Difference between revisions of "System requirements"

Latest revision as of 07:48, 1 February 2024

!!UNKNOWN!! · xTATTEREDx · +FINE+ · *SUPERIOR* · ≡EXCEPTIONAL≡ · ☼MASTERWORK☼

v50.12 · v0.47.05

This article is about the current version of DF.
Note that some content may still need to be updated.

If you're looking for information on improving the performance of Dwarf Fortress on your computer, see Maximizing Framerate. For installation instructions, see Installation.

Dwarf Fortress is a very complex game, but in ways that differ from most other complex games. This leads to the game having a somewhat unusual set of requirements.

Note that while the front page displays only the current Windows x86-64 build, there also exist previous versions under the "All Versions" link.

Premium version official requirements[edit]

From the Steam page

Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: minimum Windows XP SP3 or later
Processor: minimum Dual Core CPU - 2.4GHz+, recommended Dual Core CPU - 4GHz+
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: 1GB of VRAM: Intel HD 3000 GPU / AMD HD 5450 / Nvidia 9400 GT
Storage: 500 MB available space

OS[edit]

64-bit Windows can run the Premium and Classic releases natively. 32-bit and ARM versions of Windows will not be able to run DF. If you are unsure if you are using 64-bit Windows, check using the instructions here.
- Windows XP/7/8/8.1 are unsupported by Microsoft and may have issues -- be warned!
Linux on x86-64 (including SteamOS) can run the Premium version of Dwarf Fortress on Steam through the Proton compatibility layer. As of v50.04, it is rated Platinum on ProtonDB.
Linux on x86-64 and MacOS on Intel may be able to run Dwarf Fortress via Wine, previous versions are rated Platinum on Wine's AppDB.
MacOS on Apple Silicon (listed here) may be able to run Dwarf Fortress via Wine in Rosetta 2's x86-64 emulation. Add your experiences below under Reports if you try!
Linux x86-64/ARM64 and MacOS on Intel/Apple Silicon native builds, as of v50.04, are not yet published.

GPU[edit]

Dwarf Fortress is not particularly graphically intensive, even when using high-res tilesets and graphics sets. Dwarf Fortress also doesn't use technologies like OpenCL to make use of graphics cards anyway, so a top-of-the-line graphics card will generally not improve performance.

CPU[edit]

Dwarf Fortress mostly operates on a single thread, so if you want to optimize for DF, you should probably optimize for single-core performance. This is especially true if you want to do more laggy things, such as mist generators. However, laggy circumstances are generally the exception, not the rule, and in those other circumstances, you generally don't need a particularly powerful CPU.

Cache size[edit]

As Dwarf Fortress' bottlenecks are mostly due to cache misses, it has been speculated on the DF forums that "a CPU with a positively giant L3/L4 cache (and I mean > 256 mb or GTFO)" would improve DF performance, as would using faster RAM with smaller transfer times—see the next section.

RAM[edit]

During regular gameplay, Dwarf Fortress usually doesn't consume too much memory - 512MB is probably a bit tight, but 1GB is absolutely sufficient, though if you're short on RAM, you may want to quit other running processes. What's particularly important during regular gameplay is RAM latency—since the game uses the RAM every single frame, it's important that your RAM be fast, lest you experience FPS death.

However, world generation is known to eat up a lot more RAM than normal gameplay, especially if you generate worlds that are particularly large or have long histories - multiple gigabytes may be consumed. To be safe, you should shut down any background processes when generating a world, and if you're particularly tight on RAM, consider reducing the size or history of the worlds you generate—the game is rich enough with content that you'll still have plenty of things to do, and you can always tweak the other, less RAM-hungry advanced world generation parameters. (RAM latency is less of a problem here, since you'll only need to do this once every so often.)

Experimental reports[edit]

Report format[edit]

Please read the report template page before contributing any reports.

