FG and the internet

[Nickademus]

Here is a question that is probably too obvious for me to see the answer to, or maybe I'm just paranoid.

I've seen the discussions on what licenses require internet access to connect to which and such. What I'm curious about is, can a Full or Ultimate license run a GM client and utilize the assets in a campaign without any access to the internet? No players trying to connect, just opening a campaign and using it.

[damned]

Yes.

[Nickademus]

Good.

[Trenloe]

FG needs the internet for two things:

Alias to IP address functionality. GM sends the details to the Smiteworks server when the campaign starts and a client connects to the Smiteworks server if they are using an alias to convert that to the GMs IP address.
A unregistered client when it connects to an Ultimate license.

Point one doesn't stop the GM loading their campaign if they don't have an internet connection.

[Nickademus]

Good, I can get a laptop for FG now. The system requirements on the FG site are vastly under what you quoted me. I'm curious if they are still valid, not that I'd be going that low.

[damned]

how many modules and tokens and images you load has a big bearing on the actual real life system requirements.
on a 32bit OS you hit a memory limit at around 1.6GB and this can be reached quite easily on FG.
get a 64bit OS with 4GB ram or more and you should be fine.

[Nickademus]

on a 32bit OS you hit a memory limit at around 1.6GB and this can be reached quite easily on FG.
get a 64bit OS with 4GB ram or more and you should be fine.

That's what I mean. Your numbers are quite a bit higher than what is quoted on the Store page for a license:

Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7 with DirectX 9.0 or better
DirectX 9.0 compatible video adapter
Pentium 3 500MHz or equivalent
RAM: 256 MB
Video memory: 32 MB
Hard drive space: 100 MB
Internet Connection

[damned]

true - you might run with that but you will be limited with how much content you can load...
realistically SW ought to change that to 2GB...

[Qai]

With regards to RAM requirements, also consider:

1. The size of the Windows Pagefile; and
2. "Large Address Aware" utilities.

[Nickademus]

1. The size of the Windows Pagefile; and
2. "Large Address Aware" utilities.

I have no clue what these are, but I wasn't going to be getting a 256 RAM system anyway. Still not sure whether to go laptop or tablet though.

[Moon Wizard]

Updated system reqs to reflect growing feature set of FG.
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/features/systemreqs.xcp

Cheers,
JPG

[Qai]

A Windows Pagefile is your virtual memory. What this means is two things: 1) if you run out of physical RAM, then the hard drive starts being used providing more RAM in the form of "virtual" RAM. Access to this RAM is magnitudes slower as it is done via the hard drive. However, it still allows you to run programs even when you've hit the hard limit; and 2) when you have multiple applications open that gobble up a lot of RAM, the least-used ones / those that are minimized, are temporarily transferred to the pagefile on your hard drive freeing up some physical RAM for your focused apps. The pagefiled apps get put back into physical RAM when you start using them again.

Large Address Aware utilities essentially set a flag in the exe that allows the OS to allocate more than the ~2 GB RAM that restricts the app. So, a 32-bit app / 32-bit OS can be extended to use a max of 4 GB RAM for the app.

Therefore, it's not necessary to invest in a higher-end laptop/tablet for JUST Fantasy Grounds, i.e., 64-bit OS, lots of RAM, etc. There are tricks you can do with cheaper, lower-end products to still be on safe-footing with FG.

[Trenloe]

Large Address Aware utilities essentially set a flag in the exe that allows the OS to allocate more than the ~2 GB RAM that restricts the app. So, a 32-bit app / 32-bit OS can be extended to use a max of 4 GB RAM for the app.
Not strictly true - the maximum memory that a 32-bit OS can access for all running programs is 3.5GB. Just having the Large Address Aware flag on a 32-bit app will not automatically allow the app to access more than 2GB of RAM on a 32-bit OS - the /PAE or /3GB flag also needs to be set for the 32-bit OS to allow an individual, LAA enabled, application to access more than 2GB of RAM.

More info here: https://helloacm.com/large-address-aware/


Therefore, it's not necessary to invest in a higher-end laptop/tablet for JUST Fantasy Grounds, i.e., 64-bit OS, lots of RAM, etc. There are tricks you can do with cheaper, lower-end products to still be on safe-footing with FG.
This is true in terms of pure memory access/limits. But, if a GM PC is swapping in and out of virtual memory then players and GMs could experience lagging when displaying results in the chat window - especially for dice rolls. If this lagging might be an issue to you and your players then you really should have enough RAM to prevent regular swapping to virtual memory if you are going to be the GM.

[Nickademus]

This is true in terms of pure memory access/limits. But, if a GM PC is swapping in and out of virtual memory then players and GMs could experience lagging when displaying results in the chat window - especially for dice rolls. If this lagging might be an issue to you and your players then you really should have enough RAM to prevent regular swapping to virtual memory if you are going to be the GM.

I'll keep this in mind, but the FG on this system will be used for live game strictly as a database and tracker. The chat window won't even be visible and no players will be connecting. So I'm not worried at all about lag. I just want a way to use my digital modules as content for my live games so I can retire my paper database. And the CT is of course a bonus.

[damned]

Not strictly true - the maximum memory that a 32-bit OS can access for all running programs is 3.5GB. Just having the Large Address Aware flag on a 32-bit app will not automatically allow the app to access more than 2GB of RAM on a 32-bit OS - the /PAE or /3GB flag also needs to be set for the 32-bit OS to allow an individual, LAA enabled, application to access more than 2GB of RAM.

