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

Revision as of 08:30, 4 January 2011

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This article is about an older version of DF.

A picture of Dwarf Fortress with Frames Per Second displayed.

Template:L is used in Dwarf Fortress to measure the speed at which the game is running. It is measured in "frames per second", or FPS for short. To check your FPS in Dwarf Fortress, simply change [FPS:NO] to [FPS:YES] in Template:L, 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.

Increasing your Framerate

In general, the more stuff the game has to keep track of, the slower the game will run. So, reducing the amount of stuff active keeps your game running fast. Some possible reasons for slowdown, and ways to reduce and/or eliminate them:

Each dwarf needs to keep track of where he's going.
- Limit the number of dwarves by setting the population cap.

Each animal needs to pathfind, too.
- Tame animals can be put into Template:Ls, keeping them from having anywhere to go. Or you can butcher them.

Invaders also need to pathfind.
- Turn off invasions using the option in Template:L.

Contaminants, e.g. Template:L spatters, accumulate on the ground and on dwarves who walk through the puddles. There is a bug (^Bug:296) which makes them spread way too far.
- Fortunately, there is a setting in D_init.txt (as of ^v0.31.18) that prevents them spreading from dwarf (or animal) to ground. Add in some in-fortress means of cleaning them off, and let your dwarves clean up the remaining mess.

G_FPS is a setting in the Template:L file. It controls how often Dwarf Fortress redraws the screen. It also controls how often the game checks for keyboard or mouse input.
- Reducing G_FPS can speed up the rest of the game. The default choice of 50 works well, but many people reduce it down to 20 with no ill effect.
- Reducing G_FPS too far can make the game unresponsive and glitchy. Some people can cope with 5; most cannot.

PRINT_MODE is another init setting. It controls the method Dwarf Fortress uses to draw the screen.
- More advanced methods allow DF to make more use of OpenGL features and therefore your graphics card. STANDARD is a good starting point.
- More advanced methods may still have bugs. 2D is more likely to be reliable.

Template:L and Template:L are two more features which users may or may not notice.
- Disabling them, using the settings in d_init.txt, can speed things up.
- But then rain won't refill Template:Ls, Template:L won't melt Template:L, etc.

The size of your world and embark site both increase the amount of terrain which DF needs to keep track of.
- If you don't mind going vertical, try reducing your embark site from the default 4x4 squares to 3x3 or even 2x2.
- World size probably doesn't matter except for the size of the save files, but reducing the number of cavern layers (default of 3) will help. You need at least 1 cavern layer to get underground Template:L, and 2 caverns to get all the underground Template:Ls.

Proper use of Template:L designations will help.
- Setting corridors to "high" traffic, and dead-end workshop rooms next to them to "low" traffic, means the pathfinder algorithm will search more quickly along the corridor, and waste less time searching in the rooms.

Closing off unused areas with raised Template:Ls and locked Template:Ls can help.
- Reducing the area which the pathfinder algorithm has to search lets it run faster.
- In general the pathfinder algorithm is good about not searching irrelevant areas. Caverns are probably the worst offender.

Fewer items inside a fort means fewer items to be Template:Ld, checked for Template:L, and so on and so forth.
- Use a Template:L to remove items, or donate them to Template:L to be taken away.
- Don't dig out so much of the ground, don't build such large Template:Ls, just don't generate so many items in the first place.

@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 [[File:Frames_Per_Second_Meter.png|300px|thumb|bottom|A picture of Dwarf Fortress with Frames Per Second 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. It is measured in "frames per second", or FPS for short. To check your FPS 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.
-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.
+==Increasing your Framerate==
+In general, the more stuff the game has to keep track of, the slower the game will run.  So, reducing the amount of stuff active keeps your game running fast.  Some possible reasons for slowdown, and ways to reduce and/or eliminate them:
-==Ways to increase your framerate==
+* Each dwarf needs to keep track of where he's going.
-* Limiting the number of dwarves and other moving units (cage or butcher animals!) greatly helps keep speed up.
+** Limit the number of dwarves by setting the population cap.
-* 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.
+* Each animal needs to pathfind, too.
+** Tame animals can be put into {{l|cage}}s, keeping them from having anywhere to go.  Or you can butcher them.
-* 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.
+* Invaders also need to pathfind.
+** Turn off invasions using the option in {{l|D_init.txt}}.
-* 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.
+* Contaminants, e.g. {{l|blood}} spatters, accumulate on the ground and on dwarves who walk through the puddles.  There is a bug ({{bug|296}}) which makes them spread way too far.
+** Fortunately, there is a setting in D_init.txt (as of {{version|0.31.18}}) that prevents them spreading from dwarf (or animal) to ground.  Add in some in-fortress means of cleaning them off, and let your dwarves clean up the remaining mess.
-* 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.
+* G_FPS is a setting in the {{l|init.txt}} file.  It controls how often Dwarf Fortress redraws the screen.  It also controls how often the game checks for keyboard or mouse input.
+** Reducing G_FPS can speed up the rest of the game.  The default choice of 50 works well, but many people reduce it down to 20 with no ill effect.
+** Reducing G_FPS too far can make the game unresponsive and glitchy.  Some people can cope with 5;  most cannot.
-*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.
+* PRINT_MODE is another init setting.  It controls the method Dwarf Fortress uses to draw the screen.
+** More advanced methods allow DF to make more use of OpenGL features and therefore your graphics card.  STANDARD is a good starting point.
+** More advanced methods may still have bugs.  2D is more likely to be reliable.
-*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.
+* {{l|Temperature}} and {{l|Weather}} are two more features which users may or may not notice.
-::(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).
+** Disabling them, using the settings in d_init.txt, can speed things up.
+** But then rain won't refill {{l|murky pool}}s, {{l|magma}} won't melt {{l|goblins}}, etc.
-*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.
+* The size of your world and embark site both increase the amount of terrain which DF needs to keep track of.
+** If you don't mind going vertical, try reducing your embark site from the default 4x4 squares to 3x3 or even 2x2.
+** World size probably doesn't matter except for the size of the save files, but reducing the number of cavern layers (default of 3) will help.  You need at least 1 cavern layer to get underground {{l|crop|plants}}, and 2 caverns to get all the underground {{l|tree}}s.
-*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.
+* Proper use of {{l|traffic}} designations will help.
+** Setting corridors to "high" traffic, and dead-end workshop rooms next to them to "low" traffic, means the pathfinder algorithm will search more quickly along the corridor, and waste less time searching in the rooms.
-* 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.
+* Closing off unused areas with raised {{l|bridge}}s and locked {{l|door}}s can help.
+** Reducing the area which the pathfinder algorithm has to search lets it run faster.
+** In general the pathfinder algorithm is good about not searching irrelevant areas.  Caverns are probably the worst offender.
-* 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.
+* Fewer items inside a fort means fewer items to be {{l|stockpile}}d, checked for {{l|wear}}, and so on and so forth.
+** Use a {{l|Dwarven atom smasher}} to remove items, or donate them to {{l|Trading|passing caravans}} to be taken away.
+** Don't dig out so much of the ground, don't build such large {{l|farm plot}}s, just don't generate so many items in the first place.
-== 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 08:30, 4 January 2011

Increasing your Framerate

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