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[plisskin]

First off: Macbook, 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo running Leopard with 1GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM and plenty of disc space for virtual memory. I'm running the game in Crossover, a commercial WINE-based program.

It seems like once my fortress gets to around 60+ dwarves I inevitably suffer a crash, which I assume is due to my memory being swamped since there's no pattern to the crashes besides my fort getting to a nice big size. In accordance with the advice on the wiki I've done my best to limit traffic using zones, to atomsmash an overabundance of items on the ground and to block off various areas so that the pathfinding algos aren't searching all willy-nilly, but I've had this issue repeatedly. My fort gets big, game crashes, I load an older save, I play until it gets bigger, crashes. My FPS is capped at 80, and flaps around 50 - 80 even right before the game tanks. When I have my OSX version of task manager open I see the game using the vast majority of system resources but no worse than most games. Right before the crash I tend to have a spike in memory use and then, naturally, it flatlines. I have graphics turned off, but I'm using Phoebus' tileset.

My question is: Is this crashing likely related to my system not being able to handle the game, or does the game just crash a lot in general and I should try to struggle through and hope I get lucky?  Is this possibly avoidable by more drastic means in-game, like forcing out a game world with different parameters? I tried to find a guide on how to limit the Z-count but I got confused as to how one specifically limits that in the worldgen, uh, thingy.

[Sutremaine]

Flat maps with running water tend to be quite shallow. I don't think limiting elevation to a small range in the world gen options works, but I've never tried it. It depends whether the black number at the bottom right of the screen repesents absolute z-level, or zeroes at sea level. If it's the former, then the game will create extra levels to hold the bottom layers of the map.

You can shave off a few levels in worldgen by limiting the number of sky levels, but everything else is already set to the minimum.

[Chocolatemilkgod]

Hmmm. Wierd. Maybe one of the cores is being overburdened? Like if you open something and it uses the core DF is on...Boom. Dunno though I'm not a really tech-y guy with DF. Maybe try different settings in the .init?

[plisskin]

If this is the wrong forum to post in let me know, since this is a tech question and not a "why aren't my dorfs doing the Macarena" question.

I suppose it could be a problem with Crossover or any number of things, but when I was using the Mac port of DF I had even more crashing issues. Possible that my computer has other problems besides just the tech-specs, but I'm still fishing for possible solutions.

[QuantumMenace]

I tried increasing the minimum elevation in worldgen (to 50-75 where sea level is 100) and it seems to cut down on z-levels. I'm guessing it needs enough z-levels to fit all the caverns under the deepest ocean trench.

[Kogut]

Suggestion - try to save very often to locate this crash. If it is reproducible send it on bug tracker (save that loads and crashes without interaction/very specific player action). Crash type bugs have quite have chance for fix.

[plisskin]

Suggestion - try to save very often to locate this crash. If it is reproducible send it on bug tracker (save that loads and crashes without interaction/very specific player action). Crash type bugs have quite have chance for fix.

I tried increasing the minimum elevation in worldgen (to 50-75 where sea level is 100) and it seems to cut down on z-levels. I'm guessing it needs enough z-levels to fit all the caverns under the deepest ocean trench.

I'll try both of these, thanks. I'm hoping it's a bug-bug and not just me having to limit myself to a 25-dwarf skeleton crew.