Reports[edit]

Configuration type: RAM-upgraded MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2011)

Game info: Game version: v50.12-beta8; World size: Small; Embark size: 4x4; Age of fort: 8 years; Number of dwarves: 193; Average fps: 32 (18 graphical); Default/nondefault raws: default; Tileset in use: Steam; Amount of stone dug: ~3000; Amount of water and state: inactive magma pump stack, no water; Approximate amount of z-levels: 30; RAM usage of game: 1622 MB; Draw mode in init.txt: Auto

PC info: CPU: Intel Core i7-2640M @ 2.8 GHz; RAM: 16 GB DDR3 @ 1333 MHz; GPU: Intel HD Graphics 3000; OS: Windows 10 under Boot Camp

"System requirements" in other Languages

Dwarven:	idith inem
Elvish:	eritha enotho
Goblin:	obsår eted
Human:	histek tikes

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-{{Quality|Fine|10:33, 8 May 2015 (UTC)}}
+{{migrated article}}
+{{Quality|Unrated}}
 {{av}}
-''If you're looking for information on improving the performance of Dwarf Fortress on your computer, see [[Maximizing framerate|Maximizing Framerate]].  For installation instructions, see [[Installation]].''
+:''If you're looking for information on improving the performance of Dwarf Fortress on your computer, see [[Maximizing framerate|Maximizing Framerate]].  For installation instructions, see [[Installation]].''
+''Dwarf Fortress'' is a very complex game, but in ways that differ from most other complex games.  This leads to the game having a somewhat unusual set of requirements.
+Note that while the [http://bay12games.com/dwarves/ front page] displays only the current Windows x86-64 build, there also exist previous versions [http://bay12games.com/dwarves/older_versions.html under the "All Versions" link].
+==Premium version official requirements==
+From the [https://store.steampowered.com/app/975370/Dwarf_Fortress/ Steam page]
+* Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
+* OS: minimum Windows XP SP3 or later
+* Processor: minimum Dual Core CPU - 2.4GHz+, recommended Dual Core CPU - 4GHz+
+* Memory: 4 GB RAM
+* Graphics: 1GB of VRAM: Intel HD 3000 GPU / AMD HD 5450 / Nvidia 9400 GT
+* Storage: 500 MB available space
 == OS ==
-* '''Windows''' requires XP SP3 or newer and an Intel/AMD CPU.
+* '''64-bit Windows''' can run the Premium and Classic releases natively. 32-bit and ARM versions of Windows will not be able to run DF. If you are unsure if you are using 64-bit Windows, check using the instructions [https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/32-bit-and-64-bit-windows-frequently-asked-questions-c6ca9541-8dce-4d48-0415-94a3faa2e13d here].
-* '''Linux''' runs natively on an Intel/AMD CPU (x86_64 or i386) with the [[Installation#Linux|proper dependencies]] installed. Running the Windows build under Wine is an alternative.
+** Windows XP/7/8/8.1 are unsupported by Microsoft and may have issues -- be warned!
-* '''MacOS''' requires 10.5 or later and an Intel CPU. There is not an ARM build yet, but the existing macOS build may work under Rosetta.
+* '''Linux on x86-64''' (including '''SteamOS''') can run the Premium version of Dwarf Fortress on Steam through the Proton compatibility layer. As of v50.04, it is [https://www.protondb.com/app/975370 rated Platinum on ProtonDB].
+* '''Linux on x86-64''' and '''MacOS on Intel''' may be able to run Dwarf Fortress via Wine, previous versions are [https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=5608 rated Platinum on Wine's AppDB].
+* '''MacOS on Apple Silicon''' ([https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT211814 listed here]) ''may'' be able to run Dwarf Fortress via Wine in Rosetta 2's x86-64 emulation. Add your experiences below under Reports if you try!
+* '''Linux x86-64/ARM64''' and '''MacOS on Intel/Apple Silicon''' native builds, as of v50.04, are not yet published.
-== RAM ==
+==GPU==
