v0.34:Frames per second

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What is FPS?

Frames per second, often referred to as FPS or framerate, is the measure of the amount of frames the game calculates in one second. One frame is one "screen" that you see, and the frames themselves are not animated - instead, showing different frames rapidly makes it look like it's moving.

While in the game of Dwarf Fortress a step and a frame are often interchangable(on this wiki, frames are more often called steps), a frame is not the same as a step. As explained above, a frame is a "screen" and constantly refreshes, and a step is one moment of the game's progression. Each step requires the calculation of unit movement, fluid movement, and many checks for different events, such as cave-ins, damp/warm stone, weather conditions, and much more.

Note that game steps are independent of human steps. A human with average agility will move 1 tile in 10 steps.

To check your FPS (frames per second) in Dwarf Fortress, simply change [FPS:NO] to [FPS:YES] in init.txt, and your FPS will be displayed on the top row of the screen. The first number is the current frame rate, while the number in parentheses is the current graphical frame refresh rate.

Maximizing FPS

There are many methods to increase one's framerate, which can be found on the maximizing framerate page. These can be crucial, as a common reason for abandoning forts is that the framerate becomes too low from all the dwarves, animals, and explored tiles having to have calculations performed each step. This is especially true if many caverns have been unearthed.

Controlling FPS

By default, the framerate is set to not exceed 100, though this can be changed in the init.txt file, under [FPS_CAP]. Increasing or disabling([FPS_CAP:0]) this setting will allow a fortress to progress more quickly, though eventually there will be a maximum reached as a result of CPU speed limits. This also requires more attention from the player as designated jobs will be completed or cancelled more quickly, and potentially harmful events─such as wild animals, thieves, and invasions─will occur more frequently in a given span of real time.

Decreasing the FPS cap will slow down the progress of a fortress, though it may be useful for if the framerate undergoes large, rapid changes, as it will smooth out the play experience. It can also be useful to slow down the game in order to handle other activities while still allowing the fortress to complete previously assigned tasks, while reducing the need to babysit the game.

Keystrokes

By default, framerate can be modified in-game with Alt-= to increase the framerate and Alt-- to decrease it. Note that decreasing the framerate below 10 FPS will prevent increasing it again. ^Bug

Bugs

Framerate can't be increased once decreased below 10 FPS ^{Bug:6277 (Workaround in comments)}