In this release, we’re updating the engine from SDL to SDL2, and there are many optimizations to go along with it. Aside from the optimizations, SDL2 is also the stepping stone to ports. We have Linux compiling and playable; it just needs some testing.
Moreover, there is now a(n experimental) multithreading option in the game settings that makes the game even faster!
We also have some new individual tree graphics, and an update to grass ramps as well.
This has been mostly the hard work of Putnam! Meanwhile I’ve started up on adventure mode - the long work of updating menus and adding audio has begun! Hopefully we’ll have some progress to show their soon, as we continue updating fortress mode as well.
Super excited about this as the game runs like shit on my laptop and there’s a long running issue of fortresses becoming unplayable at high populations. Anyone tried it out?
This has been a decade too late for me, but I’m still excited to play again once Adventure Mode is up to speed.
a decade too late
It’s amazing how quickly important performance and QoL features get development priority once there’s money on the table, isn’t it?
Not that I’m complaining. I tried DF multiple times over the years and always bounced off, it’s the mouse-driven interface that’s made the game playable for me. Multithreading is great to see too. I’m excited to see what the future of DF holds.
I don’t think it’s money that is doing it, it’s toady opening up the project. He’s a great guy and made a masterpiece game, but he can’t do everything. Commercialising the game was the impetus for him getting help, but Putnam in specific would almost certainly have helped him in this way any time had he asked her. She was doing free work for dfhack before.
Also nice to see the Linux edition getting more love as well, hopefully they release it soon.
Tried the Steam version when it came out I think a year ago, but got frustrated because stairs were broken. Don’t suppose anyone knows if they fixed the bug/misfeature where you couldn’t build up stairs without access to the floor above?
I hope this means the Mac version is coming soon!
Wow. That is a cool. My limited experience working with single-threaded game-stuff tells me it is exceptionally hard to port stuff that is written without threading in mind, to multi-threading. Getting the behavior to stay the same while still actually getting better performance requires some really deep insight into how stuff works in the program. On a (program-)global scale. Mad respect if it works out. This should make huge maps or huge fortresses possible.
I haven’t yet played the steam version (it is on my todo-list though), but sank quite some hours into the “legacy” version. It can become laggy if you play on big maps with a lot of dwarfs/critters etc on it. I am excited to have even more stuff possible in this already very complex and huge game.
