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[Untelligent]

Air resistance?

[Totaku]

I've copied them all down, and I intend to answer them in the next day or two, depending on how long it takes and how long I can work on it at once.  There are ~60 questions to answer that weren't already addressed within the thread.

The 40d17 release is nextish (I'll probably organize my notes first).  Then the merge will come at the end after that has been tested and worked out.

Totaku's estimates looked pretty good.  It's not like it's going to be out in a week or something, but it won't take forever either.  There really are a lot of requests and miscellaneous items that have accumulated over the last more-than-a-year (hundreds of them), and I've just got to order these and decide what must go in and what's out this time.

Ahahaha I'm glad to see that d17 is definetly top priority. Cause I know that you will depend on us to test this thing so that it can be installed for the release.

Also, I'm surprise my estimations caught your eye. I sort of followed how quick some of the processes were done and then spent my time estimating the amount of work it would take based on your average speed flow.

So if you think that my estimations fall into place.... that means we're roughly expecting a Feburary - March release for sure.

Well, all I can say is that we shall do our best to work on our end with testing 40d17 once it's out and we all shall wish you luck as you begin fixing all those bugs to create a better Dwarf Fortress.

I salute to you great Toady One!

[James.Denholm]

Air resistance?

No, the forces are still applied to your face. Actually, they aren't in new air bags, so let's go back to the cat, shall we?

The forces from the impact are still applied to the cat. The total force is still 58.8 newtons, but the cat is able to lengthen the time of the collision, lowering the peak force, so instead of breaking the cat's legs, the paws are deformed to the point where they might hurt a bit for the next couple of minutes. I don't know, I'm not a cat, but the forces are still all applied to the cat. Physics would break if they did not.

[Asmodeous]

First off, I would like to say thanks to Footkerchief. At least someone gets what I'm getting at. Hearing that optimization is in the top 5 after this release means that I can expect (rightfully) that the next release after that or even the one after that will be about fixing some of the horrible lag problems that really just shouldn't be there, but I do need to address a few things.

I'm not going to address the computer argument directly, because it is an attempt to start an argument and I'm not really here to play that, as I do not really want to see my point being distracted from because I took the bait, I did want to address Martin though.

Regardless of the source of the performance issues, I think it's pointless to compare one of the highest budget games of the last few years to a shareware title with a single programmer. Even if the performance issues were clearly identified, that doesn't mean much up against the limited and constrained time of a single programmer with no real budget. Problems require resources to solve, of one nature or another, and DF has very limited resources. That's just the way of it, and the magnitude of the concern really doesn't mean much unless it's Toady's concern.

It should be everyone's concern, don't you think? The performance of the game? I used Crysis as a benchmark because it's an intensive game (and by the by I don't have SLI, that is a fairly weak performance gain for the cost) that has heavy physics usage that is CPU heavy (as I don't have an nVidia card) as well as Graphically heavy.

The comparison of the game is due to the nature of the physics engine as compared to the graphics engine the fact that my graphics card is eons beyond what the needs of Crysis are isn't relevant to the statement, however the physics engine in it is pretty harsh on the CPU. Yes, multithreading takes into account here, however I could have picked a PopCap game out of the air instead, or I could have picked any one of the titles by Big Fish Games out of my hat, however the thing about that is that the people would have then come in with "Well this game is so much more complex than that." because the point of fact that is my secondary point is that for some unknown reason people here are almost incapable of being critical of the game.

I love this game, I think Toady has a brilliant product under his control, and I am sympathetic that he is only one person that is working on a vast project, and I want to see it continue to succeed. So by that I am being constructively critical of it as to what I see is a major problem, because if it isn't optimized, budget aside, then people are going to stop playing as more and more unoptimized stuff gets added and the game bogs from the get go.

Why is constructive criticism and examples therein taken by a large member of the populace as a personal slight? I would suggest to you that it's not unfair to make direct comparisons to high budget games. I would suggest to you that it is unfair to not.

My suggestion wasn't that the donation was necessary for Toady to work on it, just that he doesn't have the budget to hire programmers, or CFD experts, or to bring in programmers from the GPU makers or Intel to consult on the best way to optimize the code for their products. Crysis can do all of those things precisely because they have that budget, so they have vastly more means to find the resources to address an issue when one comes up. In the case of DF, we just need to wait for Toady to get to it, to find the inspiration on how best to solve the problem, and so on. Banging against that particular door just isn't terribly productive in this situation and I think the comparison with Crysis is, frankly, unfair.