-DF is not particularly RAM-hungry. Expect the process to allocate between 300 and 700 MB with medium regions. With 512MB you may be a bit on the short side, but 1 GB is absolutely sufficient. World Generation can eat up far more than that - it's possible to encounter crashes due to being out of memory. In particular major areas for this to occur are during history, final touches in finalizing sites, and while saving. This is especially problematic with unusual generator configurations, such as worlds with large numbers of megabeasts, caves, civilizations, high or non-existent site and population limits, and very lengthy histories. User-made modifications can also increase the requirements, depending on their nature.
+''Dwarf Fortress'' is not particularly graphically intensive, even when using high-res [[tilesets]] and [[graphics set]]s. ''Dwarf Fortress'' also doesn't use technologies like [[wikipedia:OpenCL|OpenCL]] to make use of graphics cards anyway, so a top-of-the-line graphics card will generally not improve performance.
-The most important thing to the performance of the game, however, is undoubtedly RAM ''latency''&mdash;the amount of lag the RAM has when working. Dwarf Fortress works the RAM every single frame for every single creature, every single item, every single piece of liquid, the temperature of every tile&mdash;you get the picture. The gigantic amount of operations working at the same time&mdash;which any current processor could handle much faster than what you see&mdash;is primarily bottlenecked by RAM latency and RAM speed.
+==CPU==
-CPU and FPS are mildly correlated, but this correlation has been attributed as a non-causative one. Rather, newer CPUs seem to come with faster RAM, but for the purpose of a Dwarf Fortress computer, RAM is more important.
+''Dwarf Fortress'' mostly operates on a single thread, so if you want to optimize for DF, you should probably optimize for single-core performance.  This is especially true if you want to do more laggy things, such as [[mist]] generators.  However, laggy circumstances are generally the exception, not the rule, and in those other circumstances, you generally don't need a ''particularly'' powerful CPU.
-Before 0.43.05, Dwarf Fortress was 32-bit only, so adding more memory usually couldn't fix out-of-memory problems due to very large worlds and very large embark sites, since the memory available to Dwarf Fortress was limited to 2GB or 3GB (depending on the OS). It is unknown if 64-bit support provides any boost to FPS on 64-bit systems.
+=== Cache size ===
-=== Cache size ===
+As ''Dwarf Fortress''' bottlenecks are mostly due to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPU_cache#Cache_miss cache misses], it has been [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=151121.msg6270374#msg6270374 speculated on the DF forums] that "a CPU with a positively giant L3/L4 cache (and I mean > 256 mb or GTFO)" would improve DF performance, as would using faster RAM with smaller [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAS_latency transfer times]—see the next section.
-As Dwarf Fortress's bottlenecks are mostly due to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPU_cache#Cache_miss cache misses], it has been [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=151121.msg6270374#msg6270374 speculated on the DF forums] that "a CPU with a positively giant L3/L4 cache (and I mean > 256 mb or GTFO)" would improve DF performance, as would using faster RAM with smaller [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAS_latency transfer times].
+== RAM ==
-== SDL vs. Legacy ==
+During [[Fortress mode|regular]] [[Adventurer mode|gameplay]], ''Dwarf Fortress'' usually doesn't consume too much memory -  512MB is probably a bit tight, but 1GB is absolutely sufficient, though if you're short on RAM, you may want to quit other running processes.  What's particularly important during regular gameplay is RAM ''latency''—since the game uses the RAM ''every single frame'', it's important that your RAM be fast, lest you experience FPS death.
