FG running slow

[tattoocory]

I've been adding to my Fantasy Grounds for a long time. I use FG as a tool for world building, and keeping track of my campaigns at the tabletop. However, lately it has been running very slow. I have deactivated many of the modules, but this still doesn't help. I don't have any players connecting to me since I use FG as my DM screen. It could be because I have a butt-load of images stored, and I use the same "campaign" over and over because it has all the custom house rules and world information I need for each adventure.

What can I do to speed things up?

[Moon Wizard]

When you say things are running slow; are you talking about time to load, lag in navigation between records, lag in dice rolls, lag for players to get data, or something else?

For load time (especially player data load times), the things that usually slow things down the most are large modules, a large token store (especially if shared) and/or lots of shared records.

For lag in windows, it may be due to a large number of records (thousands?) in the campaign.

For lag in dice, it is usually tied to the graphics driver or a looping condition in the ruleset eating up computing power.

Regards,
JPG

[sakmerlin37]

@moon_wizard

I, too, am experiencing this problem. My slow time is at start-up. I cannot click on a button for about 1-2 minutes after starting the program. If I accidently hit "Load Campaign" when I want to hit "Create Campaign" it is another 30 seconds to a minute before it shows. It is very difficult to move around within Fantasy Grounds that way.

I notice that it is faster when my Internet connection is better. I have horrible, horrible Internet connections, living in rural Alaska. Often, I cannot connect. However, taking this moment as an example, I can connect fine and FG opens fairly quickly. In fact, I just did it and was able to navigate within 1 to 2 seconds.

It is only when I have no connection or am getting approximately 5kilobits/down that it takes forever for FG to open.

[Trenloe]

It is only when I have no connection or am getting approximately 5kilobits/down that it takes forever for FG to open.
This sounds like it is related to the alias refresh taking a long time due to your internet connection having an issue. See this post for more info regarding disabling the alias: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showpost.php?p=150593&postcount=10

[Moon Wizard]

We were having some troubles with our old server, and just migrated servers this weekend. The issues with the old server caused the host alias refresh settings to wait for a timeout before failing and starting the tabletop. With the new server, it's running even faster than before.

As Trenloe mentioned, if it happens again, you can disable the alias option, and just use the external IP for connections to bypass our servers.

Regards,
JPG

[jedorian]

Some of my gaming group was having this problem as well. They complained of FG lagging heavily. Some would be able to see a shared image within seconds while others had to wait several minutes before the image would finally appear on their screen. Or they would see the tokens for the PCs and monsters, but no map image. Some odd stuff that I haven't experienced myself, but they are. Sounds like its all settled now, though.

[Trenloe]

Some of my gaming group was having this problem as well. They complained of FG lagging heavily. Some would be able to see a shared image within seconds while others had to wait several minutes before the image would finally appear on their screen. Or they would see the tokens for the PCs and monsters, but no map image. Some odd stuff that I haven't experienced myself, but they are. Sounds like its all settled now, though.
Once you're in a game, there is no connection to the Smiteworks server. So lag within a game will not be fixed by the new server.

Moon_Wizard mentions some reasons for lag in post #2 above.

Also, if there is a delay loading images then this will more than likely be due to the data transfer times over the internet which can be due to a number of things, but is usually related to the upload speed of the GM and the download speed of the players internet connections, plus the size of the shared image. A way to reduce lag here is for the GM to keep the image/map sizes as small as is reasonable - usually below 1MB is a good idea, even smaller if players are still taking a while to see the image. Plus, a GM can pre-share images so they are already downloaded to the players before they actually share the image - GMs should make use of this feature (tight-click on the image and select Sharing -> Preload Image) if the players are experiencing long load times for images.

[jedorian]

Sometimes even when the image is preloaded, the player(s) may take a moment to see the image. There are other things that they have commented on, but I have not experienced on my end where the mask will not properly reveal for them or they can see the red square where the foe is, but not the token to represent the foe and they can't target it through the map. In total, all of these things are so minor that we hardly pay it any mind as it hasn't ever prevented us from playing or ruined the game.

Their lag problems must be related to their personal net connections. One of my friends has multiple routers in his house and many devices all working from the same connection, so that might cause a problem for him. I know next to nothing about that sort of thing.

[Trenloe]

There are other things that they have commented on, but I have not experienced on my end where the mask will not properly reveal for them or they can see the red square where the foe is, but not the token to represent the foe and they can't target it through the map. In total, all of these things are so minor that we hardly pay it any mind as it hasn't ever prevented us from playing or ruined the game.
Out of curiosity, are you using the layers (enhanced images) extension?

[Moon Wizard]

I also know that FG had some issues with spotty network connections (especially over mobile) where tokens and images do not load correctly. There is a patch coming in v3.0 which should help with that, but I always suggest making sure that your wireless connection is strong or using a physical line if there are issues.

I have one player that occasionally tries to play while he is away on a boat, and he sees these problems.

