Difference between revisions of "v0.31:Maximizing framerate"

Revision as of 20:38, 1 January 2011

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This article is about an older version of DF.

Frames Per Second is displayed .

Template:L is used in Dwarf Fortress to measure the speed at which the game is running. To check your frames per second (FPS) in Dwarf Fortress, change [FPS:NO] to [FPS:YES] in the Template:L file. Two values will be displayed on the top right of the screen, the first value is the current frame rate, while the number in parenthesis is the current graphical frame refresh rate.

Increasing Framerate

Limiting the number of Dwarves and other moving units (cage or butcher animals) greatly helps keep speed up.

Due to a bug, contaminants such as blood, snow, et cetera, count as items. Since contaminants can spread and you cannot easily get rid of them, try to avoid things that spread contaminants: wells, killing things in high traffic spots, and soap.
If you have a beast that exudes slime, you might as well save your game and wait for an update. Or kill it and use dfcleanmap.

Destroy contaminants that Dwarves and pets are carrying around. To achieve this, one can either build a shallow pool in an often-visited area. When the dwarves walk through the water, the contaminants will be washed away. One may also use hacking tools to place some 7/7 water splatters around important paths with dfliquids while running dfcleanmap continuously to remove the contaminants that gets washed away from the dwarves.

Decreasing the G_FPS in the init text file can improve FPS. Be careful however, decreasing it too much can subject you to "incomprehensible graphic instabilities". Remember, with a low G_FPS, it can be dangerous during combat, because the screen does not update as often. The default G_FPS is 50, but setting it as low as 20 G_FPS may work with minimal problems. Performance varies on different systems, one will have to test different G_FPS values to find which performs to the user's preferences.

PRINT_MODE, also in the init file, may allow Dwarf Fortress to take advantage of the abilities of newer graphics cards. While the default setting is the most reliable, it is possible that changing the print mode could increase FPS. Users will have to test to see which runs best on specific systems.

Disabling temperature and weather in the d_init.txt| file increases FPS due to fewer calculations being required. A downside to disabling weather is the removal of rain, which will will clean the map of contaminants, so it is possible that leaving it on may improve FPS.

World size and embark zone size affect RAM usage, which may effect speed. FPS may be increased by choosing smaller embark zones.

Changing the value of "normal" traffic zones in the init file to 1 may increase FPS created by open space, though this causes "high" traffic zones to be useless. Alternatively, one can cover the entire map with a "high" traffic zone, which will allow other traffic zones to function properly at their defaults.

Closing one's fortress entrance with a raised bridge or forbidden door decreases the number of possible routes that the pathfinder needs to calculate, which may aid performace.

Reducing the number of items on a map by "atom smashing" them or donating them to traders.

