Operating System locks up

[mprigge]

I've been seeing similar lockups - typically during combat and always on my (the GM's) machine. Mine have appeared to be full system lockups (e.g. cursor frozen, etc). Normally I'd suspect hardware issues, but the system is entirely stable under a wide range of other much more demanding conditions (running other games, six visual studio instances at once, blah blah). So, I think it's probably a similar sort of memory exhaustion issue that's at the root of it.

I'm curious about exactly how FG handles images and tokens. To make things easier for myself, I've got a whole ton of tokens (nearly all in the host folder) and lots of images in the campaign's images folder.

Reading this thread, it seems like the FG client might be loading all of the tokens in that folder regardless of whether they're being used? Obvious fix there is to winnow it down just to the ones I'm using which is easy enough.

Is the same true for images in the campaign folder? If so, that's a bit more of a PITA, but can be done.

[Trenloe]

I've been seeing similar lockups - typically during combat and always on my (the GM's) machine. Mine have appeared to be full system lockups (e.g. cursor frozen, etc). Normally I'd suspect hardware issues, but the system is entirely stable under a wide range of other much more demanding conditions (running other games, six visual studio instances at once, blah blah). So, I think it's probably a similar sort of memory exhaustion issue that's at the root of it.

I'm curious about exactly how FG handles images and tokens. To make things easier for myself, I've got a whole ton of tokens (nearly all in the host folder) and lots of images in the campaign's images folder.

Reading this thread, it seems like the FG client might be loading all of the tokens in that folder regardless of whether they're being used? Obvious fix there is to winnow it down just to the ones I'm using which is easy enough.

Is the same true for images in the campaign folder? If so, that's a bit more of a PITA, but can be done.

First things first - how much memory is the GM side of FG using?

Second - if you're whole operating system is freezing then this is more than likely graphics card/driver issue with the DirectX 9 implementation that FG uses. Assuming, as you say, your system is running smoothly outside of FG. If it was a memory issue with just FantasyGrounds.exe approaching the memory limits for the FG process (issues start around 3.3-3.4GB) then you'd have issues with FG and not with your whole operating system.

Tokens

- For players - Tokens in the GM shared directory will be shared with the players and loaded into memory when they connect to the GM.

- For the GM - tokens in the host and shared directory will be loaded into memory when FG starts. "a whole ton of tokens" and also larger tokens (resolution) can mean lots of memory use.

Images

- For players - images in any library modules the players have open will all be loaded into memory. Also any campaign images shared by the GM.

- For the GM - images opened, either a campaign image or in a module, will be loaded into the GM instance memory.

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From what you say and all of the above, I'm thinking:
1) that maybe you have too many tokens in the GM hosts directory - which is causing a lot of memory to be used by the GM.
2) You may have a problem with FG and your video card drivers. But let's look at memory use first.

[LordEntrails]

Also note, that FG is single threaded in a way that when a client is odwnloading, the host UI becomes unresponsive. So if you share a 5MB image (not recomended) then while that is downloading to all 6 of your players (which will depnd upon everyones bandwidth) the Host screen will sit unresponsive. You can acctually tab to other (non-FG) windows and do stuff so your system isn't "locked up", but FG will appear locked up because it's busy.

[mprigge]

From what you say and all of the above, I'm thinking:
1) that maybe you have too many tokens in the GM hosts directory - which is causing a lot of memory to be used by the GM.
2) You may have a problem with FG and your video card drivers. But let's look at memory use first.

I am not completely certain how much memory it has used during actual play sessions when it's failed. I generally have my laptop at the table (we're using face-to-face over wifi) and have FG full-screen. So, running Task Manager hasn't been something I've done. And, as I indicated before, the lockups are OS-wide. ALT-Tab does nothing, etc, so it's not easy to check afterward.

So, you may be correct that memory use is not the actual culprit. That said, dumping the tokens out of the folder that I wasn't actively using did shave my memory use at startup from like 1.4GB down to around 850MB. So, that's obviously a positive change regardless of whether it addresses the problem. Though, it'd seem that it might not -- too bad, as it's certainly less complicated to address than video drivers.