Ignoring it and not reminding him that it is a problem is far less productive than bringing it up, bringing it up in a clear, logical manner, and letting him know that it needs to be moved up the list a bit.

[Untelligent]

My fort's hovered around 10-15 FPS for the past ten years or so and it hasn't bothered me much. =D

[Dakk]

It only gets to the point its unplayable when it gets below 10, my forts usualy hover around 15-25 when past 150 dwarves on 8x8 maps with lots of Z levels and features.

[xrogaan]

My fort's hovered around 10-15 FPS for the past ten years or so and it hasn't bothered me much. =D

You are insane.

[Untelligent]

Nah, I imagine it's harder to deal with if it goes straight from 100 to 20, but a long, gradual shift over the course of 33 years is probably easier to handle. Like sticking your hand in a pot of room-temperature water and turning the stove on.

[StealthArcher]

EXPECTED DAY OF RELEASE FEB 27TH!?


Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.


I was hoping to actually play soon, hopez were dazhed.

[Kilo24]

Why is constructive criticism and examples therein taken by a large member of the populace as a personal slight? I would suggest to you that it's not unfair to make direct comparisons to high budget games. I would suggest to you that it is unfair to not.

[Crysis argument-from-budget]

Ignoring it and not reminding him that it is a problem is far less productive than bringing it up, bringing it up in a clear, logical manner, and letting him know that it needs to be moved up the list a bit.

It's not that it's a personal slight, it's that "Why doesn't Toady toss in multi-threading?" is pretty much the second-most popular thread topic on these forums.  And that, when the topic turns to other, more practical optimizations, many regulars get aggravated repeating the same reasons again and again; so, they get snarky instead of having to spend more time writing out a good opinion on the same issues.

I personally do think you're exaggerating the situation somewhat, but I do think it's still very important and I respect your opinion.  And it's definitely true that some computers get the short end of DF's currently haphazard optimization.

And on an unrelated note, geez, I remember when this thread was 1 post long.  That was over a year ago. 
I really have to toss a belated comment of appreciation on keeping us posted on the current state of development to Toady.  Your input in this thread, DF Talk, and everywhere else has managed to keep the game interesting despite the delay.  I doubt that I'd have been able to stand just seeing those countdown numbers decrease over time.

[Ozyton]

EXPECTED DAY OF RELEASE FEB 27TH!?

Where did you see this?

[psychologicalshock]

Well, yes, they use their legs to increase the time of the collision, but there is only so much that can do. Like how airbags in a car will allow you to survive a large crash, but it's not like you're going to be able to walk away unharmed. They lower the peak force, and lengthen the time of the collision between your face and the surface, but those forces still have to go somewhere.

I recall calculating that the impulse is lowered by a million fold by air bags because the time  for the change in momentum is so much greater (So less force per unit of time) . Sort of the same effect as jumping into the sea off the top of a cruise ship and doing the same onto land, obviously you will almost certainly take no real damage when you jump into water while you are at a large risk to break something when jumping onto land. My guess is that even that split second springing motion cats do also reduces force per unit of time dramatically.

[Sizik]

EXPECTED DAY OF RELEASE FEB 27TH!?

Where did you see this?

Estimated time when the release could come?
February 16th - March 14th

My Perdiction Week of Release
February 23rd -March 2nd

Perdition day of Release
Febuary 27th

This is my perdiction, and hopefully it'll be accurate to the week at least.

[Sysice]

Also, Toady said that was about right.

Man, you know that a game's been waiting for a release for too long when the community is like "It's so close I can taste it!" when there is still a month left. ...Not that I'm complaining.

[James.Denholm]

Well, yes, they use their legs to increase the time of the collision, but there is only so much that can do. Like how airbags in a car will allow you to survive a large crash, but it's not like you're going to be able to walk away unharmed. They lower the peak force, and lengthen the time of the collision between your face and the surface, but those forces still have to go somewhere.

I recall calculating that the impulse is lowered by a million fold by air bags because the time  for the change in momentum is so much greater (So less force per unit of time) . Sort of the same effect as jumping into the sea off the top of a cruise ship and doing the same onto land, obviously you will almost certainly take no real damage when you jump into water while you are at a large risk to break something when jumping onto land. My guess is that even that split second springing motion cats do also reduces force per unit of time dramatically.

A million fold? Okay, that makes sense, I suppose. But like I said, there comes a point where the cat's springing motion can only do so much. I recognise that would be at only achievable from very high hights.

Better idea: Let's use puppies instead as cushioning. No springing there, no siree!