Bay 12 Games Forum

Quote from: hulbral on December 31, 2010, 07:21:41 pm

• There is a revolutionary breakthrough in single core computation power. (Say quantum computers one more time and I swear I will quit the internet.)

I was under the impession that all computers these days were quantum, on the basis that there is a definitive smallest unit of data, a bit.

[snip]

Also, does that mean you quit the internet now?

A 'quantum computer' is a computer that uses qubits and their related quantum dynamic properties in order to perform calculations that aren't possible using normal bits. It is able to greatly reduce the time it takes to do certain very specific calculations. What a quantum computer absolutely will not do is make any current programs run faster. Writing a complex single core program is difficult. Writing a complex multi core program a whole new world of difficult. And quantum computing... it makes multi core look like toys for children with learning disabilities.

A guideline: Whenever you see anyone talking about quantum computers, assume with 100% certainty that the person has no clue. Except for people telling you that you won't be running your First-person shooter at 10000000 frames per second on a quantum computer. Those people are pretty smart

God this thread annoys me. The amount of misinformation and utter confusion is beyond even internet standards.

The answer to the question "Will we ever get to a point where forts don't die FPS deaths?" is a definitive NO.

The only way DF will ever be playable at decent FPS is:

• It is re-implemented using a multi-core base (extremely difficult and time consuming.)
• There is a revolutionary breakthrough in single core computation power. (Say quantum computers one more time and I swear I will quit the internet.)
• The game undergoes hardcore optimization and refactoring, requiring far more work than a single person can put in. And it still may not be possible; even if DF could be made to run TEN times faster, we still wouldn't be able to run tons of water, 100 dwarves, large battles and lots of temperature at the same time.

The future holds only two options for the current DF: It cannot keep adding features and/or we will keep playing small embarks, low population limits, features turned off and still low FPS.

At some point, someone is going to popularize a scalable engine that embodies the same basic game ideas and concept DF does, and that will be that. The world will move on, and everyone will realize the obvious: That one person alone cannot implement the most complex game in the history of gaming, and that it sure as hell won't run on a single core.

I ignore this whole problem.

With the sheer number of dwarves one can employ, this is actually a good solution. It just so happens it kills FPS brutally when an army of 100 dwarves path back and forth, which could easily be replaced with 10 dwarves doing dedicated hauling in one spot.

I mean, to illustrate how bad it can be, imagine you have a glass industry on one side of the map, and a milling industry somewhere else. 1 dwarf on each site could probably move the bags used for sand/seeds/flour. But if the distance between them is great, you couldn't even manage the bags with 20 dwarves with the current system, as they would criss-cross back and forth most of the time.

But this game has always required a high annoyance tolerance.  If you are terminally bothered by the hauling thing, you're doomed.  The game will probably never change fully enough for you, so you're going to have to quit playing, change yourself, or apply alcohol.

I agree entirely. I keep up with it because I love the game. And I can deal with most of it. But seeing a fort grind down to 5 FPS, knowing that working burrows would eliminate most of the CPU strain, that just pushes it too far for me.

Yeah, because I'm so sure you could release a better game for free.

Please abstain from ever bringing up the 'free' argument. It is never relevant.

Ok, I have been poking around the bug tracker. Apparently, this bug has been reported over and over and over since April. It completely breaks burrows, yet the bug has not been deemed important enough to fix for 8 months?

This is the kind of stuff that makes me shake my head and lose faith in dwarf fortress altogether.

I just started playing DF again (last time was with .40) and I've been really excited about burrows. I always wanted to manage where my dwarves are at, and especially haulers. Seeing them run to the other side of the world get a log for the stockpile when a log is right nearby drives me mad.

Anyway, in the current DF, I keep trying to define burrows in order to make haulers keep some focus. But I always end up being spammed with "UristMcIdiot cancels store Item in stockpile: Item inaccessible." Yes, the burrows work, he wont fetch that log from infinite far away, but he will try, over and over and over. The fail dwarf will often stand entirely still while generating a bunch of messages about canceling until he finally, at random, attempts a job fetching an item that is actually in the burrow.

What surprises me is that I see no mention of problems such as these on the wiki. I get this problem in every fort I make for anyone in a burrow with hauling enabled. Am I doing something wrong?

To summarize my problem: In a simple test where I cut down a large forest, then define a stockpile and a burrow that encompasses the stockpile and some, but not all, of the logs, the units hauling wood keep trying, in vain, to haul wood from outside the burrow.

That day I learned to always let the game run for a few seconds before I get to work. Just to be sure.

Yeah, that is always a good idea.

...but this is getting annoying. I searched out another embark location, which of course took forever, and the same thing happened again. No cave-ins, and no underground lake filling the world, but instead lava somewhere deep down is spilling around everywhere. I was down to 3 fps about 1 minute after embark. -_-

At least I saved lots of time finding the cause thanks to the hint about reveal!

cave ins down in the caverns/magma sea, slow framerate is likely due to the engine now being aware of the presence of the caverns, and thus keeping track of them and their inhabitants. My theory anyway.

What you say does make sense, however: I've done straight down digging before, just to peek at some random caverns. I noticed no FPS issues. So while caverns may/probably? cause cpu strain, it's usually nowhere near this.

I'd go with the "bunch of bugs" theory. This place is weird. After some digging, I "discover a magma pool" that zooms me to empty space. Cave layer 2 and 3 appears to be connected (judging from the fauna). Oh and eventually I found another magma pool, this time for real.

Yeah, I'm outta here!