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[beekay]

Uhh, no, stairs are significantly more fps-efficient than ramps, and faster for dwarves to boot.

If you're using a recent version, open up init.txt and change [PRINT_MODE:2D] to [PRINT_MODE:STANDARD]. This should give you a rather large fps boost. Other than that, try this thread for extra tips.

[LoSboccacc]

high stack of adjacent up/down stair are a very repeatable fps killer

also you got it wrong, stairs take one step to change level and one to move in any other direction, while stairs you get in one step down and in an adjacent square

[zilpin]

fixed:

...stairs take one step to change level and one to move in any other direction, while ramps you get in one step down and in an adjacent square

Though, from an FPS perspective, ramps require more computer thought per step, probably because they have to check for the correct adjacent wall.
If ramps were stored with directional data, then ramps would probably not have that FPS penalty.

Pathfinding is always the biggest FPS killer in DF.
Can't blame Almighty Toad, though.  Pathfinding programming is always difficult, and not fun to do.  For a lot of work, there is very little visible reward.  Even implementing known, well-documented algorithms is a pain ( A*, D*, etc).

[LoSboccacc]

yeah, path finding on a dynamic terrain does nasty things to your cpu cache

my fortress has a big warning signpost for migrants to see: "we kill cats on sight, please be advised"

burrows also help a bit. but I'm unsure if it's because of restricted pathing searching for local solutions or because dwarves are using more of local near resources instead of better far ones.

[helf]

You could do the typical init changes such as disabling temp and weather and what not. Should help some.

[BurnedToast]

In my experience using fancy 'ramp' stairway setups is much laggier then just slapping a generic up/down stairway column in the middle of the fort.

I've not done extensive testing, but my fancy stairway forts have always been much laggier then my lazy up/down column forts.

[drvoke]

In my experience using fancy 'ramp' stairway setups is much laggier then just slapping a generic up/down stairway column in the middle of the fort.

I've not done extensive testing, but my fancy stairway forts have always been much laggier then my lazy up/down column forts.

They also dig up more stone.  Stair columns are also much quicker to designate using just what's available in game.  Connecting floors via hallways (whether using stairs or ramps) has always been a defensive consideration for me, since the FPS benefit doesn't seem that great.

For the OP, it seems like the game should still be hitting 100 fps at this point.  If your stair column is currently only 4 levels tall, that's not going to be your problem.  Running water calculations can easily destroy FPS if you have an extensive amount of exposed, flowing liquid on your map.  Your FPS should only be dropping to that point once you have a magma or waterworks running, you've pierced every level of the caverns, and have 2000 stone lying around.

How many different embarks have you tried?  Do they all give the same speed results?  Are you running some pre-genned world to follow along with a tutorial, or generating your own world?  Also, what version?  25 FPS with 15 dwarves is pretty ridiculous.

[janglur]

It's pretty normal for game speed to decline as you gradually build up your fort.

Forcing any app to run on a single core, for a multicore machine, is generally a pretty bad idea, but whatever makes you happy.

Actually, since DF is single-threaded, it experiences a significant boost for being assigned to a single core.
For example, my fort runs at a steady 41 FPS on a highly dedicated core, but set to all three cores, it falls to 32 FPS.  A big difference.

[FleshForge]

I'll try this, but in my experience with a lot of other apps that are single threaded, forcing processor affinity has never done anything good and has sometimes been bad for overall machine utility, e.g. you try to start another app and for whatever reason it wants to get on the busy core, but can't, so it stalls.  Although my board/processor is a quad core, it's fairly old now (4 years I think?) as is my OS (Windows XP 64-bit), so that may have something to do with it.

[Vehudur]

No one has yet explained to me why I get 100fps until endgame when I drop to 50 - 70 and I have a single core computer (because my new one still isn't here), unless I'm dumb enough to embark by where 3 major rivers meet or something like I just did.  bad idea.  really bad idea.  Getting 60 fps in the second year here.  Although it's really cool, 2 go over waterfalls and everything.

[FleshForge]

Object count goes way up, tables of data in memory get larger, data becomes too large to keep in an optimal address space, job calculation becomes more complex, pathfinding becomes somewhat more complex, underground flora covers more tiles, etc etc etc.

[janglur]

I'll try this, but in my experience with a lot of other apps that are single threaded, forcing processor affinity has never done anything good and has sometimes been bad for overall machine utility, e.g. you try to start another app and for whatever reason it wants to get on the busy core, but can't, so it stalls.  Although my board/processor is a quad core, it's fairly old now (4 years I think?) as is my OS (Windows XP 64-bit), so that may have something to do with it.

You also have to force other processes off DF's core.  (Make sure that's not core0, tho).  Especially Explorer.exe

Use Process Explorer.  It can offload almost everything, including system and hardware.  I use it for major gains.

[Emily]

Just  the default 3x3. My fort starts on the surface at 143, and the very bottom of the map is -20something. I haven't dug very deep, apart from a stairwell that goes down to level 73,but that's just 4 tiles of up/down squares.

...the default is 4x4, I believe....

Anyway, that depth alone, without any actual breaching of caves and such has caused notable lag on my computer--which is not a very fast one, it should be noted--compared to a shallower site.  Also this is at very low populations so pathfinding shouldn't be an issue yet.

[helf]

No one has yet explained to me why I get 100fps until endgame when I drop to 50 - 70 and I have a single core computer (because my new one still isn't here), unless I'm dumb enough to embark by where 3 major rivers meet or something like I just did.  bad idea.  really bad idea.  Getting 60 fps in the second year here.  Although it's really cool, 2 go over waterfalls and everything.

What cpu and ram speed? You probably have really low memory latency and high bandwidth. It helps a lot.

Also, ProcessExplorer is nice though I use DTaskmanager. I like it a lot, its located here - http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/

[thebigJ_A]

Uhh, no, stairs are significantly more fps-efficient than ramps, and faster for dwarves to boot.

If you're using a recent version, open up init.txt and change [PRINT_MODE:2D] to [PRINT_MODE:STANDARD]. This should give you a rather large fps boost. Other than that, try this thread for extra tips.

I tried that, that's what bumped me up to 30. I did get a collapsed cavern message at the beginning of embarking, so idk if that has anything to do with it.

I decided to try another embark. This time I'm getting higher fps, around 50, but that's with my 7 dwarves (do woe use 'dwarfs' or 'dwarves' in this game?) and the wagon, before I've even dug anything, so I'm a bit concerned it'll drop to 30 once I start digging.