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The last 2 forts suffered heavily due to a FPS drop. Yet, I did everything to make sure it ran as fast as possible.

Here was my setup,

A pocket world, 17x17.
Only 2 years of history generated with the advanced world gen.
Embarked on a 3x3 plot

Got to around 60-80 dwarves and my FPS would suffer dramatically. Is it simply the number of dwarves causing this or perhaps something else?

My hardware is fast and shouldnt be a problem. The only thing slightly dated is my CPU, an i7-4770k running at 4ghz.

If keeping dwarves under 40 helps then I'll try that. Any help is appreciated

[anewaname]

Everything in DF that costs FPS, and that you can control, involves items and units in your embark zone and the available pathways connecting those items and units. It is not just that your dwarf population rose to 80, but that your item count increased, and that the three-wide hallway is often cluttered with dwarfs that need many small repaths as they dodge past others in that hallway.

Review your heaviest traffic pathways and spend some time watching the units move about. If you see a crowded hallway or room and units are constantly side-stepping past other units as their paths cross, then it would help to redesign those areas. As an example, meeting areas such as taverns and temples should have a single entrance into the room, so there is no available path through that room leading somewhere else, and so there will be no haulers dodging through a crowd of drunks.

The caverns should have only one or two access points to your fort and they should be constricted by raisable bridges that should be raised most of the time. This will limit the pathing calculations that nuisance invaders cost from their attempts to path to the things in your fort that interest them (booze, dwarfs, wood furniture, etc). Do not use locked doors to control cavern access, as building destroyers will still consider them to be something they can path through).

So, if you can limit the items and non-dwarf units and the pathways to some degree, you can reduce the overall FPS costs while maintaining the dwarf population count.

I know this advice is a bit vague, but every fort is its own mutilated bonsai shrub and needs the items/units/pathways concept applied differently.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Also, don't lock your doors. Pets will kill your fps trying to path through them.

[Staalo]

Also, don't lock your doors. Pets will kill your fps trying to path through them.

Or, don't just pet lock (key "o" in door settings) them; use "l" as well if you have to. It seems animal pathing ignores pet locked doors and that leads to heavy pathfinding spam when the animals can't actually move through them.

[Express]

Everything in DF that costs FPS, and that you can control, involves items and units in your embark zone and the available pathways connecting those items and units. It is not just that your dwarf population rose to 80, but that your item count increased, and that the three-wide hallway is often cluttered with dwarfs that need many small repaths as they dodge past others in that hallway.

Review your heaviest traffic pathways and spend some time watching the units move about. If you see a crowded hallway or room and units are constantly side-stepping past other units as their paths cross, then it would help to redesign those areas. As an example, meeting areas such as taverns and temples should have a single entrance into the room, so there is no available path through that room leading somewhere else, and so there will be no haulers dodging through a crowd of drunks.

The caverns should have only one or two access points to your fort and they should be constricted by raisable bridges that should be raised most of the time. This will limit the pathing calculations that nuisance invaders cost from their attempts to path to the things in your fort that interest them (booze, dwarfs, wood furniture, etc). Do not use locked doors to control cavern access, as building destroyers will still consider them to be something they can path through).

So, if you can limit the items and non-dwarf units and the pathways to some degree, you can reduce the overall FPS costs while maintaining the dwarf population count.

I know this advice is a bit vague, but every fort is its own mutilated bonsai shrub and needs the items/units/pathways concept applied differently.

Ah so much useful advice.

I'll definitely try this next time.

So only 1 path into any given location.

Regarding the number of items, I'm not sure how many is 'too many'. What I noticed is as my population grew, and I assigned everyone to mine as they arrive, I would rapidly dig out large areas underground. This would grow exponentially as more dwarves arrived, and eventually by the 80th dwarf I'll have vast open spaces dug out.

Could the number of stones and such I have lying around cause the FPS drop due to 'item count'?

[PatrikLundell]

Stones are items, and so contribute to "item count". One path FPS draining advice often repeated is to block off unused areas, so if you've mined out an area you're not going to use (and removed the stones from it, building a wall to close it off is supposed to reduce the pathing FPS drain.

[Loci]

What is primarily causing my FPS to tank?

If you are asking what is tanking your FPS specifically, you'd have much better luck uploading a save to DFFD so someone can actually diagnose the issue.

If you are just looking for guesses you might start here: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Maximizing_framerate

[Express]

What is primarily causing my FPS to tank?

If you are asking what is tanking your FPS specifically, you'd have much better luck uploading a save to DFFD so someone can actually diagnose the issue.

If you are just looking for guesses you might start here: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Maximizing_framerate

Thanks, I read that article and will try to implement some of the tips