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[hauntedmoth]

Hello everyone.

I really like the new version of DF, but I have a problem. Since I've started using it, I've had a very noticeable loss of fps, much earlier and more severe than previous versions (even comparing high-pop DF version34 to low-pop DF version40). Has anyone else noticed this? I've tried mods to help the fps (like Modest Mod) but I found either the fps relief didn't last very long, or to attain that fps gain a lot of very 'dwarfy' features had to be cut. Like changing all leather to just 'leather'.

I think it might be as the game gets ever more detailed and complex, there's more 'stuff' in the background the game has to process and calculate, slowing it down and costing fps.

Has anyone else noticed this, and, if so, have they done any things that can fix it without stripping out DF flavour and features?

[Astrid]

We all ahve that problem. Its been worked on so far i do know.

Personally i am currently playing on short-medium history on 3x3 maps instead of long on 4x4 etc pp.
Helps quite a lot to work against it.

[Treah]

Yeah we all have that issue. I play on a 3x3 with a history about 300 years on a Small world. Smaller worlds tend to help a bit.
Still tho at about 3 years I get only about 30 - 40 FPS

[Witty]

As everyone else has already said, everyone has this issue. IMO, however, it isn't because the simulation is getting too deep or whatever. The FPS issues in .40.xx strike me as something really not working as intended in the background, which is causing the extremely onset of FPS death. As to what this thing is, I couldn't tell you.

[Alfrodo]

As everyone else has already said, everyone has this issue. IMO, however, it isn't because the simulation is getting too deep or whatever. The FPS issues in .40.xx strike me as something really not working as intended in the background, which is causing the extremely onset of FPS death. As to what this thing is, I couldn't tell you.

trees and persistent worldgen.

[hauntedmoth]

I wonder if it would be possible for the history updates of the world to only take place after your fort is retired/destroyed? As for the trees, I think so yeah. They have lots of branches and things, they also drop leaves and fruit too. Still though, not sure.
I'm sure it'll all get fixed up in time.

[Halnoth]

I'm sure it'll all get fixed up in time.

Ya sometime around 2059, you know around the time we have a few dozen people living on mars in prefab units. How do you think they are going to pass the time during those 6 month long dust storms?

[Urist McVoyager]

With tabletop games on computer like Dwarf Fortress.

[escondida]

If your fort's been around a while, running "clean item" periodically seems to help. It clears away the thousands and thousands of fallen leaves/fruits on the ground.

Setting up good traffic designations (see the article on the wiki) can also help quite a bit by reducing the amount of time Urist spends calculating her path to the dining room via the most remote portions of Cavern №3, a hundred Z beneath her feet.

[omega_dwarf]

It clears away the thousands and thousands of fallen leaves/fruits on the ground.

This. Your FPS should also be noticeably lower when you're looking at the outside ground level, where the stuff is 5-6 layers deep. The reason for that is that DF literally uses too much memory looking through all those piles of carp while it determines what tiles to draw on your screen every frame, and it's limited by the speed of your RAM. I may have said that slightly incorrectly (it's been a while), but see the thread in my sig. You can increase FPS in a wooded area by moving your fort underground and never looking at the surface unless you're ok with compromising FPS. Or by paving the entire landscape and cutting down all trees. Either way.

Somewhat of a fix for that, one of the best that I've found: Change your G_FPS_CAP to something much lower than it is right now. You might be surprised how much it helps and how little it impacts your game. (Again, see the link in my sig.) You can also make the game window smaller. If RAM speed is your limiting factor, taking some of the stress off of it by doing those two things can really help. Also related is multi-level rendering. Turn it off. TWBT is pretty, but a complete FPS-killer.

The other thing you can do is embark 3x3 (to reduce a multitude of things) on a small world with short history (~100 to ~200, if you're good with that) to reduce the constant history recalculations. Try embarking on a fort in a bigger world with longer history, and see how long it takes to run just those two weeks of calendar update. Should take several minutes, and that's when the game is doing nothing else. Now think what two weeks in fort mode corresponds to IRL. The history is a huge impact. I don't know if something is actually seriously wrong with that, or if DF just started processing the fact that it's creating way too much information during worldgen to do anything with during gameplay.

And then all the things you seemed to mention: turning off temperature, weather, lowering pop cap, etc. (something new with this version is that you can set a working absolute pop cap), and the other things that have always caused inevitable FPS death. FPS death might be accelerated due to history becoming more complex as the fort goes on and by more difficult pathfinding (climbing), but it's also worsened at a flat rate by things you can control. It's playable.

Try the G_FPS thing, and let us know how it works! And sorry if you already knew about it. Just seems like most people don't.

[omega_dwarf]

I wonder if it would be possible for the history updates of the world to only take place after your fort is retired/destroyed? As for the trees, I think so yeah. They have lots of branches and things, they also drop leaves and fruit too. Still though, not sure.
I'm sure it'll all get fixed up in time.

You should really make that a suggestion. I would love for that idea to be incorporated, at least while he's still improving the speed of history updating. Instead of at the fort's retiring, I would say do it at the same time as the yearly autosave. That way, the game just halts, potentially with a progress bar, and you can do something else, instead of struggling along with the game crawling. But you still get a changing, active history.

[hauntedmoth]

Thanks for the wonderful ideas, I'm going to try them as soon as I can. 

[davsim]

IMHO, the fps problem should be a top priority for toady, it's just ridiculous that after 3 years the fps is more than halved.

[AceSV]

Trees definitely cause lag.  Just looking at trees causes lag, I've noticed if I'm looking at a z-level with trees, I might get 20ish FPS, then I look at a stoney z-level and I get 40ish FPS.  (Although one of the newer LNPs revisions might have fixed that)  So embarking to deserts, badlands or glaciers can help out with that, if you don't mind the challenge of going treeless. 

[Alfrodo]

Trees definitely cause lag.  Just looking at trees causes lag, I've noticed if I'm looking at a z-level with trees, I might get 20ish FPS, then I look at a stoney z-level and I get 40ish FPS.  (Although one of the newer LNPs revisions might have fixed that)  So embarking to deserts, badlands or glaciers can help out with that, if you don't mind the challenge of going treeless.

Importing wood or bringing it on embark is still very viable, keep in mind.  Just ask the liaison.