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[G-Flex]

Single-core performance still is, and is quite good on the i7. Yeah, parallelism matters, but that isn't to say CPUs aren't improving on a per-core basis.

[Max White]

Single-core performance still is, and is quite good on the i7. Yeah, parallelism matters, but that isn't to say CPUs aren't improving on a per-core basis.

No, you don't get it. Making an argument on the basis that 'Things were like that in the golden days, and I know because I was there, and I am with the times, and you are not' always wins, on the basis that it makes you looks cooler then the other person. The validity of the argument itself is irrrelevant.

[Buttery_Mess]

Admittedly at the moment, CPU speed seems not to be increasing, in favour of multicores. Seems a simple enough workaround for the Moore's Law wall we've all heard about. It also seems like it might make multithreading a necessity.

Still, we don't know what the future will bring. Bringing up Moore's Law again, the number of transistors doubles only every 1 1/2 years, and hence CPU speed, so in the three years since we had, say, .28, you wouldn't notice a massive increase in available CPU speed. Over 15 years, though, transistor density per unit cost will have multiplied a thousandfold. That ought to do it.

[NW_Kohaku]

That's hitting the physical wall of the materials that are used to build computer parts, however.

The entire way that CPUs are made faster by throwing more transistors in is by making them smaller and more efficient, but you hit the point where circuits cannot be made any smaller without them constantly short-circuiting because electricity will simply jump a short enough gap between circuits. 

The entire reason they're just working on ways to glue more and more CPUs together is because they simply can't make cores smaller than they are at the rates that they have, and so simply gluing cores together is the only way to continue to "increase speed".

Eventually, they're going to have to make an optical processor or something (light waves don't jump circuits), but until they do make a jump to another technology, Moore's Law will break down.  Efficiency doesn't go past 100%. (Technically, it doesn't get there, either. It just gets too cost-prohibitive to go further.)  You just plain can't miniaturize things forever - when you hit the molecular level for the width of chip tracing, that's it, you're done, you can't make something at a smaller than molecular level.

[Cespinarve]

I don't even notice when my FPS runs out- wait, I should clarify that. I don't even notice that there is something abnormal in the fact that my FPS runs out. Since I always forget to cap my dwarves, and caping it after a fort is started doesn't work, I regularly end up with 200+ dwarves. Yeah, it is slow, but I just accept that as part of the game. I'm on a MacBook (with VISTA on a partition, for my sins), not a pro, so I'm used to slow. I was running a 1982 Mac 512K last week, it was very slow, run entirely off of diskettes. It was very calming. The Zen of FPS. I've been unemployed for almost a year, with college debts and all, and every time I hear the you should just update (buy new laptop/upgrade graphics card,CPU,change over to Windows/Linux/Vatican-made pope-blessed OS/et al.)" I just want to hurt people, and wanting to hurt people is damaging to the FPS Zen State. Would I like a new computer? Yes. Would I like Dwarf Fortress to run as well as ME2 ran of my college roomate's 360? Yes. Do I have a recurring fantasy where Toady One and Notch write up detailed, informative, game-centered blogposts, alternating days? Oh Yhwh, yes. But because none of these things are remotely coming to pass anytime soon, I remain as content as i can, watching a Fortress slow- mature, if you will, that early rush and bloom of youth fading, an older fort taking its time, slowly, methodically, but less likely to make mistakes.

And until the military interface works in a logical, non-Byzantine fashion, invasions are always turned off at the Cespinarve household.

[Cespinarve]

Also, something about sarcasm and honey bees was mentioned, I think. I wasn't really paying attention to that bit.

[NW_Kohaku]

Since I always forget to cap my dwarves, and caping it after a fort is started doesn't work, I regularly end up with 200+ dwarves.

Unless there's something about 31.xx that I don't know about, you can alter the init to change the cap of your dwarves.  DF just needs to be closed when you do it.  I altered the child cap pretty frequently, in fact.

[Cespinarve]

Since I always forget to cap my dwarves, and caping it after a fort is started doesn't work, I regularly end up with 200+ dwarves.

Unless there's something about 31.xx that I don't know about, you can alter the init to change the cap of your dwarves.  DF just needs to be closed when you do it.  I altered the child cap pretty frequently, in fact.

So I've been told, I've just never seen it actually work. One of those idiosyncratic DF bugs that we players seem to get, the ones no one else ever have or understand. Probably a feature to personalize gameplay.

[G-Flex]

Admittedly at the moment, CPU speed seems not to be increasing, in favour of multicores.

You sure about that? Per-core performance on the i7 is extremely good, and better than previous CPUs.

[Cespinarve]

Admittedly at the moment, CPU speed seems not to be increasing, in favour of multicores.

You sure about that? Per-core performance on the i7 is extremely good, and better than previous CPUs.

Isn't i7 a duel carriageway?