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[Truean]

O hell, 3 is wayyy too low, but 30 works for me personally.

[G-Flex]

To reiterate: Judging by your first post, you don't know what "FPS" means in Dwarf Fortress.

In most games, FPS just refers to how many times the screen gets redrawn per second.

In Dwarf Fortress, FPS refers to how quickly the game is simulating things. There are 1200 "frames" in a day, for example.

So lower "FPS" in most games means choppier graphics, whereas in DF it means the game is flat-out running more slowly.

[_DivideByZero_]

In starcraft, time passes regardless of your FPS. You could be getting 3 fps and things will just appear to teleport around.

If DF, 3 fps means it will take hours for a dwarf to haul a rock in real time.

Everything else has already been stated.

[Kay12]

On the other hand, DF is still playable (theoretically) with a very low FPS. Some modern games will become almost utterly unplayable if the FPS is very low, as they may require reacting faster than the FPS allows the player to. Low DF FPS actually gives the player more time to react (although pausing is possible anyway, so not a big bright side).

But yeah, as everyone has said, low FPS in DF causes the game to have less ticks (atomic units of in-game time) per second, not just update the screen less.

[dree12]

This has been said to death, but really DF has a terrible naming system.
In videography, "frame" is solely used to refer to a specific picture, not an instant of time. Check wikipedia if you don't believe me. DF would benefit in simplicity or intuitive-ness, for lack of a better word, if it were renamed to TPS (ticks per second). Even better would be expressing it as a percent, the percentage of the FPS cap and call it Simulation Speed.

Back on topic, FPS becomes more tolerable if you have it on play while you do other stuff. I often get <30FPS in 100+ population forts, and it feels exactly like 120 if you spend three quarters of the time watching YouTube, checking email, and the like.

[G-Flex]

Even better would be expressing it as a percent, the percentage of the FPS cap and call it Simulation Speed.

I wouldn't do this, only because the number you see is less objectively meaningful. Trust me, it would cause problems when people share experiences on this forum, because they'd be talking about simulation speed percentages as if they're comparable even if people might have different caps. That's just human nature.

Back on topic, FPS becomes more tolerable if you have it on play while you do other stuff. I often get <30FPS in 100+ population forts, and it feels exactly like 120 if you spend three quarters of the time watching YouTube, checking email, and the like.

I would agree, but at this time, DF dwarves require enough micromanaging and hand-holding that I can't bear to do that.

[JohnieRWilkins]

StarCraft doesn't need high FPS. It can run well at most rates, its output just varies. I didn't explain that very well at all, though.

DF's FPS is much more raw than other games'. It represents the computing and output in total. If the game's at 30FPS, it runs 70% slower than at 100FPS. That's why it's so painful.

If you want to see what it's like, set your FPS cap to 30, or 10.

Well yeah, at that level sure, but there are tons of people who are not cool with 30 fps. To some, anything under 60 is unplayable, which I don't understand.

I fall under that category, sorry. I run short-lived fortresses usually, so it's cool.

Q.Q This kind of percentage math has always bugged me. I don't think that it's wrong, but it's extremely misleading and ambiguous, sort of like all of my posts. Yes, 30fps is 30% the speed of 100fps, but what you're doing to get that figure is diving 30 by 100 and multiplying by 100%. Then in your next step you subtract the terms and give me the difference, which comes out to be 70%. Isn't it less misleading though to say that 30fps is over 333% slower than 100fps by finding what percentage of 100 your 30 makes up? To do this you divide 100 by 30 and then multiply by 100%. Am I insane? Q.Q

I usually abandon forts when they dip below 20fps because that's when it becomes obvious that your fort is about to die an FPS death, and playing a doomed fort isn't very exciting when you know how inglorious its death is going to be.

[Sidhien]

Think about what it would mean for something to be 100% slower than something else.

