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[mirrizin]

This might be an auxiliary thing to put alongside the game, but has anyone thought about calculating how significantly a given object affects lag? Perhaps one could figure out a unit of lag, and try to work out how much a given condition adds to the total lag, and attach a value of lag units to a given thing.

For instance, a pump stack costs X units per level. An open cavern adds X units per dwarf, etc.

Is this too crazy an idea to float? I feel like it'd be helpful for people who struggle with framerate or are trying to work out what the particular cause of a certain drop is...

[Putnam]

Main problem is that it's a very variable problem. It would have to be calculated tick-by-tick.

[mirrizin]

Main problem is that it's a very variable problem. It would have to be calculated tick-by-tick.

That's fair. Maybe even a set of categories for known lag-inducers

For instance, this was somewhat inspired by my experience with a sealed-in lycanthrope who got hit with a strange mood. My FPS went from the 40s-60s down to  7 for the duration of the mood until the sad thing went insane.

I'd picked up from the wiki that this was a cause, but I hadn't figured out exactly how much lag it could generate.

This probably isn't something to do in the game itself, but a general list of causes and relative ideas of how much lag each can create might be useful, though I admit it'd be a ballpark thing at best.

[Ghills]

A consolidated list of major lag-causes would be a good start for troubleshooting. I don't think something that actually tried to calculate an individual game's lag would be feasible though.

[Fleeting Frames]

It'd be good for debugging as well as helping fort last, even if the tool calculating step by step would cause lots of lag itself. Maybe usually off but enabled by setting/for a single hour from menu?

[Rataldo]

It sounds like you're taking about what is known as "dynamic code analysis" in software engineering. I haven't worked with many tools to do this first hand, but I know most of the comprehensive ones require it to be integrated into the code itself. Basically it can provide you with info like "60% of the CPU time is being spent in this method" which could be valuable for figuring out what is causing lag.

[Putnam]

You can hook a profiler into the process just fine as of now, but unless the FPS drops are being caused by DFHack or you can read assembly really well that won't help, since you don't get symbols with DF.