Regards,
JPG

[jedorian]

No, Trenloe, I'm not using one of the layer extensions. But, I have been curious about them. I do like to place tokens on the map at times to add more to the scenery. I have a file with nothing but potted plants, tables, dressers, and all kinds of furniture, plus effects like explosion clouds, gas clouds, lightning bolts, etc..

I'm just lazy, so I haven't bothered with exploring how one of the extension works.

I figure that must be what the problem is with some of my gaming friends, Moon. They might just have a very weak connection. Although, whenever they host, none of that stuff ever happens.

[sakmerlin37]

We were having some troubles with our old server, and just migrated servers this weekend. The issues with the old server caused the host alias refresh settings to wait for a timeout before failing and starting the tabletop. With the new server, it's running even faster than before.

As Trenloe mentioned, if it happens again, you can disable the alias option, and just use the external IP for connections to bypass our servers.

Regards,
JPG

I've tried getting to the "alias" function, but it takes 1-2 minutes to be able to get that to pop up. It seems to be always reset to connect by default, even after I turn it off. Is there a way to make it disabled by default and then turn it on as required?

[Moon Wizard]

For the host, the alias should just be a checkbox that you can turn on or off in the Load or Create campaign page of the launcher. It is a global setting for all campaigns, and is stored in the Windows registry.

For the client, either the alias or the external IP address can be used when connecting to the host. The client only uses the alias lookup, if an alias is provided instead of an IP address.

Regards,
JPG

[Trenloe]

For the host, the alias should just be a checkbox that you can turn on or off in the Load or Create campaign page of the launcher. It is a global setting for all campaigns, and is stored in the Windows registry.
The registry key doesn't seem to make a difference.

I start FG, select "Load Campaign" and disable the alias. I exit FG and check the registry "DisableSessionKey" = 1, looks good. I start up FG and as soon as I go to the "Load Campaign" screen the registry key disappears and the alias is showing enabled.

[Trenloe]

I've tried getting to the "alias" function, but it takes 1-2 minutes to be able to get that to pop up.
Really? It takes 1-2 minutes to go from the first screen to the "Load Campaign" screen where you can disable the alias? It takes about 1 second on my PC.

Or, are you talking about something else? :)

[sakmerlin37]

@Trenloe

Nope, I start the program and click on Load or on Create and it takes 1-2 minutes to pop up any choices.

If my Internet is good, it takes a normal amount of time. If my Internet is bad, then it takes a long time just to be able to get to the alias check box.

After I am able to select what I want to do, it then takes awhile to start the program after I hit Start.

[Trenloe]

Nope, I start the program and click on Load or on Create and it takes 1-2 minutes to pop up any choices.

If my Internet is good, it takes a normal amount of time. If my Internet is bad, then it takes a long time just to be able to get to the alias check box.
Hhhmmm, that doesn't sound right... I'm not sure if there is any check made over the internet when the load campaign button is pressed, unless this is when the Ultimate licence validation is made - do you have an ultimate or full licence?

Even so, I think there is still something up. You're running on Linux, right? How is your Linux setup? As a VM or a direct install?

[sakmerlin37]

Hhhmmm, that doesn't sound right... I'm not sure if there is any check made over the internet when the load campaign button is pressed, unless this is when the Ultimate licence validation is made - do you have an ultimate or full licence?

Even so, I think there is still something up. You're running on Linux, right? How is your Linux setup? As a VM or a direct install?
I'm running a Full, I hope to get an Ultimate soon :)

I'm running it through Wine. Otherwise, nothing too special about the install.

[Trenloe]

I'm running it through Wine. Otherwise, nothing too special about the install.
When I run FG through wine on a VM install of Ubuntu Linux it works fine for me - virtually instantaneous move from the first screen to the load campaign screen. It may be worth enabling debug mode (in the settings screen), running FG and then checking console.log in the app data directory to see if there are any obvious delays between steps in that log and if there are any errors being reported.

There should not be any sort of delay between the first screen and the load campaign screen. All I can think of is that perhaps this is when FG reads your <FG App Data Directory> for all of the directories under \campaigns - if FG is struggling to read this for some reason then it may cause the delay you are seeing, perhaps a Linux file access issue? Check the console.log file as mentioned above for any errors. Also, check how quickly you can access the <FG App Data Directory> under Wine - perhaps try accessing it through Wine explorer or something before you run FG.

[Greygor]

@Trenloe

Nope, I start the program and click on Load or on Create and it takes 1-2 minutes to pop up any choices.

If my Internet is good, it takes a normal amount of time. If my Internet is bad, then it takes a long time just to be able to get to the alias check box.

After I am able to select what I want to do, it then takes awhile to start the program after I hit Start.

I'm getting that same issue.

I have an Ultimate license, a fibre optic connection (80-90Mb down/10-12 Mb Up) and Windows 7 32 bit.

In addition one issue we had last night was for one player the image just wouldn't load, but it was fine for everyone else. Nothing seemed to help him see the image. In the past he's seen the image fine.