As far as the DirectX issue - this is a Lenovo W541 laptop. It has a discrete Quadro K1100M as well as the built-in Intel HD 4600. I've configured the machine to use the nVidia card for FG as the graphics are pretty chunky otherwise (rolling dice is very choppy, etc). I know these setups can be tricky sometimes, so perhaps this is where the problem lies.

Can you think of anything I should change or try prior to my next session (this Saturday)? The crashes are obviously a pretty big downer as it stops the action and then, for some reason, it takes a few reboots to get FG to accept connections from the players again. I'll admit that I've abandoned most good troubleshooting tactics when this problem has arisen because I'm trying to get the game back on track as quickly as possible. So, I apologize if the information I'm giving you isn't that useful.

Let me know if it'd be helpful to have more concrete system information and whether you'd like it posted here or in a PM. Happy to provide anything I can. I am planning on playtesting a few encounters this week sometime, so perhaps I can reproduce it. If it is a graphics issue, it shouldn't really matter whether I have players attached or not, right?

Also note, that FG is single threaded in a way that when a client is odwnloading, the host UI becomes unresponsive. So if you share a 5MB image (not recomended) then while that is downloading to all 6 of your players (which will depnd upon everyones bandwidth) the Host screen will sit unresponsive. You can acctually tab to other (non-FG) windows and do stuff so your system isn't "locked up", but FG will appear locked up because it's busy.

That's typically not a problem (even with large images the few times I forget to resize them) as we're running locally and thus have a lot of bandwidth. But I do know what you mean. Thank you!

[Moon Wizard]

Make sure you are NOT using the 64-bit experimental build. It has known visual lockup issues. (Still saves data, but no screen updates.)

It using the standard build; then definitely look at memory usage and graphics drivers.

Regards,
JPG

[mprigge]

Make sure you are NOT using the 64-bit experimental build. It has known visual lockup issues. (Still saves data, but no screen updates.)

It using the standard build; then definitely look at memory usage and graphics drivers.

Regards,
JPG

Correct - I am not. Though I was tempted to until I came here and read about it. I use fog of war a lot on maps, so that would definitely be a problem.

[Trenloe]

I've moved these posts to a new thread - the issue is different from the original thread and I don't want the two issues getting diluted/confused in the same thread.

As far as the DirectX issue - this is a Lenovo W541 laptop. It has a discrete Quadro K1100M as well as the built-in Intel HD 4600. I've configured the machine to use the nVidia card for FG as the graphics are pretty chunky otherwise (rolling dice is very choppy, etc). I know these setups can be tricky sometimes, so perhaps this is where the problem lies.

Can you think of anything I should change or try prior to my next session (this Saturday)? The crashes are obviously a pretty big downer as it stops the action and then, for some reason, it takes a few reboots to get FG to accept connections from the players again. I'll admit that I've abandoned most good troubleshooting tactics when this problem has arisen because I'm trying to get the game back on track as quickly as possible. So, I apologize if the information I'm giving you isn't that useful.

It's going to be a case of trial-and-error I'm afraid.

- In advanced graphics card settings turn down/off all 3D options (anti-aliasing, etc.) and see if that makes a difference.
- Try newer graphics drivers.
- Try older graphics drivers (this is a solution for some user's graphics issues).

[mprigge]

I've moved these posts to a new thread - the issue is different from the original thread and I don't want the two issues getting diluted/confused in the same thread.

Thanks! Sorry for the unintentional thread-jack.

It's going to be a case of trial-and-error I'm afraid.

- In advanced graphics card settings turn down/off all 3D options (anti-aliasing, etc.) and see if that makes a difference.
- Try newer graphics drivers.
- Try older graphics drivers (this is a solution for some user's graphics issues).

Bah - okay. I assumed as much, but I had hoped there was a magic bullet.