Less mining reduces the number stones and corridors that exist, which may increase performance.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 {{quality|Fine|08:00, 22 May 2010 (UTC)}}
 {{av}}
-[[File:Frames_Per_Second_Meter.png|300px|thumb|bottom|A picture of Dwarf Fortress with Frames Per Second displayed.]]
+[[File:Frames_Per_Second_Meter.png|300px|thumb|bottom|Frames Per Second is displayed .]]
-{{L|Frames per second|Framerate}} is used in Dwarf Fortress to measure the speed at which the game is running. To check your FPS (frames per second) in Dwarf Fortress, simply change [FPS:NO] to [FPS:YES] in {{l|init.txt}}, and your FPS will be displayed on the top row of the screen.  The first number is the current frame rate, while the number in parenthesis is the current graphical frame refresh rate.
+{{L|Frames per second|Framerate}} is used in Dwarf Fortress to measure the speed at which the game is running. To check your frames per second (FPS) in Dwarf Fortress, change [FPS:NO] to [FPS:YES] in the {{l|init.txt}} file. Two values will be displayed on the top right of the screen, the first value is the current frame rate, while the number in parenthesis is the current graphical frame refresh rate.
-The graphical FPS is also used to control how often input is received; you may find 5-15 graphical rate too clumsy for fluid text and mouse input.
-==Ways to increase your framerate==
+==Increasing Framerate==
-* Limiting the number of dwarves and other moving units (cage or butcher animals!) greatly helps keep speed up.
+* Limiting the number of Dwarves and other moving units (cage or butcher animals) greatly helps keep speed up.
-* Due to bug (0000296), contaminants such as blood, snow, etc, count as items.  Since contaminants can spread and you cannot easily get rid of them, try to avoid things that spread contaminants: wells, killing things in high traffic spots, and soap. <br>If you have a beast that exudes slime, you might as well save your game and wait for an update. Or kill it and use dfcleanmap.
+* Due to [http://bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=296 a bug], [[DF2010:Contaminant|contaminants]] such as blood, snow, ''et cetera'', count as items.  Since contaminants can spread and you cannot easily get rid of them, try to avoid things that spread contaminants: wells, killing things in high traffic spots, and soap. <br>If you have a beast that exudes slime, you might as well save your game and wait for an update. Or kill it and use dfcleanmap.
-* Get rid of blood and dirt splatters dwarves and pets are carrying around. Doing so increased FPS from 8 to 33 on my machine(6 embark tiles, 130 dwarves, 250 animals, 3 caverns). to achieve this, you can either build a moat/wading pool around a well-visited area, which keeps the water height on 1-2 by using a pump which will clean the water from the dirt. When the dwarves walk through the water, the contaminants will be washed away. A hacking-tools way is to place some 7/7 water splatters around important paths with dfliquids, and running dfcleanmap continuously to remove the blood that gets washed away from the dwarves.
+* Destroy contaminants that Dwarves and pets are carrying around. To achieve this, one can either build a shallow pool in an often-visited area. When the dwarves walk through the water, the contaminants will be washed away. One may also use hacking tools to place some 7/7 water splatters around important paths with [[DF2010:Utilities#dfliquids|dfliquids]] while running [[DF2010:Utilities#dfcleanmap|dfcleanmap]] continuously to remove the contaminants that gets washed away from the dwarves.
-* Decreasing the G_FPS in the init text file can improve your fortress' overall FPS. Be careful however, decreasing it too much can subject you to "incomprehensible graphic instabilities". G_FPS refers to the "maximum graphical frame refresh rate during play." In other words, the maximum number of times it repaints the graphics of your game per second. Remember, with a low G_FPS, it can be dangerous during battle or when arrows are flying over your Dwarves' heads, because the screen doesn't update as often. The default is 50 G_FPS, but it's been reported that 20 G_FPS is fine. Others report being able to play at even 5 G_FPS. There is no set number, just remember to test out a variety of numbers to see which one is right for you and your computer.
+* Decreasing the G_FPS in the init text file can improve FPS. Be careful however, decreasing it too much can subject you to "incomprehensible graphic instabilities". Remember, with a low G_FPS, it can be dangerous during combat, because the screen does not update as often. The default G_FPS is 50, but setting it as low as 20 G_FPS may work with minimal problems. Performance varies on different systems, one will have to test different G_FPS values to find which performs to the user's preferences.
-* While you're in the init file, play around with PRINT_MODE. DF has recently made it's first foray into SDL, and changing the print mode might let it take slightly better advantage of your graphics card.
+* PRINT_MODE, also in the init file, may allow Dwarf Fortress to take advantage of the abilities of newer graphics cards. While the default setting is the most reliable, it is possible that changing the print mode could increase FPS. Users will have to test to see which runs best on specific systems.
-*Disabling [[Temperature]] and [[Weather]] in the d_init file increases speed due to fewer calculations being required, but rain will clean the map from blood and broken arrows, so it may actually improve the framerate.
+* Disabling [[DF2010:Temperature|temperature]] and [[DF2010:Weather|weather]] in the [[DF2010:D_init.txt|d_init.txt|]] file increases FPS due to fewer calculations being required. A downside to disabling weather is the removal of rain, which will will clean the map of contaminants, so it is possible that leaving it on may improve FPS.
