Hi FG Uses 1GB RAM and is Slow

[BruntFCA]

Great application.

However, the test Campaign I am running, now takes about 1 min to open up. I've checked in Task Manager and it uses about 1GB of RAM.

I'm running the latest version on Windows 7 64 (6GB RAM Core 2 E6600, Nvidia 8800GTX 756MB) bit as of time of writing.

I have put maybe 900 small tokens (60by) from WOTC website and maybe 900 other images (100by100)in the tokens folder. I put them in "Host" and not shared so as to not slow client connects. In total all the tokens consist of about 90MB of files

I only have about 4 maps, most are really small <200K. but one is 1MB. Even a 1MB file is tiny compares to how much free RAM I have in Task Manager.

So what's causing the slowdown, is it likely the tokens? If so how can I create a per Campaign set of tokens, there's no directory under the Campaign folder, only a portraits one.

I can prolly sort this out myself in the end, but I can't do it without some pointers as to what I should expect for performance or how FG2 works technically.

[Zeus]

Does the campaign have any modules activated and open?

If so, try reducing the number you have active and open (close the book icons).

I generally find the greater the number of modules you have open, the longer it takes FGII to start-up the campaign.

[ddavison]

We have some work to do on how tokens function. The original design did not adequately predict the total # of tokens that would typically exist in someone's host or shared folders. This would be my biggest guess as to why you are experiencing the delayed start. If you move those tokens out of your folder temporarily and re-launch, do you still see the same delayed start and memory usage?

If so, you can try putting your tokens into individual modules that you load or unload on demand. We do that with the newest Fiery Dragon and other token packs for this reason.

[Moon Wizard]

Also, you can add a "tokens" folder to each campaign, and place tokens there. They will be treated as host tokens, but only for that campaign.

Cheers,
JPG

[BruntFCA]

Also, you can add a "tokens" folder to each campaign, and place tokens there. They will be treated as host tokens, but only for that campaign.

Cheers,
JPG

Thanks for the replies. I did no know that tokens could be done on a Campaign basis; that needs to be pointed out more. I did guess this might be available, how else could I see the DMs monsters for his campaign?

I have discovered the cause of the problem, which may amuse you....

I was using the 4e Parser. It appears that whatever is placed in the "temp" directory gets zipped up an put into a module. There's a field in the monster manual parse for tokens (never got it to work), I was hoping it would link the png filename to the XML somehow, it never did.

What it does do however, is *zip up anything* in that temp directory and put it in the module it exports. Now my temp dir is full of junk, not to mention that I put all 1800 tokens in it.

So it put all the junk into the mod. I think I had 3 modules, of 256MB each.

Tenion needs to be more careful with what he does with the temp directory. I know he's making the thing free, but why zip the whole temp dir? When most of whats needed in the module is db.xml, definitions.xml and the thumbnail.

There could be quite a few people out there who have left drafts, images, swap files etc, in the temp directory....all this junk could be ending up in their .mod files, slowing down and eventually crashing FG2.

Anyway, the issue is now solved, and there was not really anthing wrong with my FG2 installation, thanks.

[ddavison]

Wow. Thanks for the detailed explanation of your issue as well. Maybe we can put this on our FAQ page. There might be others out there experiencing the same problem.

-Doug

[Zeus]

BruntFCA - As a general guideline I create the following structure for my modules created by the Parser:

Players Handbook - example folder name for the module
- input - folder containing input txt files for module
--> images - folder containing input image files for module
--> tokens - folder containing token files for module
-output - empty folder that will hold the module output files

Now when parsing set the temp output folder for the module to the subfolder output.

If you do this for every module you create, you should find you will have a clean temp directory for every module. Certainly less chance of a module being zipped with files that are not needed.

Also for tokens, for NPCs, simply add the ZTOKEN <token filename> keyword to your entries in the Monster Fluff file. Alternatively name your token files exactly the same as the monster entries in your fluff file.