Any tips for improving CPU usage in DF streaming? (OBS)

[twitch.tv/edwin_fox]

Hello comrade dwarves!

I play DF for 8+ years and since the Steam® release I've been streaming it (Brazilian Portuguese) on Twitch® - the problem though is that it's been taking more and more CPU processing since its release.

I've already tried everything I could in OBS for reducing CPU processing (streaming high-enders such as Valheim goes fine on Ultra game settings), but still DF's been adding up to 95% of my octacore i7.

Is there any other DF streamer around here who can help me? What did you do for optimizing it for streaming?

Oh and yeah, I'm running on Linux. Under average conditions (pop, map, caves etc) without OBS, I can get around 50-70fps - it drops to 40, 30, sometimes even 20 while streaming that same fortress.

Please DM me if you have any tips

[Teo]

You can try enabling the multi threading in the options menu, that should help but be aware that it may cause some instabilities at this point in time.
Also, DFHack can help you get rid of a lot of items like dirty socks and other unused clothes which may improve your FPS.
Also, maybe try slaughtering some animals if you have too many.

[twitch.tv/edwin_fox]

Originally posted by Teo:

You can try enabling the multi threading in the options menu, that should help but be aware that it may cause some instabilities at this point in time.
Also, DFHack can help you get rid of a lot of items like dirty socks and other unused clothes which may improve your FPS.
Also, maybe try slaughtering some animals if you have too many.

Thanks Teo!

Yeah... I know there's a lot of things to do for reducing CPU usage in DF (every once in a while I check DFWiki to see if there's any new tip there), Here are (some of) the things I already tried:

- 50.09 multithread (and yeah that's kinda unstable, crashes every once in a while)
- cleanowned, clean all (DFH clean cmds)
- less animals
- drain-aquifer
- pathlocking (priority paths, closing access to caves etc)
- temp off, weather off
- disable cave dwellers
- dump & smash useless stuff
- 3x3 embark (runs slightly better, at the cost of wider playspace)
- Wine run, Steam® closed
- running command 'gamemoderun %command%' on Proton
...there may be more lol, since I've tried everything I saw in the DF Community playbook

It seems though that, no matter what I do:
- game starts dragging on every winter and/or after 1hr gameplay
- performance's degrading since the release (older fortresses that would play at avg 30FPS back then, now run at 15FPS tops even without OBS running)

BUT, even though DF performance is below average, it's still mostly enjoyable and playable off streaming - it only lags to the point of unplayable while streaming

So now, I'm working on tinkering with OBS to reduce its CPU processing.

So far I've tried:
- reducing streaming res to 1280x720
- using FFmpeg VAAPI H.264
- encoding via GPU (Radeon RX 480)
- 6000 Kbps encoding
- downscale to Bilinear, 30FPS