I don't believe this is strictly true either.
the 4GB limit is actually a limit on how much physical address space can be addressed.
all your devices like usb ports, raid controllers, video cards count towards this limit. if you have a 1gb video ram you will get access to less than 3gb ram. similarly it is possible to success more than 3.5gb depending on all these other devices.
at the other end 32bit OS like windows server 2003 enterprise can address 64gb ram...

but the reality is for most systems if you want to access 4gb RAM you need a 64bit OS.
the majority of windows computers sold today are already 64bit - but check before you buy - there is no price difference.
what is the downside? there are plenty of older apps that wont run on 64bit platforms - if you have some older software that you need to transfer to your new computer - check first...

[Nickademus]

What do you guys think about this one:
Acer Aspire (https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Acer-Aspire-V5-122P-0681-Touchscreen-Laptop/productID.283975600)

[damned]

hard to go wrong at that price.
the only caveat is the 11" screen will look good but everything will be pretty small on the screen,
note: im on a surface tablet at the moment so I definitely have my specs on.

[Doswelk]

You can now change the UI scale (how big everything is), if you find things hard to read go into settings and make the UI greater than 100. Note this does not just affect text size all graphical elements are scaled up, I have a nice big 27" monitor on my PC so I drop the UI scale down to 85% to give more more space :)

[Qai]

What do you guys think about this one:
Acer Aspire (https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Acer-Aspire-V5-122P-0681-Touchscreen-Laptop/productID.283975600)

If that's how much you're willing to spend, then that's a good deal. It's a 64-bit processor and plenty of RAM. The only thing I would make sure at this point is that the version of Windows 8 you get with it is 64-bit as well and not 32-bit. There's no reason that I know of why it would come pre-loaded with the 32-bit version, but just check to be sure. If it comes with 64-bit, then you are good to go. If you have access in-store to fiddle with the machine, then you can check the version by following the steps here (https://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows-8/a/windows-8-64-bit-32-bit.htm). If it's an online purchase, then perhaps just fire off a quick e-mail to support/sales.

[Blacky]

I don't know if FG is flagged and compiled to access more than 2GB of ram by itself?

But that's a pretty big chunk of ram nonetheless, I reckon I don't have tons of 200px tokens and such on my campaigns but I never broke 512mb dedicated memory with FG (and it's usually less than that).

Edit : I just tested, to broke the 1GB dedicated memory for FG I had to use the 4E ruleset and opened 20MB worth of images&plans (that's a lot of very big images, much more opened at the same time than needed by any normal campaign). Unless stories, notes, npc unloaded takes up a lot of memory or several loaded takes up a lot a lot of memory, should be rare to break 1GB memory, much less 1.5GB, and pretty much aimed for to go for the 2GB.

As far as I can see, but I can be wrong, the new 4GB requirement is more like the “recommended” requirement (also known as don't bother me with hardware ;) ), including a 64bits Win7 or Win8 that takes up a lot, and several others programs opened at the same time as FG (Teamspeak, a PDF reader, a web browser, etc.). If careful about memory usage, should be possible to run FG with reasonably complex campaigns with a 2GB computer (especially if memory usage is conservative and well managed, like a Debian with a lite windowed desktop).

In any cases, FG is quite lite (even if slow sometimes). Unless using a somewhat very old computer or a lite one (like a netbook), nowadays the base memory for a new computer is 8GB, it was 4GB for several years, pretty much spacious enough.

Unless I missed something. What's the most memory usage you had without dumping tons of images on the FG desktop? Like, one medium battlemap, one small token set but a lot of scripts, combats, and such, what was your max dedicated memory?

As far as images are concerned, does clients actions impact host and other client memory? I mean, if a player opens up several images by himself from its image tab, does the host do anything, does it impact the host memory usage?

[Blacky]

What do you guys think about this one:
Acer Aspire (https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Acer-Aspire-V5-122P-0681-Touchscreen-Laptop/productID.283975600)
I'm not a laptop specialist, always almost used desktop. But I do know that Acer reputation is terrible, those things break just by looking at them sideways. However they're cheap.

You might look at serious websites, like Tom's hardware or Anandtech. They might have reviews that would help you choose something good.

As for the base hardware of this, apart from the incredibly small screen (and very probably an incredibly bad one too), it's quite enough of course for FG (even with others programs loaded with it). The HDD is going to be incredibly slow, but you can always swap it out after the warranty expire and get a SSD, it will change your life. And add another screen to be more comfortable (although I find GMing with dual FullHD screens is borderline insufficient, I'm salivating about the idea of adding a third screen, but that's me), if the converter works from VGA to DVI or HDMI (the video memory is probably shared, but with 6GB shouldn't be an issue).

[damned]

hi Blacky,

you will find a dozen or more posts of people having quirky errors that have come down to excess memory usage - most of them due to the number of modules and tokens in the respective folders. some people have 1000+ tokens and a dozen modules opened and they all chew mem.
I try to only load a base set of tokens (about 50 character + 50 monsters) and the specific tokens I know i will need but many long running campaigns experience a lot of size creep.
Many also like to have nice high def maps that take up a lot of space - again I try and keep maps well under 500kb.
Typically my FG uses less than 500MB ram but I think thats also a conscious effort to keep it low.

[Trenloe]

I don't know if FG is flagged and compiled to access more than 2GB of ram by itself?
Yes, it is. :)