Not sure what the right trouble shooting steps we could go through to try and solve his issue. (we did try disconnect and reconnect and clearing the cache neither of which seemed to help).

The only change between this session and the session before was FG was updated to the latest version.

[Blacky]

In addition one issue we had last night was for one player the image just wouldn't load, but it was fine for everyone else. Nothing seemed to help him see the image. In the past he's seen the image fine.
I have experimented similar issues in the past (over the last 3 years), or some people in my group have. At the time, the GM had a stable but somewhat slow connection (around 2000/150Kbs), and we used a community ruleset (Warhammer v2).

Images infinite load screen, empty images, some tokens missing, very long load times (sometimes even with preloading, and when I say very long I've calculated the GM upload, divided the stream between the 4 players, reduced by VOIP bandwith, etc etc.) and so on.

We try to investigate this, without much success, seems kinda random.

[Trenloe]

I have experimented similar issues in the past (over the last 3 years), or some people in my group have. At the time, the GM had a stable but somewhat slow connection (around 2000/150Kbs), and we used a community ruleset (Warhammer v2).

Images infinite load screen, empty images, some tokens missing, very long load times (sometimes even with preloading, and when I say very long I've calculated the GM upload, divided the stream between the 4 players, reduced by VOIP bandwith, etc etc.) and so on.

We try to investigate this, without much success, seems kinda random.

150Kbps is a sloooooow link - no wonder you were seeing a lot of delays. If your GM didn't make a big effort to reduce the size of the maps then you will see delays in multiple minutes for maps to download. For example, take the first map in the first post of Tor's excellent map thread: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?15833-Tor-s-Maps This map is 833KB in size, so it will take around 1 minute to upload to 1 player - under ideal connection conditions and no other communication on the channel (which won't be the case during the game): https://www.t1shopper.com/tools/calculate/downloadcalculator.php

Multiply this 1 minute upload delay by each player and you will get a delay of 4 minutes to upload - under perfect conditions. FG is doing other communication during the game, so this upload time would increase. This would probably result in some people getting a timeout and not seeing the image at all - even waiting for a long time. Pre-sharing images would take a similar, if not longer time to upload to the PCs, so the GM would have to do pre-sharing at the beginning of the game and hope that everything had downloaded to everyone by the time they wanted to use it.

I don't think the delays and issues you were experiencing weren't random, I think they were unfortunately pretty predictable.... :-( The GM would have to be very careful about the size of images, tokens, etc. and try to keep these to an absolute minimum - and even then there would be delays in excess of 30 seconds, even for a fairly small image (100KB).

[Blacky]

Okay, again: I calculated all that, it wasn't normal network speed. Even with a 50% encapsulation waste.

I'm talking about images fully pre-loaded several sessions before that are stuck in “loading” screen for over an hour sometimes two, I'm talking about 1KB (not a typo) token that take over 90 minutes to load. And so on. While other similar cases works fine. As I said, random.

Some of the symptoms were probably ruleset related, but far from all.

Oh, and by the way, even with a 1MBs upload, when you use VOIP it's pretty clear when FG2 hogs all the bandwith: the VOIP gets screwed during that time (which is kind of annoying, maybe a future version of FG could handle local QoS rules better?).

We ended up using Rolisteam (another, although GPL, virtual tabletop rpg software) along with FG2, to display images. It has no caching function, no preloading, nothing of the sort. And yet images were displayed in a few seconds, a few minutes for the biggest ones, as expected.

What I'm saying is that a “slow” FG2 report isn't always a pure network or alias server thing.

[Griogre]

Ah, try turning off QoS on the GM's server and see what happens. Many VoIPs are bandwidth hogs assuming they are the priority app, especially Skype. Try Teamspeak or Mumble on narrowband codecs.

[Moon Wizard]

Thanks for all the information. We are aware that the FG networking code is a bit dated, and is not as efficient as it could be. Since it's not a user-facing notion, most people do not run into issues and it's deeply embedded in the client code, we haven't touched it yet. But, it's definitely not for lack of desire, just bandwidth vs. functionality vs. finding a good library to work with our code base.

Additionally, I found a bug in the networking code that will be patched in v3.0, which will cause images/tokens to not be retried after a network connection loss. Thus, poor/slow connections would sometimes never load some images or tokens during a session. It was never reproducible, because it is dependent on a spotty network connection combined with a network failure at just the right time.

I know that's not a great answer, but I thought I would add a few words. We are listening.

Regards,
JPG

[Blacky]

Additionally, I found a bug in the networking code that will be patched in v3.0, which will cause images/tokens to not be retried after a network connection loss. Thus, poor/slow connections would sometimes never load some images or tokens during a session. It was never reproducible, because it is dependent on a spotty network connection combined with a network failure at just the right time.
That might explain some of my past experience. Nice catch.


I know that's not a great answer, but I thought I would add a few words. We are listening.
It's a start. I know these things are difficult to debug, especially when you don't have clear reproducible bug triggers.

Thanks.