Maps too large for FG to properly run

[Areaus]

So I bought 3 map packs from the site here and installed them no problem. The issue came when I tried to open and share the largest in the packs with my players.

Winding Caverns Triple Threat was the biggest offender, though I didn't focus on the others as this was the one I was trying to use. But the Greystone Castle and Cobblestone City will certainly have similar issues if their map files are as large.

for one, it took well over an hour for my players to receive the files from me in full and secondly, it repeatedly crashed both their clients and the DM host due to a RAM overload. Being a 32bit program, FG can't use more than 3GB of RAM at any time, but this was maxing that out and causing crash errors like Bad Allocation and such.

Any hints or pointers on how to rectify this would be great, as it stands, I simply can not use a few of the maps I purchased because they're just too big for the program they're made for.

P.S.: I have over 16GB of ram on my PC and am running an i7 processor.

[Trenloe]

I've just tried opening and sharing this map and I don't see a significant increase in memory being used.

What version of FG are you running? Which ruleset are you running?

Are you running a 32-bit or 64-bit operating system?

Are you force loading the map module to the players or individually sharing each map one at a time?

Open Windows Task Manager - how much memory FantasyGrounds.exe is taking when you first load up your campaign.

How many modules do you have open as a GM in the library?

[Trenloe]

Update: I've just done some testing. If the GM allows the players access directly to the module with a tick/check or lightning symbol in the Module Activation (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/wiki/index.php/Library#Module_Activation) window, and the player then opens the module all of the maps will be loaded into memory which will cause an overload on most systems.

Make sure the moduel activation is set to the red X for these modules and just share maps one at a time.

[Trenloe]

After setting all of the map modules to be blocked for the players, each player will need to clear their player cache to get a clean start. On the "Join Game" screen each player should click the nuclear "clear player data cache" icon towards the top right before actually joining the game.

[LordEntrails]

Is their a way that something like large maps could be shared to the players without them opening in the FG session? i.e. it would be nice to be able to push shared data to their hard drives prior to a session (or at the start of it) and then just make them visible as normal. This way when sharing we wouldn't have to wait for any bandwidth issues etc.

[Trenloe]

Is their a way that something like large maps could be shared to the players without them opening in the FG session? i.e. it would be nice to be able to push shared data to their hard drives prior to a session (or at the start of it) and then just make them visible as normal. This way when sharing we wouldn't have to wait for any bandwidth issues etc.
Open an image. Right-click on the image and select Sharing -> Preload Image.

This will send the image to the players but won't open it. It does add it to the player's image list so it's possible for the players to open the image from their list. To combat this, a GM can mask the image before sharing.

When the GM then shares the image, it will open it for all connected players from their local cache (already downloaded due to Preload Image) The GM can then unmask the image as needed.

[LordEntrails]

Thanks:)

[Areaus]

Sorry about the delayed response, I will try to get those answers to you shortly.

I know off the top of my head it's a 64 bit system, I run the 5e rules with both of the new 5e modules installed.

If I recall I was capping at about 2.8gb of RAM while I have 16 available.

I do like the idea of preloading select images and will try that on Saturday during my next game.

As far as force loading goes, I tried pretty much all the options and also dumped cache client side on all attempts, but the really big maps would still cause crashes.

I can't vouch for the players' computer quality, some are pretty old.

In the end I changed maps to something smaller and just made due. Let me know ow if this helps at all.

[JohnD]

Open an image. Right-click on the image and select Sharing -> Preload Image.

This will send the image to the players but won't open it. It does add it to the player's image list so it's possible for the players to open the image from their list. To combat this, a GM can mask the image before sharing.

When the GM then shares the image, it will open it for all connected players from their local cache (already downloaded due to Preload Image) The GM can then unmask the image as needed.

Just wanted to add that your players will I believe see the map name if they look in their maps list so in addition to masking you might want to rename the map in FG to something non descriptive and change it again when they finally get to it.

[damned]

Sorry about the delayed response, I will try to get those answers to you shortly.

I know off the top of my head it's a 64 bit system, I run the 5e rules with both of the new 5e modules installed.

If I recall I was capping at about 2.8gb of RAM while I have 16 available.

I do like the idea of preloading select images and will try that on Saturday during my next game.

As far as force loading goes, I tried pretty much all the options and also dumped cache client side on all attempts, but the really big maps would still cause crashes.

I can't vouch for the players' computer quality, some are pretty old.

In the end I changed maps to something smaller and just made due. Let me know ow if this helps at all.

Dont share adventure modules with players. Share individual records, maps etc only and only when needed. You will have issues if you share the whole module.