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[Thundercraft]

I've been thinking of putting together a mod and I had a thought: Would drastically reducing the numbers and variety of vermin have a measurable impact on FPS?

With few exceptions, vermin are too small to butcher and most don't produce anything useful. Dwarves can't engage in combat with them, either. So, what's the point? Merely for the sake of added realism?

Actually, I can appreciate the purpose of certain vermin for extracts or dwarven milk. I can even appreciate simulating rats and a few others with [VERMIN_EATER] and/or [VERMIN_ROTTER] to give cats and falcons a reason for existing and to give animal traps purpose. But beyond those...? Why simulate bluejays, cardinals, blackbirds, fireflies, damselflies, dragonflies and such if all they do is potentially have a negative impact on FPS?

This topic talks about how FPS has gotten worse in recent versions:

I decided to open up some old 34.11 fortresses and compare...
[snip]
...I had 150 dwarves + 60 or so livestock and the game was still chugging along at 100 FPS.

Now my current 42.06 forts are barely reaching 60 FPS by the time we get to 110 dwarves and 60 livestock. And that's when I'm not looking at surface trees...

And it's well known that the number of animals has an impact on FPS, so... (I guess this calls for experimentation. But I'm lazy and I thought I'd ask first.)

For that matter, I've also considered removing some of the larger creatures which also serve as fluff. For example, what is the point of having Merpersons? They are completely benign and intelligent. Further, they can not be made a pet, can not be butchered, and their parts are not worth much (anymore). Ergo, they seem quite pointless - merely another potential FPS sink.

Even if removing such "fluff" creatures does not measurably help FPS, I have to wonder if it would at least result in more of the far more interesting and useful creatures in a given area or embark zone.

[Meph]

No. vermin teleport randomly, they dont pathfind like normal creatures.

[Witty]

I'm wondering if making trees smaller so there's less greenage that needs to be updated for seasons and such would alleviate some of the new forest lag.

[Dirst]

No. vermin teleport randomly, they dont pathfind like normal creatures.

However those little buggers can have just as many bodypart and coloration traits as a citizen.  Just trimming them down to simple coloration (like the insects) might help.