[dree12]

Q.Q This kind of percentage math has always bugged me. I don't think that it's wrong, but it's extremely misleading and ambiguous, sort of like all of my posts. Yes, 30fps is 30% the speed of 100fps, but what you're doing to get that figure is diving 30 by 100 and multiplying by 100%. Then in your next step you subtract the terms and give me the difference, which comes out to be 70%. Isn't it less misleading though to say that 30fps is over 333% slower than 100fps by finding what percentage of 100 your 30 makes up? To do this you divide 100 by 30 and then multiply by 100%. Am I insane? Q.Q

I usually abandon forts when they dip below 20fps because that's when it becomes obvious that your fort is about to die an FPS death, and playing a doomed fort isn't very exciting when you know how inglorious its death is going to be.

First, quoted the wrong thing. Second, 100FPS is 333% faster than 30FPS, BUT THE INVERSE IS NOT TRUE. It's only 70% slower (this is already mentioned in the last post. Also, people who have any business changing FPS:NO to FPS:YES should be able to express the FPS in a more meaningful manner.

[G-Flex]

First, quoted the wrong thing. Second, 100FPS is 333% faster than 30FPS

No. 100 is 333% of 30, not 333% more. Big difference. 333% * 30 = (roughly) 100. For example, 150 is 150% of 100, and is 50% greater than 100.

It's only 70% slower (this is already mentioned in the last post.

No, it's not slower at all. "70% slower" implies that it is some amount slower. You probably mean "70% as slow", but I'm not even sure how to define that.

Also, people who have any business changing FPS:NO to FPS:YES should be able to express the FPS in a more meaningful manner.

Again, human tendencies dictate that people will still share numerical information even when that information isn't directly comparable, if they're intended to express the same thing.

[dree12]

First, quoted the wrong thing. Second, 100FPS is 333% faster than 30FPS

No. 100 is 333% of 30, not 333% more. Big difference. 333% * 30 = (roughly) 100. For example, 150 is 150% of 100, and is 50% greater than 100.

My fault. This is what I get for posting in 2 seconds.
Again, human tendencies dictate that people will still share numerical information even when that information isn't directly comparable, if they're intended to express the same thing.

It's only 70% slower (this is already mentioned in the last post.

No, it's not slower at all. "70% slower" implies that it is some amount slower. You probably mean "70% as slow", but I'm not even sure how to define that.

Also, people who have any business changing FPS:NO to FPS:YES should be able to express the FPS in a more meaningful manner.

Points taken. And it technically means 70% speed reduction.

[G-Flex]

You said that 100fps is "70% slower" than 30fps, but now you're saying that "70% slower" or "70% as slow" means a 70% reduction in speed... but there's no reduction in speed; there's an increase. Unless you meant it the other way around? But I'm not even sure about that because I have no idea how to measure the "slowness" of something, except maybe the reciprocal of the speed?

[dree12]

Take SPF, seconds per frame. That should be a measure of slowness (and yes, it is the reciprocal of the speed).

More mathematically speaking, speed is measured in m/s, which doesn't have anything to do with DF (aside from the average human moving at ~0.004m/s). The term we need here is frequency, measured in Hz = s^-1. So if frequency is doubled, then there is a 100% increase in frequency. Slowness, on the other hand, can be measured with the reciprocal of speed, therefore seconds or time.

[Sizik]

You said that 100fps is "70% slower" than 30fps . . .

Nobody said that.

[tolkafox]

What is going on here? O.o It's like everyone took this posts point and derailed it into a house full of mathematical theorists. And I'm not talking about the good ones.

I always thought the speed of DF was measured in DWS, or Dwarf Walks per Second. I usually maintain a good 10 DWS, maybe at 2o years it'll drop down to 8 DWS. On my poor laptop it starts off at 8 DWS if there is a river, and slowly drops down to 3 DWS until the goblin corpses start piling up. After that it's 1/10 DWS if I stay with it, usually I kill everything when it reaches 1 DWS.

I thought I'd just jump in there and be confusing like everyone else, or should I?