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Author Topic: Building new computer; gearing towards Dwarf Fortress  (Read 5147 times)

LittleJP

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Building new computer; gearing towards Dwarf Fortress
« on: May 10, 2013, 10:57:15 am »

I'll be building a new computer in the coming month or two. I'll be running a number of games on it, but I do want high performance for dwarf fortress.

Questions:
Intel i7s or AMD 8-cores?

High Bandwith or Latency for RAM? (ie. DDR3 -1600 5 - 5 - 13 or DDR3 - 2044 - 10 - 10 -18) Also, pulling numbers out of my ass. I'd be getting upwards of 16 gigs either way.

SSD for saves?

Anything else I missed?

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In case it wasn't obvious, I do know that dividing by zero is a mathematical impossibility. I do not know, however, how this dwarven calculator would react if anyone attempted the impossible. Please, someone try! xD
If you look back in the thread, some people did try, and they got 8008135, which is significant only in that the digits resemble the letter in "BOOBIES".
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CLA

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Re: Building new computer; gearing towards Dwarf Fortress
« Reply #1 on: May 10, 2013, 11:13:19 am »

High Bandwith or Latency for RAM?

I was certain I bookmarked a thread about this. But I can't find it. In any case a forum search might give you some answers.

EDIT: found this

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=119474
« Last Edit: May 10, 2013, 11:15:19 am by CLA »
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fricy

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Re: Building new computer; gearing towards Dwarf Fortress
« Reply #2 on: May 10, 2013, 11:52:27 am »

Intel i7s or AMD 8-cores?
SSD for saves?

Definitely SSD. And go for single threaded performance vs number of cores, DF is, and will be single threaded for a time. So i7 seems a better choice.

ChuckWeiss

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Re: Building new computer; gearing towards Dwarf Fortress
« Reply #3 on: May 10, 2013, 12:56:06 pm »

Dwarf Fortress can't utilize more than 2 gigs of ram. Unless you're using the large address aware fix; even then, it only makes worldgen large address aware.

Definitely get 16 gigs anyway! Rams cheap, and makes all those other games run smooth.
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BigD145

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Re: Building new computer; gearing towards Dwarf Fortress
« Reply #4 on: May 10, 2013, 01:05:11 pm »

Intel has the faster single core in their IvyBridge line versus AMD's current line. I went with an i5 and it does pretty well with a 150+ dwarf fort.
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slothen

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Re: Building new computer; gearing towards Dwarf Fortress
« Reply #5 on: May 10, 2013, 04:01:43 pm »

SSD would only effect the save/load time right? seems pretty trivial to me, considering the limited space of SSDs and the massive size that DF worlds can get.  But if you're going to get an SSD that won't have the OS or other application data on it, sure why not?
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fricy

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Re: Building new computer; gearing towards Dwarf Fortress
« Reply #6 on: May 10, 2013, 11:16:13 pm »

SSD would only effect the save/load time right? seems pretty trivial to me, considering the limited space of SSDs and the massive size that DF worlds can get.  But if you're going to get an SSD that won't have the OS or other application data on it, sure why not?

Why would you NOT have the OS and all your apps on the SSD? The point is to have everything load/boot faster. My biggest DF save is 70+mb so far, even if you buy a small 60Gb SSD, there will be plenty of space after installing the system. Just keep all your media files on a separate HDD and you will be fine.