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Author Topic: How will this PC I'm building handle DF?  (Read 4112 times)

Umi

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How will this PC I'm building handle DF?
« on: May 15, 2012, 10:18:50 am »

Processor – Intel Core i5 3570K Quad-Core 3.4GHz
Motherboard – Biostar TZ77B
RAM – Corsair 8GB
Graphics Card – Radeon HD 7850 2GB
Hard Drive –SamSung Spinpoint F3 1TB
Optical Drive – Sony
Power Supply –Antec 550W
Case – Cooler Master HAF 912

I know DF relies pretty heavily on the processor, which I'm pretty sure this should be sufficient, and I've heard that the GPU is important as well.  Overall, how well will this play DF (Preferably with some type of estimated numbers like 200 dwarf fort well or something)?
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xeniorn

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Re: How will this PC I'm building handle DF?
« Reply #1 on: May 15, 2012, 10:34:49 am »

GPU is quite unimportant as long as it exists. With an older generation processor, Core 2 Duo with 3,2 GHz i was doing ok with 150-200 dwarves in a cluttered fort without waterfalls and magma pumps on a 4x3 embark, although "it's going well" is a somewhat subjective statement, some people are ok with 20 fps, some people can't handle below 50 fps, some regard anything below 100 fps as slow...

Processor raw power, size of processor cache and RAM speed are the only things that will speed up your game. Over 2 GB (probably even 1 GB) RAM is more than enough for DF on windows, so having more doesn't benefit DF. Hard drive is only a bottleneck when saving/loading, the game mostly uses only RAM, not HD memory.

I'd guess with your config you'll be able to run a smooth 4x4 embark 250 dwarf fort without too huge a slowdown, provided you don't have 250+ animals on top of that or 100 z-level waterfall and a maze-like fort...
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Trickman

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Re: How will this PC I'm building handle DF?
« Reply #2 on: May 15, 2012, 11:26:46 am »

As xeniorn just stated, the GPU is quite unimportant. You should be aiming for a very good processor (VERY important). DF will never use more than 2 GBytes of memory from your computer, so 8 GBytes is more than enough to run it along with Windows 7 and other programs simultaneously.

Also bear in mind that Dwarf Fortress does not support multithreading. This means it essentially chews up a single processor core (kernel) from your PC, leaving the rest idle (they will be used to run other processes from Windows and other things you might be running simultaneously), so the number of cores in your processor is not something you have to focus in. Look for a good motherboard, too, of mid-to-high tier.

And also remember that the clock speed ("3.4 GHz") is not usually the best indicative of how good it is. A 3.4 GHz i7 is much faster than a 3.4 GHz i3 (almost twice as fast). Your best bet is to rely on independent benchmarking results to see which is faster among the processors you may be looking forward to:

http://www.spec.org/cpu2006/results/rfp2006.html

tl;dr: Spend some extra cash on a better processor, ditch it on GPU (unless you want to play new games).
« Last Edit: May 15, 2012, 11:30:42 am by Trickman »
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BigD145

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Re: How will this PC I'm building handle DF?
« Reply #3 on: May 15, 2012, 01:45:51 pm »

DF eats all computers until they are dead.

/thread
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Shinziril

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Re: How will this PC I'm building handle DF?
« Reply #4 on: May 15, 2012, 01:58:10 pm »

Your processor looks fine, it should do well.  The GPU is way overkill for DF, but you obviously want it for other games, and that plus a second CPU core will easily handle the slight amount of "graphics" that have been split from the main DF thread. 

All in all, looks like a good build for pretty much anything.
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Jake

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Re: How will this PC I'm building handle DF?
« Reply #5 on: May 15, 2012, 01:58:42 pm »

I think Toady removed the limit on how much RAM DF can use, actually. He had to; generating larger worlds with longer histories and some of the more ambitious mods push the memory requirements well over the 2GB mark.
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Never used Dwarf Therapist, mods or tilesets in all the years I've been playing.
I think Toady's confusing interface better simulates the experience of a bunch of disorganised drunken dwarves running a fort.

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KoboldWarmonger

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Re: How will this PC I'm building handle DF?
« Reply #6 on: May 15, 2012, 02:10:44 pm »

If you're building a new computer in this day and age, I would opt for an SSD. You'll see significant improvement in all loading times that involve pulling things out of storage- e.g. loading save games, booting up to start playing in the first place. Why would you wait for a physical disk to spin around to where you want it, like some kind of caveman?  ;D They're more expensive than conventional drives though, so if you want to have movies and things stored locally, I would suggest a relatively small SSD (~128g, depending on whether or not you have a lot of games) for your OS and program files, and then a big conventional drive for storing all your media and documents.

