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[intently]

Not sure if this is a "bug", or just something that can be addressed through a setting of some sort.  I've implemented many of the speed suggestions from the wiki, and my framerate has increase... but... every few seconds the game "stutters" for a second and everything stops moving.  Then things start going again for 5 seconds or so before another stutter.

I guess the game is pathfinding or something, but I don't remember this happening when I last played several months ago.  Does anything else see this?  How can I fix it?

Thanks!

[Crafty Barnardo]

I have noticed this also.  It doesn't happen very often though so it is only a minor annoyance.

[intently]

It has been happening to me every five seconds now for a long time.

I don't have narrow hallways.

I don't see anything significant in errorlog.txt.

I saw this thread that seems to describe the same problem, so I turned off stone gathering.  Didn't fix it.

[Sowelu]

Are there ambushers lurking around?  Try sending out patrols to look for hidden ambushers.

[intently]

I can try that, but I've only got 7 dwarves now and they're all busy.  Any idea where the ambushers might be hiding?  Near by entrance?  Near a chasm?

[intently]

Is there any way to get debugging output so I can see what it's doing when it pauses?

[Tayrin]

Try looking at the last few lines of errorlog.txt in the DF folder. It tells you of failed pathing attempts, and other various anomalies.

[intently]

There are a dozen or so entries in the errorlog that mention pathfinding, but it's not like there's one for every freeze that I'm seeing.  It freezes every five seconds, and doesn't create a new line in the errorlog.

[Tayrin]

What size of map did you select to play on when you started? I usually get stutters somewhat like what you describe, if I play on too large a map, though they were probably shorter and more frequent than the ones you're experiencing.

Are you using the latest version? I think some earlier versions were more prone to lag and stuttering in certain situations, at least in my experience.

Another cause of fairly significant stuttering I've noticed is locking the Hammerer up when you've got many criminals. However, I'm guessing this won't be your problem, as I think that would be adding the Hammerer's pathfinding failures to the error log.

[intently]

I'm playing on a default size map, but it does have quite a bit of vertical space.

No hammerer yet.

Yes, I'm on the latest version.

I've got 4GB of ram and a decent machine, so I don't think it's just paging out to disk a lot or something like that.  This is driving me nuts, and I really appreciate the suggestions!

[Tayrin]

I'm really just brainstorming ideas here, in the case that one of them might be able to help. I'm sorry that none have been of use yet.

Is your fortress sealed up to keep lurking goblins locked out? Keeping entrances accessible may help lure hidden stray ambushers into your fortress, though you'd need to be careful if you have just 7 dwarves. Traps would probably be safest.

I know you mentioned that turning off stone gathering didn't help, but I was wondering, do you have any large stone stockpiles? I don't know if this would help, but if you do have some, you could try erasing said stockpiles (but leaving the actual stones in place) to see if it has any positive effect.

Also, could you check to see how many stones you've got? I once dug out a huge amount of stones, and that fortress never saw the same speed again.

As the wiki page you linked to mentions, large amounts of flowing water or magma can slow the game down too, but I think that's more of a constantly reduced speed, rather than frequent stutters. Just in case though, do you have much fluid flowing on the map?

[intently]

I don't have my entrance sealed up.  Are you saying that would increase or decrease speed?

I don't have any stone stockpiles, but I do have a huge amount of stone lying around.  Can't do much about that :/

There's an underground river on the map, but it's been there since the beginning.  I've tapped it now for drinking water, so that could make things slower, but why the stuttering?

I wouldn't even mind a slow speed, but the stuttering drives me nuts.

[Tayrin]

I was saying sealing the entrance up might result in decreased speed, as it would discourage any goblin ambushers from invading your fortress and revealing themselves. If the entrances are all locked, outside goblins tend to just mill around, and don't bother making their way towards your entrances. However, if there's a way into your fortress, the goblins will usually make their way in as soon as they're ready, making it easier for you to deal with them accordingly.

A default size map, 6x6 I think, is pretty large, and allows a lot of room for ambushers to be wandering around outside, so I'm guessing there are probably quite a lot of goblins out there waiting to be slaughtered. I'm not sure what the best way to deal with them would be, other than expanding your outdoor territory, accumulating some additional dwarves for military training, and maybe throwing and locking some animals outdoors to act as search parties for goblins.

Yeah, it's common to have lots of stone lying around. When you say "a huge amount", do you mean, say, a few thousand, or a few hundred thousand? The most I've had is just over one hundred thousand (as checked in the Stocks screen after pressing [z]), and that fortress ran slowly and, I think, with stutters, but it could be just coincidence.

I haven't found very many underground rivers myself, but have you cleared out any creatures that may be living down there? Do you know if the stuttering started around the time when you tapped the river?

I'm sure other people may have more ideas that I haven't thought of yet.

[intently]

The stuttering did start around when I tapped the river, but... that's around the same time I did lots of things.

I don't have hundreds of thousands of stones around, this is a pretty new fortress.

Unfortunately I just noticed that my map has 60+ vertical levels... ugh, that's more than I thought.  That could cause slowdown I'm sure, but these freezes weren't happening when I started the map.

[Tayrin]

I just realized, you mentioned a chasm. Chasms can be infested with creatures, though I don't know why they would cause stutter to suddenly start when it wasn't present earlier. Anyway, maybe you could find out if there's an excess of unnecessary creatures hiding in the chasm area.

By the way, when you look at the nit list, what sort of creatures occupy most of the list? Do you have lots of wild animals somewhere out there, for instance?