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[rucksackjack]

I've often gotten frustrated in the past with the low framerates that are experienced with a high population, but I'd like to get into the game again, and so I'm wondering about the new version. In your experience, has the framerate gotten better, worse, or mostly stayed the same?

[SkyRender]

Worse.  Much, much worse.  The game takes longer to do pretty much anything, and forts with only 50 inhabitants (including animals) cause them to chug as badly as a fort with 200+ entities in 40d did.

[Paul]

It depends on how many layers you set up the world with.

The default generation gives you tons, like 200+. Custom generation can give you pretty much as many as you like. You can get as few as 3 layers (sky, ground level, soil) with the obvious disadvantage of having no underground, and you can get way up in the hundreds if you really want to.

If you use the basic custom area with a relatively flat map you can get much fewer z-levels and faster framerate with all the content intact.

If you really need framerate but want your fort to still be interesting you might try having 1 cavern layer and turn off both bottom levels, giving you some digging space as well as an underground to explore without tons of z-levels. If you really want the deep content you can keep it on and still do alright, but those deep levels seem to cut down framerate a bit.

The features you miss out on if you turn off the bottom layers are:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Magma (that's the bottom layer 1) and Adamantine with associated content (the bottom layer 2)

I think you miss out on some creatures if you don't have the other cavern layers too, but I'm not sure. You can still get interesting underground stuff with only 1 layer though.

[G-Flex]

Keep in mind you can still find magma pools irrespective of the "special content" mentioned above. The amount is tied to local volcanism.

[LemonFrosted]

It's also really easy to end up with animal explosions without realizing it, and not just the catsplosion. At one point I had more horses and dogs (each) than dwarves. Oh, and a mass butchering spree will produce more product than you can use, so you'll get rot.

[userpay]

I'm tempted to wall off the lake I'm next to (it freezes in winter) to see if it will improve framerate though that'll take a long time to do.

[Scruga]

It's also really easy to end up with animal explosions without realizing it, and not just the catsplosion. At one point I had more horses and dogs (each) than dwarves. Oh, and a mass butchering spree will produce more product than you can use, so you'll get rot.

We can finally live off animals instead of having to cook (yes cook) alcohol

[LemonFrosted]

It's also really easy to end up with animal explosions without realizing it, and not just the catsplosion. At one point I had more horses and dogs (each) than dwarves. Oh, and a mass butchering spree will produce more product than you can use, so you'll get rot.

We can finally live off animals instead of having to cook (yes cook) alcohol

Well, once things get rolling at least. I've got a meat industry to rival modern farms and a constant supply of cheese (though the milking/chessemaking process is pretty slow).

[Tallim]

Oddly i find it much better in this version, had to play it on my laptop after my old pc died and 40D used to chug with only a few dwarfs. The openGl improved version worked better. But the 2010 one runs really well for me on the laptop.

Was still getting 40+ FPS even with a largish population. Though I tend to get times when the game just freezes for several seconds then goes back to normal.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

My experience is that it is running very well. However, its performance varies GREATLY based on what is down under your fortress still hidden. Even with very similar setups for the world and surface site - including identical settings for the underground features! -, I got extremely different frame rates in my fortresses, so if you are going very slowly, I think it is likely to be an issue with the site.

Deathworks

[assimilateur]

We can finally live off animals instead of having to cook (yes cook) alcohol

We were able to do that already. If you really had to rely on booze-cooking, then I guess you're not much of a farmer. Nothing wrong with that in itself, I'm just saying that farming is actually laughably easy, even without sploiting.

[Scruga]

We can finally live off animals instead of having to cook (yes cook) alcohol

We were able to do that already. If you really had to rely on booze-cooking, then I guess you're not much of a farmer. Nothing wrong with that in itself, I'm just saying that farming is actually laughably easy, even without sploiting.

Well I just stated that it was rather hard to live off animals, not that booze-cooking was necessary to survive.

[Proteus]

Definitely worse...
with 40d I was getting around 100 FPS with the initial  7 dwarves,
with 2010 it is just 40-60 (60 with  Baughns accelerator)
which drops to  around  20-30 FPS with ~50 dwarves (something which in 40d I would get only with large fortresses, around 100-150  dwarves)   

[assimilateur]

Well I just stated that it was rather hard to live off animals, not that booze-cooking was necessary to survive.

Your problem would be no booze, unless you also did some farming. Food-wise, I think livestock should still produce enough even if you're not getting all the miscellaneous offal that's introduced in the new version. Keep in mind that a cow calf nets you 6 units of meat and 6 units of fat (processed to tallow), i.e. 12 food items. Keeping in mind that a dwarf eats ~8 times a year, that's one and a half year's worth of provisions from a single calf.

All you'd have to do would be keep as many females of largish animals (cows, camels, muskoxen, etc.) as you have dwarves in your fortress, and you'd have no problem feeding everyone. I'm not saying that's better than growing vegetables, just that it's feasible.

[LemonFrosted]

Well I just stated that it was rather hard to live off animals, not that booze-cooking was necessary to survive.

Your problem would be no booze, unless you also did some farming. Food-wise, I think livestock should still produce enough even if you're not getting all the miscellaneous offal that's introduced in the new version. Keep in mind that a cow calf nets you 6 units of meat and 6 units of fat (processed to tallow), i.e. 12 food items. Keeping in mind that a dwarf eats ~8 times a year, that's one and a half year's worth of provisions from a single calf.

All you'd have to do would be keep as many females of largish animals (cows, camels, muskoxen, etc.) as you have dwarves in your fortress, and you'd have no problem feeding everyone. I'm not saying that's better than growing vegetables, just that it's feasible.

Year 7 I have a pretty steady supply of ~7-800 units of meat for 90 Dwarves, and over 100 slaughterable animals which would produce between 6 and 22 units of food each... yeah, booze would be an issue, but you can go straight carnivore by third year, easy.