It's not an easy upgrade to make later and imo the considerable performance gains are well worth the %increase in cost of a whole new computer- though you can pop a new SSD in no problem, using it properly requires reinstalling your OS onto it.
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Trickman

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Re: How will this PC I'm building handle DF?
« Reply #7 on: May 15, 2012, 02:32:13 pm »

They're more expensive than conventional drives though[...]
(Just for the record: by that, he means "15 times as expensive as a conventional drive" :P)

Not a bad suggestion, though, provided you have the money and a secondary HD for other info.
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slothen

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Re: How will this PC I'm building handle DF?
« Reply #8 on: May 15, 2012, 03:17:14 pm »

my windows installation and a few other things are on my SSD, and doing a full restart in under a minute is glorious.
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Cruxador

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Re: How will this PC I'm building handle DF?
« Reply #9 on: May 15, 2012, 03:29:27 pm »

Your processor looks fine, it should do well.  The GPU is way overkill for DF, but you obviously want it for other games, and that plus a second CPU core will easily handle the slight amount of "graphics" that have been split from the main DF thread.
The graphics would actually be handled by the GPU. The second core is important for the OS and other programs, DF itself doesn't need it. That said, since you can't run DF without an OS and probably would prefer to use other programs too, it's still good to have that second core.
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Thief^

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Re: How will this PC I'm building handle DF?
« Reply #10 on: May 16, 2012, 03:55:23 am »

And also remember that the clock speed ("3.4 GHz") is not usually the best indicative of how good it is. A 3.4 GHz i7 is much faster than a 3.4 GHz i3 (almost twice as fast). Your best bet is to rely on independent benchmarking results to see which is faster among the processors you may be looking forward to:

http://www.spec.org/cpu2006/results/rfp2006.html

I believe that's a multi-threaded benchmark. In practice an i3 and an i7 of the same clock speed are about the same performance, because they use the same cpu core design.
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Thief^

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Re: How will this PC I'm building handle DF?
« Reply #11 on: May 16, 2012, 03:58:33 am »

I think Toady removed the limit on how much RAM DF can use, actually. He had to; generating larger worlds with longer histories and some of the more ambitious mods push the memory requirements well over the 2GB mark.
Uh, no, he didn't. DF is 32-bit and is therefore restricted to 2GB of ram. There are various 3rd-party tools that will mark the DF executable as "large address aware" which allows it to use up to 4GB of ram when run on a 64-bit windows, but no more than that.
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Dwarven blood types are not A, B, AB, O but Ale, Wine, Beer, Rum, Whisky and so forth.
It's not an embark so much as seven dwarves having a simultaneous strange mood and going off to build an artifact fortress that menaces with spikes of awesome and hanging rings of death.

Jake

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Re: How will this PC I'm building handle DF?
« Reply #12 on: May 16, 2012, 07:22:48 am »

Uh, no, he didn't. DF is 32-bit and is therefore restricted to 2GB of ram. There are various 3rd-party tools that will mark the DF executable as "large address aware" which allows it to use up to 4GB of ram when run on a 64-bit windows, but no more than that.

Ah, yeah, that's what I was thinking of. I'd have to hunt for the thread in the modding sub-forum, but someone uploaded a large address aware copy of the executable to DFFD and Toady decided this was probably a good idea, so new releases should already be marked as such.
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Never used Dwarf Therapist, mods or tilesets in all the years I've been playing.
I think Toady's confusing interface better simulates the experience of a bunch of disorganised drunken dwarves running a fort.

Black Powder Firearms - Superior firepower, realistic manufacturing and rocket launchers!

Thief^

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Re: How will this PC I'm building handle DF?
« Reply #13 on: May 16, 2012, 08:07:10 am »

Again, not true. I just modified my DF 0.34.08 to be large address aware. (Using "Large Address Aware.exe")
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Dwarven blood types are not A, B, AB, O but Ale, Wine, Beer, Rum, Whisky and so forth.
It's not an embark so much as seven dwarves having a simultaneous strange mood and going off to build an artifact fortress that menaces with spikes of awesome and hanging rings of death.

Kamamura

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Re: How will this PC I'm building handle DF?
« Reply #14 on: May 17, 2012, 06:14:53 pm »

Uh, no, he didn't. DF is 32-bit and is therefore restricted to 2GB of ram. There are various 3rd-party tools that will mark the DF executable as "large address aware" which allows it to use up to 4GB of ram when run on a 64-bit windows, but no more than that.

Uh... are you aware that even 32bit system can access more than 4GB RAM due to PAE? Windows 7 support PAE, and I think it was patched into XP too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension

To reply the OP, the only computer that can handle DF well is one built from tetrahydrite and blue candy. Deep blue candy, if possible.
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