-[http://www.libsdl.org/ SDL] is a cross-platform application framework. The SDL version of DF runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. It includes Baughn's new OpenGL code, which is faster and has more features (including support for PNG tilesets and using scroll wheels).
-"Legacy" refers to the (Windows-only) framework Toady used before migrating to SDL. The legacy version is only necessary if the SDL version doesn't work for some reason.
+However, [[world generation]] is known to eat up a lot more RAM than normal gameplay, especially if you generate worlds that are particularly large or have long histories - multiple gigabytes may be consumed.  To be safe, you should shut down any background processes when generating a world, and if you're particularly tight on RAM, consider reducing the size or history of the worlds you generate—the game is rich enough with content that you'll still have plenty of things to do, and you can always tweak the other, less RAM-hungry [[advanced world generation]] parameters.  (RAM latency is less of a problem here, since you'll only need to do this once every so often.)
-== Experiential reports ==
+== Experimental reports ==
 === Report format ===
 Please read [[System_requirements/Report_Template|the report template]] page before contributing any reports.
@@ Line 35: / Line 52: @@
 === Reports ===
-Configuration type: Self-built PC from 2008
+Configuration type: RAM-upgraded MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2011)
 ;Game info
-:Game version: v0.34.07
+:Game version: v50.12-beta8
 :World size: Small
-:Embark size: 4×4
+:Embark size: 4x4
-:Age of fort: 1 year
+:Age of fort: 8 years
-:Number of dwarves: 15
+:Number of dwarves: 193
-:Average fps: 100
+:Average fps: 32 (18 graphical)
 :Default/nondefault raws: default
-:Tileset in use: Mayday
+:Tileset in use: Steam
 :Amount of stone dug: ~3000
-:Amount of water and state: About 15 murky pools, no river or stream
+:Amount of water and state: inactive magma pump stack, no water
-:Approximate amount of z-levels: 10
+:Approximate amount of z-levels: 30
-:RAM usage of game: 622 Mb
+:RAM usage of game: 1622 MB
-:Draw mode in init.txt: 2D
+:Draw mode in init.txt: Auto
 ;PC info
-:CPU: Intel Core2Quad Q6600 @ 2.4Ghz
+:CPU: Intel Core i7-2640M @ 2.8 GHz
-:MBO: Gigabyte P35-DS3L
+:RAM: 16 GB DDR3 @ 1333 MHz
-:RAM: 4GB DDR2 @ 800Mhz
+:GPU: Intel HD Graphics 3000
-:GPU: Gigabyte Radeon HD5850
+:OS: Windows 10 under Boot Camp
-:OS: Windows 7 Professional x64
-----
-Configuration type: Self-built PC from 2012
-;Game info
-:Game version: v0.34.11
-:World size: Small
-:Embark size: 4×4
-:Age of fort: 8 years
-:Number of dwarves: 232
-:Average fps: 78
-:Default/nondefault raws: default
-:Tileset in use: Mayday
-:Amount of stone dug: ~1100
-:Amount of water and state: Frozen river, frozen murky pools, two artifical-made underground rivers
-:Approximate amount of z-levels: 8
-:RAM usage of game: 765 Mb
-:Draw mode in init.txt: 2D
-;PC info
-:CPU: Intel Core i5 3570K @ 3.4 Ghz
-:MBO: ASUS P8Z77-M PRO
-:RAM: 8GB DDR3 @ 1600Mhz
-:GPU: Gigabyte Radeon HD5850
-:OS: Windows 7 Professional x64
-----
-Configuration type: Self-built PC from 2012
-;Game info
-:Game version: v0.34.11
-:World size: Small
-:Embark size: 4×4
-:Age of fort: 2 years
-:Number of dwarves: 98
-:Average fps: ~250
-:Default/nondefault raws: default
-:Tileset in use: Mayday
-:Amount of stone dug: ~1900
-:Amount of water and state: Frozen river, Frozen Pools
-:Approximate amount of z-levels: 9
-:RAM usage of game: 834 Mb
-:Draw mode in init.txt: 2D
-;PC info
-:CPU: Amd Fx-8350 @ 4.8 Ghz
-:MBO: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
-:RAM: 16GB DDR3 @ 1866 Mhz
-:GPU: Sapphire Hd 7970 Ghz Vapor X
-:OS: Windows 7 Professional x64
 {{Translation| dwarven = idith inem | elvish = eritha enotho | goblin = obsår eted | human = histek tikes}}