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[Jerm]

Frames per second, folks.  If you're new to the conversation, you can edit your ini file to display your FPS on the screen.

I'm curious about how the rest of you play DF.  Join the discussion and post your current status, general frames per second (I know they can vary from one moment to the next), and your number of dwarves, how large an area you embarked on, maybe how big the world is, if it impacts your FPS, and what kind of machine you're playing on!  Maybe even what year you're in.

[Jerm]

And here's my own response.

I'm on a 4x4 section of a 256x33 world map.  I'm three years into the game, and just hit 90 dwarves.  I'm running aprox 30 FPS, sometimes a little higher, sometimes lower when lots of stuff starts happening.  I'm playing on a Dell Inspiron 9100 laptop with a 2.8Ghz processor and 1 gig of RAM.

[SirPenguin]

I could go on and on about my problems and observations about how poorly DF runs, but it can be summed at in a simple sentence.

Low FPS is a big enough problem that it forces me to quit forts, and sometimes, the entire game for weeks on end.

[Jiri Petru]

My games runs somewhere at 30 FPS, which may seem bad, but I actually find it quite comfortable. When I began a new game few days ago (only 7 dwarves and no catsplosion), it ran TOO FAST! There was no time to sit back and enjoy the sight, I had to pause the game all the time. I think I'll stick to my 30, thank you.    :cool:

Now the only thing I need is an option to leave the game unpaused when I use menus...

[ May 15, 2008: Message edited by: Jiri Petru ]

[ShunterAlhena]

I run on a Dualcore machine with 4 GB RAM and still around 90-100 dwarves I encounter FPS problems.
What I fear is that this is not solely because DF is awesomely complex, but also because it is not optimized to the fullest. However it is up to our master Toady to decide whether this really is the situation, and whatever he wants to do about it if it's true.

[Jay]

quote:Originally posted by ShunterAlhena:
<STRONG>I run on a Dualcore machine with 4 GB RAM and still around 90-100 dwarves I encounter FPS problems.
What I fear is that this is not solely because DF is awesomely complex, but also because it is not optimized to the fullest.</STRONG>

Dual core?  There's your problem right there.  DF is not optimized to use two cores efficiently, if at at all.
Plus there's the highly probable case that while it's dual core, it's not all that fast..  RAM isn't the only important number we need, you know!
My computer's not the fastest in the world..
3 GHz combined over 2 cores and a gig of RAM...  but I manage a workable 30 FPS even with 150-ish Dwarfs and 20 animals or more (Damn immigrants won't let you take away their pets...)  Mind this is with default, that is, everything enabled.  Temperature, weather, invaders...
Sieges do cause a bit of a slowdown to around 15 FPS for a time..  Not that it's unplayable in that state, just a little skippy when scrolling across the map.

[Fedor]

quote:Originally posted by Jerm:
<STRONG>I'm curious about how the rest of you play DF.  Join the discussion and post your current status, general frames per second (I know they can vary from one moment to the next), and your number of dwarves, how large an area you embarked on, maybe how big the world is, if it impacts your FPS, and what kind of machine you're playing on!  Maybe even what year you're in.</STRONG>

I set my max FPS to 80.  With an FPS of <= 30, the game and its interface becomes jerky and laggy enough as to be annoyng to play, so I work VERY VERY hard to keep things optimized, to the point of writing a wiki page just for the purpose.  I'm aware that a number of players can cope with much lower framerates, but on my machine the pauses before the game accepts any command with FPS that low would drive me bonkers.

My computer is a Pentium IV running at ~2 GHtz with 1 Gig of RAM.  It can handle about 80 dwarves, at roughly 40 FPS, with either a magma pipe or cliffs (but not both), as long as I optimize init.txt to the max, don't settle in areas with caves and such, avoid major liquid plumbing, cage all livestock, do not make very large or elaborate fortresses with complex passageways, don't have too many objects, and so forth.

Every single fort I've ever gotten serious with has eventually gotten lagged into the ground because of my violation of one or more of these "no-no"s, and for that reason abandoned.  It is frustrating beyond words.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Traditionally you aren't supposed to start optimizing until late in development. It makes the code hard to read and besides you really don't know what's laggy and what's not until you run the program through a checker. So I'd imagine Toady hasn't gone through with a fine-toothed +Aluminum Comb+ yet, but that it'll get much better eventually.

[Frobozz]

quote:Originally posted by LeoLeonardoIII:
<STRONG>Traditionally you aren't supposed to start optimizing until late in development. It makes the code hard to read and besides you really don't know what's laggy and what's not until you run the program through a checker. So I'd imagine Toady hasn't gone through with a fine-toothed +Aluminum Comb+ yet, but that it'll get much better eventually.</STRONG>

Optimizing late in the development cycle is great just as long as fixing the slowdown doesn't require rewriting large sections of code.

Ultimately though Toady is just going to have to learn the mystical art of threading code. Unless something drastically changes the state of computers, by the time Dwarf Fortress is near complete most systems are likely to have dozens of processing units. Threading the code would allow him to offset the optimization process until late in the development of the game.

[Nukeitall]

Generally pathing related issues are the main killer. Temperature and excessive amounts of items also kill in number.

[Qmarx]

2 FPS!  Woo!

Of course, I *am* draining the ocean, so it's sorta expected.

EDIT: Oh, and some imps from the second magma vent started a fire on the other half of the screen.

[ May 15, 2008: Message edited by: Qmarx ]

[thvaz]

Toady is more able than most of us to learn multithreading. I think DF WILL be multithreading at the future - just not soon.

[Sukasa]

I'd rather see it optimized with a ☼Adamantite☼ comb, myself

I get a range of FPS, depending on fort size and world size.

My one fort probably gets about 50FPS on the 2.8Ghz Dual-core school machines, and my pocket-world map with no animals and a tiny map gets ~120 FPS with 30+ dwarves.

Note that being dual-core does increase DF performance a bit; the other processes use the second core, thus DF gets more processor time.

..MY lappy would probably go way faster if it's FSB was decent.

[Kuli]

On a 3x3 map with ~80 dwarves my FPS tends to fluctuate between 90 to 40.  It's like my comp wants to go about 90, but something keeps dragging it down again and again.

Still better than the 2D version.  Back then my FPS started at around 80 with only the seven initial dwarves and went downhill from there, ending up about 30 by the time my fort was full sized.

[Wooty]

With <50 dwarves in a clean and optimized 3X3, I can reach 80fps.

With 80 dwarves in a relatively clean and optimized 5X5 fort, I get ~50fps.

With 80 dwarves in a cluttered and clothes littered 5X% fort, I get ~30fps.

With 80 dwarves in a cluttered, fluid filled, clothes littered, animal infested, all z levels exposed, disgusting fort of shame I get an unplayable 15fps.