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Author Topic: More FPS or lowered expectations?  (Read 961 times)

Dreen

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More FPS or lowered expectations?
« on: June 16, 2010, 01:22:14 pm »

I recently bought a new computer. It's a netbook, so I never expected it to be ultra-fast, but IMHO the hardware is not that bad: a dual core CPU, some new Nvidia ION card... yet right after embark it rarely goes above 20fps, usually hangs around 5, and I haven't had an established fort on this machine yet.
The laptop is Asus 1201N, you can see the full spec here: http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=sZ0sI6WqjnCHGFta

I'm not a hardware expert but it just seems I could get more fps... I tried all print modes and various versions, without much difference. ACCUM_BUFFER seems to be the fastest, it reaches ~30 when staring into underground nothingness and literally nothing happens in the game.
Is there anything I can do to improve the framerate?
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doctorspoof

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Re: More FPS or lowered expectations?
« Reply #1 on: June 16, 2010, 01:31:01 pm »

Bear in mind the fact that DF can only really utilise one core at a time (except the new fancy multi-core support for graphics, but I don't know much about that), so if you have quite a few cores but each isn't that powerful, DF won't run that quickly. Not much you can do I'm afraid :/
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IronValley

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Re: More FPS or lowered expectations?
« Reply #2 on: June 16, 2010, 03:40:42 pm »

The clock speed of the CPU is rather low, 1.6GHz, as far as I could gather (30 seconds of googling). But 5 fps on embark? That seems odd... I'd try playing with settings... Both DF and laptop related... battery-save-mode?

Also, never play unplugged. S L O W ;)
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alway

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Re: More FPS or lowered expectations?
« Reply #3 on: June 16, 2010, 04:34:23 pm »

Its a netbook, you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for. I would suggest only using the tiniest embarks and playing the 40d version. You may at least be able to play, albiet still slowly.
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SocietalEclipse

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Re: More FPS or lowered expectations?
« Reply #4 on: June 28, 2010, 02:59:39 pm »

The Atom is pretty slow clock for clock compared to desktop or notebook processors.  That clockspeed of 1.6 GHz is actually comparable to something like 1 GHz of a modern architecture desktop CPU.
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