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Last active April 22, 2024 19:08
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Dwarf Fortress notes (retail version)
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notes.md

Dwarf Fortress Notes

Interface Optimization

  • The interface in Dwarf Fortress is challenging due to its ASCII grid-based design and poor scaling.
  • The interface seems to expect 1280 x 720.
  • Enabling GPU integer scaling (in OS GPU settings) and a game resolution of 2560 x 1440 provides a pixel-perfect interface.
  • Additionally, adjusting DPI settings in the executable itself to "per application" ensures that the game itself can scale freely from the interface.
  • Setting "desired grid width for scaling" to 170 and "desired grid height scaling" to 59, particularly on high-resolution monitors like 5120x1440, gives the interface a good size.
  • On a 5120 x 1440 monitor, setting "Maximum interface percentage" to ~60 seems like a good value.
  • "Scaling mode" is best kept at automatic, as this will use nearest neighbour for things that can be scaled perfectly, and lanczos for everything else.

Colors

  • The in-game colours can still be modified via "colors.txt" in "Dwarf Fortress\data\init" using the old format.
  • The only thing to note is that black acts as transparent and must be R 0, G 0, B 0.
  • My colors at https://github.com/Hezkore/dwarf-fortress-assets are still usable.

Font

  • The font can be changed via "init_default.txt" in "Dwarf Fortress\data\init".
  • There are 3 places in "init_default.txt" that defines the font, i.e. "windowed", "fullscreen" and "basic".
  • Defining a different font in "basic" than in "windowed/fullscreen" causes some very odd results.
  • The game uses "curses_640x300.png" by default, which is a font of 8 x 12.
  • Fonts other than 8 x 12 do work, but things like character portraits will not be correctly aligned in the interface.
  • Fonts can be found at https://dwarffortresswiki.org/Tileset_repository and must be placed in "Dwarf Fortress\data\art".
  • Square tilesets are extremely hard to read.
  • Using a bigger font and disabling interface scaling works, but again, things are not properly aligned.
  • https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/File:Bedstead-20-df.png seems like an okay font, but some things aren't correctly aligned.

Performance Management

  • Even with powerful hardware, Dwarf Fortress struggles to exceed 48 FPS when fully zoomed out.
  • There's no pointing in setting "Graphical FPS cap" to anything above 50.
  • To prevent overly fast gameplay, I recommend setting "Game frames-per-second cap" to ~50 as well.

Sound Settings

  • Music is very loud in the game, while notifications are very quiet.
  • 100% on all sounds.
  • ~60% on music.
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