-*World size and fortress site size increase RAM usage and decrease speed. Check if you are happier with an embark rectangle of 3x3 or 3x2 and a medium or small world.
+* World size and embark zone size affect RAM usage, which may effect speed. FPS may be increased by choosing smaller embark zones.
-::(DF .31.12) World size probably doesn't matter at all (except for save file size), but the embark size and how many cavern layers the world has (defaults to 3).
-*Lowering the pathfinding cost for normal tiles to 1 can reduce lag created by open space, but then your high traffic zones are the same as normal zones. Alternatively, you can cover the entire map with high traffic tiles, and simply make everything you don't want your dwarves traveling through low or restricted.
+* Changing the value of "normal" [[DF2010:Traffic|traffic zones]] in the init file to 1 may increase FPS created by open space, though this causes "high" traffic zones to be useless. Alternatively, one can cover the entire map with a "high" traffic zone, which will allow other traffic zones to function properly at their defaults.
-*Closing the fort's entrance to the outside world with a raised bridge or forbidden door decreases the number of possible routes the pathfinder has to calculate, thus increases performance.
+* Closing one's fortress entrance with a raised bridge or forbidden door decreases the number of possible routes that the pathfinder needs to calculate, which may aid performace.
-* Some people try to reduce the number of items in the fort by "atom-smashing" them under a bridge or donating them away to traders. Alternatively, less digging in the first place results in fewer stones and corridors in the world to consider.
+* Reducing the number of items on a map by "[[DF2010:Dwarven_atom_smasher|atom smashing]]" them or donating them to traders.
-* It will sometimes be mentioned is that since DF is single-threaded, followed by some-suggestion-or-other based on this assertion. This is no longer quite true. It is true that the ''vast majority'' of the work still takes place in a single thread, and Toady has no plans to ever multithread the game logic, but DF does have at least one other thread handling the SDL graphics. This means that (all else being equal) DF should run faster on 2 cores than on 1, but won't run faster on 3 cores than it did on 2, though this effect will be very minor depending on your selection of PRINT_MODE. If you use a PRINT_MODE that passes most of the processing to the GPU then having 2 cores will do next to nothing.
+* Less mining reduces the number stones and corridors that exist, which may increase performance.
-== Success Stories ==
-Losing is [[Fun]]! But there's nothing fun about abandoning your fortress because the framerate has dropped to 6. For many, more fortresses are lost to fps death than anything else, and improving framerate remains a something of a mystery. If you find something that works, please share it here.
-===From 40fps to 140fps===
-''pc: 2.2ghz 1.5gb ram. fortress: 2x2 embark, 40-50 dwarves, 130 animals. temp & weather off. 1 cavern''
-This fort ran at 150fps for a while but gradually after 11 years slowed to 27.
-At this point I've focused my efforts exclusively on maximizing framerate, trying the usual tricks:
-* Atom-smashing: no help AT ALL.
-* Animal slaughtering / caging: gained 10-15fps for killing about 50 animals.
-* Then I notice that my dwarves are FILTHY! Some having over 10+ pages of various blood and pus spatterings in their inventories.
-I dig a crude bath, which consists of a hallway which dips down into a brief channel and back up before hitting a dead end.
-I designate a Pond zone over the channel and the dwarves waste no time in drawing a bath (1/7 deep).
-After designating a burrow on the other side of the bath, I order the entire fortress to it via the Alerts screen (restricting them to that burrow).
-Immediately upon crossing the channel my framerate went from ~40 to ~140 and it is decided the fortress will live on!
-'''Conclusion''': The amount of items on the map and pathfinding were very minor causes of slowdown in my case. The increases gained from slaughtering animals may well have been from their contaminants being destroyed in the process rather than the pathing they were calculating. Above all, the contaminants were the cause of this fortresses near-demise. --[[User:Uninvited Guest|Uninvited Guest]] 07:27, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
-===From 11fps to 24fps===
-''pc: 2.1ghz 2gb ram. fortress: 2x2 embark (i think), 110 dwarves, 100 animals.''
-As this was my first playthough, I didnt noticed any strange (only that the game was designed to be a bit too low) until I read somewhere about the framerate problems, so I activated mine to show them and saw i was at 11 fps!
-I found this guide, and followed the previous case example, I skipped killing animals, or smashing objects, and when straight for the dwarf-wash.
-I downloaded DFHacks (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=58809) and made some 7 high water blocks on some chocke points. After unpausing, the whole place was full of mud and blood, so used the dfcleanmap on the same utility pack to make then dissapear.
-My FPS went straight to 24 fps; Basically I now see everything x2 the speed i was used to see!
-BTW, be carefull with this method, I killed 3 dogs by accident as they smashed on other objects (tidal force I guess) and the 3 of them were pets of my main warrior, who is very angry now! I fear a lot of fun is comming xD
-'''Conclusion''': I did not tried any of the other methods, so I cant say they dont work, but I can say, that the filthiness of the dwarf population have a HUGE impact on FPS.
-'''Krelian'''

Difference between revisions of "v0.31:Maximizing framerate"

Revision as of 20:38, 1 January 2011

Increasing Framerate

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