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Author Topic: [hardware] Will my DF FPS increase if...  (Read 2530 times)

Valikdu

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[hardware] Will my DF FPS increase if...
« on: December 25, 2014, 01:59:20 pm »

...I get a new rig with an i7-5930 CPU, while I have an i7-2600 now?

Airgeoff

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Re: [hardware] Will my DF FPS increase if...
« Reply #1 on: December 25, 2014, 02:06:30 pm »

I won't promise, but I would be very surprised if it didn't.  I've seen a lot of reports saying that memory speed is usually the biggest factor and the new 5930k can utilize the significantly faster ddr4 memory.  That alone will probably net you a big increase. I'd be really interested in a comparison if you can.
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Urist_McDagger

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Re: [hardware] Will my DF FPS increase if...
« Reply #2 on: December 26, 2014, 03:23:55 am »

DF eats processing power like an anteater eats ants. The faster your processor is, the better the game will run.
It will probably run just as good, since they're both at 3.4, and even though the 5930K has 6 cores it won't be any better since DF does not multithread meaning additional cores are useless.
Memory is of almost no consequence, it is only really utilized during world creation.
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utunnels

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Re: [hardware] Will my DF FPS increase if...
« Reply #3 on: December 26, 2014, 03:53:03 am »

If it doesn't give your computer to me.
 :P
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omega_dwarf

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Re: [hardware] Will my DF FPS increase if...
« Reply #4 on: December 26, 2014, 11:16:39 am »

Urist_McDagger has a point. The cpu itself might not help you much, but the key part seems like the ddr4 ram here. Ram is a very common bottleneck in this game (don't ask me why it uses so much that it runs into that before the cpu.) (Edit: check my sig for one possible reason.)

If you're looking for a build that specifically runs DF, try a high-end dual core with ddr4 ram support (dual core so you can play some normal games, at least :P)...if that combination works, then, from what people have been discussing in FPS threads, I'm guessing it would run significantly better than a relatively small overall upgrade in cpu. I say relatively because I went from an old Pentium to an i7-4xxx, and most things are small compared to that :P

But basically, with DF, people have been saying recently that having very fast memory is as important as having a (more common) very fast cpu and (less common) fewer cores. I might try a memory upgrade in a few months myself to find out.

But it's a fair amount of money just to be experimenting with, with the possibility of failure. Has anyone directly consulted Toady on what he thinks would run DF best?

Miuramir

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Re: [hardware] Will my DF FPS increase if...
« Reply #5 on: December 28, 2014, 03:13:07 pm »

...I get a new rig with an i7-5930 CPU, while I have an i7-2600 now?

Only if you take advantage of the support for much faster memory.  The i7-2600 has a 3.4 GHz base frequency, max turbo of 3.8; the i7-5930 has a 3.5 GHz base frequency, max turbo of 3.7.  This is close enough to identical that you're unlikely to see any difference without careful controlled tests.  (The i7-5930 does have more cores, but that doesn't help DF directly.)

However, the i7-2600 has a max memory bandwidth of 21 GB/sec, and is only officially rated for DDR3-1066/1333.  The i7-5930 has a max memory bandwidth of 68 GB/sec, and is officially rated for DDR4-1333/1600/2133.  If you get DDR4-2133 memory for the new / upgraded system, large forts & worlds *might* run up to three times as fast if the memory bandwidth is the limiting factor on your current system, or up to two times as fast if memory speed is the limiting factor.  But there are a lot of complicating factors, and it is even possible that it would not be faster at all, if the limiting factor on your current system is CPU or graphical rendering. 

All of the above based on official, rated specs.  Getting a motherboard that semi-officially supports DDR4-2400 might improve things further, and mild overclocking might yield even more improvement, *if* memory speed is the limit.  (Heavy overclocking tends to result in systems not stable enough for the complex operation of DF.) 

My personal suspicion is that on a generally good, modern, system that the memory bandwidth is the limiting factor, at least for larger embarks; DF has to shuffle an enormous amount of data from main memory to the CPU every time tick, far more than CPU caches can handle.  Thus I would guess that you would see noticeable improvement going from 21 to 68.  But we really have very little idea about how DF breaks down on various systems, and you're talking about spending quite a lot of money for unclear and risky results.  I can't honestly recommend it unless this is money you can afford to spend on something fairly risky and ephemeral, or you can justify it on other grounds. 

If you *do* upgrade, please try and take some before and after data points about FPS, ideally with identical saved forts and versions.  It could provide valuable info on how DF works in the real world; it's rare to see someone upgrading the memory without also a significant increase in clock speed and processor architecture. 
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