v50 Steam/Premium information for editors
  • v50 information can now be added to pages in the main namespace. v0.47 information can still be found in the DF2014 namespace. See here for more details on the new versioning policy.
  • Use this page to report any issues related to the migration.
This notice may be cached—the current version can be found here.

Technical tricks

From Dwarf Fortress Wiki
Revision as of 10:42, 20 June 2023 by Ziusudra (talk | contribs) (→‎Settings - init.txt: removed other tested and not easily tested removed options, removed subheaders, sorted to order found in default, added fonts note)
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This article is about the current version of DF.
Note that some content may still need to be updated.

Dwarf Fortress has various settings that can affect the game experience. You can configure these in Settings accessed from the main menu or ESC menu. However, some settings can only be changed by directly editing the game configuration files, which include:

Locating configuration files

These configuration files might be found in two places in the install folder:

  • data\init\ - files here contain the default values installed with the game and also may contain some explanations of the settings.
  • prefs\ - files here contain the current values saved by the game.

You can edit the configuration files with any plain text editing software, such as Notepad, Vim, or Emacs.

Most data in these files is in token form. Each token is defined by the text between an opening square bracket, [, and the next closing square bracket, ]. The token identifier and any values are separated by a colons, :.

If anything goes wrong, you can completely reset the game's saved settings by deleting the prefs\ folder while the game is not running, assuming the defaults have not been changed. This does not work with the files in data\init\, so you should make backups of them before modifying them.

init.txt

For settings that can be changed in game see: Settings.

  • [SOUND:YES] - Change the argument from "YES" to "NO" to completely remove sound and music from the game. If this is "NO", it will not be possible to change the volume from the in game options menu.
  • [WINDOWED:PROMPT] - Changes the window mode that Dwarf Fortress runs in. If this is "PROMPT" the game will ask you if you want to run in windowed or fullscreen mode. If this is "NO" the game will be fullscreen with no prompt, and if this is "YES" the game will be in windowed mode with no prompt.
The game currently may not render the interface correctly if the following are changed, depending on the font and render mode.
  • [FONT:curses_640x300.png] - The font file that Dwarf Fortress uses. This value can be any .bmp or .png image in the data/art folder.
  • [FULLFONT:curses_800x600.png] - The font file that Dwarf Fortress uses. This value can be any .bmp or .png image in the data/art folder.
  • [BASIC_FONT:curses_640x300.png] - This font is used during the initial load sequence and menus.

Settings - d_init.txt

For settings that can be changed in game see: Settings.

Game

  • [IDLERS:TOP][Verify] - Where to display the number of idling dwarves. The value can be either "TOP", "BOTTOM", or "OFF".
  • [INVADERS:YES][Verify] - Turns on or off fortress mode sieges. Turning this off for your first couple of games may make the game easier to start with.
  • [ZERO_RENT:NO][Verify] - If this is "YES", when the dwarven economy kicks in all rooms will cost nothing, allowing even the poorest of haulers to have a room fit for a king. This has no effect, since the economy does not function in the current version.
  • [WALKING_SPREADS_SPATTER_ADV:YES] - Still in the files but currently has no effect, of course. Turns on or off the spread of blood spatter and other contaminants between creatures and ground tiles in Adventurer mode.
  • [VARIED_GROUND_TILES:YES][Verify] - If this is "YES" the ground will be varied randomly using the tiles ,.`'. If this is "NO", only the period will be used for ground tiles.

Adventure mode

Not currently in the files but may return.

  • [MORE:YES]
  • [DISPLAY_LENGTH:23]
  • [ADVENTURER_TRAPS:NO] - If you set this to "YES" your adventurer will trigger the traps of your old fortresses.
  • [ADVENTURER_ALWAYS_CENTER:YES]
  • [ADVENTURER_Z_VIEWS:UNHIDDEN:9]

Resolution to grid ratios

Taken from [1]

Geometry Character Size
Resolution Aspect 8x8 12x12 16x16
800x600 4:3 100 x 75 66 x 50 50 x 37
1024x768 4:3 128 x 96 85 x 64 64 x 48
1152x864 4:3 144 x 108 96 x 72 72 x 54
1280x960 4:3 160 x 120 106 x 80 80 x 60
1600x1200 4:3 200 x 150 133 x 100 100 x 75
1280x1024 5:4 160 x 128 106 x 85 80 x 64
1440x900 16:10 180 x 75 135 x 56.25 90 x 37.5
1680x1050 16:10 210 x 131 140 x 87 105 x 65
1920x1080 16:9 240 x 135 160 x 90 120 x 67
1920x1200 16:10 240 x 150 160 x 100 120 x 75