurs regardless of where I embark.
At the moment, I have a population of 11 with 88 animals.

Also post system and other relevant information so the techie people can help

Quad core i3 3.1Ghz (Have tried changing the processor priority of the game from Low to Realtime and nothing seems to change)
8gb ram
Nvidia Geforce gtx 550 Ti on a 1920x1080 monitor
Windows 7
19.8gb free of the 500gb HDD my DF folder is in. I also have a 240gb SSD, but I'm not sure if DF would run any better on solid versus hard.

There are new trees in 40.xx. Try switch to another level without trees to see if fps is improved.

I'll try that and update with my results.

[origamiscienceguy]

At the moment, I have a population of 11 with 88 animals.

That looks like your problem. Dwarf Fortress is highly inefficient with path finding. Also, the volcano is probably tanking it quite a bit. To fix this, open your dwarf fortress folder, open data, init, and open d_init.txt. Change [TEMPERATURE:YES] to [TEMPERATURE:NO]

[Azated]

There are new trees in 40.xx. Try switch to another level without trees to see if fps is improved.

My frames on the new embark (a flat 3x3 desert with zero vegetation) are 80, but they seem to be dropping by the second. As soon as I designated a 10x10 channel, it plummeted to ~60.

That looks like your problem. Dwarf Fortress is highly inefficient with path finding. Also, the volcano is probably tanking it quite a bit. To fix this, open your dwarf fortress folder, open data, init, and open d_init.txt. Change [TEMPERATURE:YES] to [TEMPERATURE:NO]

That worked well. It took me out of singles and into the 30's, but that's still pretty low for the start of year 3. Is there anything else I could try?

[utunnels]

Caps gfps could help a bit. For example, 15.

[Azated]

Caps gfps could help a bit. For example, 15.

I'm guessing you're suggesting I should cap my graphical fps at 15, but how would that help?

[jturnera]

Sorry to chime in a little outside the train of where the thread is going - with regards to pathfinding and the amount of animals you have - any flying animals that you may have could be the problem. All flyers (Kea, Cave Swallow, Wren) absolutely shred my FPS, I think their pathfinding is a lot more complex than ground-travellers, so cage/butcher all flying animals may help you.

[Eldin00]

Caps gfps could help a bit. For example, 15.

I'm guessing you're suggesting I should cap my graphical fps at 15, but how would that help?

I'm led to believe that the reason it helps has something do do with how frequently it has to copy data from system RAM to video memory, but I don't know the inner workings of the thing well enough to know the exact details. However, in my experience, setting a gfps cap lower than the fps you're currently getting will usually result in at least a small (and sometimes not so small) increase in simulation fps. Once your simulation fps is dropping down into the single digits, dropping the gfps isn't likely to be a viable way to speed things up regardless.

As to things I have observed seeming to contribute to slowdown:

• flyers. A flock of birds coming onto the map can take my fps from the 80s down to the 50s very quickly.
• lots of creatures, especially with wide open areas. Traffic designations can help somewhat with this, as can sealing off unused areas. The addition of climbing is probably the main culprit as to why pathfinding is so much more expensive for non-flyers compared to earlier versions.
• doors which are not pet passable. There seems to be a bug where animals will continuously try to path through them.
• lots of power generation or liquid flow.
• lots of empty stockpile spaces. These continually generate hauling jobs which seems to bog down the game
• the TWBT display mode (with DFHack). I love TWBT. But I've sometimes gotten as much as a 30% increase in fps by switching to the 2D or Standard display modes. More if TWBT had multilevel display enabled.
• Temperature calculations, but only if there are raging wildfires or significant movement of magma. Once the fires burn out or the magma stops being moved around, fps tends to recover to about the same levels as with temperature calculations off.

People also frequently blame trees, the ground spatter left behind by trees, and the world simulation. These could be causing slowdown, but I myself have not yet seen compelling evidence that any of these are significant contributors.

[Linkxsc]

Well 1 thing of note this version in updates to LNP. Seems to include a feature with a degree of 3d visibility (able to view layers below the current 1 if there is open space) with some of the tilesets. And while a pretty nice feature to have. It destroys FPS and causes a lot of crashes.

[Eldin00]

Well 1 thing of note this version in updates to LNP. Seems to include a feature with a degree of 3d visibility (able to view layers below the current 1 if there is open space) with some of the tilesets. And while a pretty nice feature to have. It destroys FPS and causes a lot of crashes.

That's the TWBT display mode. It requires DFHack, and is included with the common starter packs (but can be used without them). It has 2 main features. The first is to allow the menus and the graphics to use separate tilesets (generally, ASCII for menus, and the player's favorite graphics tileset for graphics). The other feature is to display some number of z-levels below the current (and apply a fade effect to the lower z-levels). I haven't had any crashing problems with it (some have), but it definitely impacts performance, especially if the multilevel display is enabled.

[PatrikLundell]

My understanding of the pet unpassable door issue is that making the door pet unpassable should block path alternatives and thus reduce the pet patjing calculations, but doesn't, so it doesn't cost anything, it just doesn't give you the improvement it should compared to pet passable (and it does reduce the number of pet hauling jobs to get the critters back to their pens).

A few other things I didn't see (but I may have read sloppily):
- A smaller world helps, as there is less happening in the rest of it outside of the fortress. I use pocket worlds.
- A short history is supposed to help.
- Culling historical figures is supposed to help.
- There is a wiki page on FPS with some general tips, in case something has been missed here.

[utunnels]

Caps gfps could help a bit. For example, 15.

I'm guessing you're suggesting I should cap my graphical fps at 15, but how would that help?

Because refreshing the screen may also use processor power.