Players Experiencing Very High Memory

[shartahl]

Running the Starfinder rules for a game and all 5 players are experiencing high memory usage by the program, including the desktop at my house that my wife uses, so I see the problem first hand. With just Starfinder Core Rules and Starfinder Armory, the task manager shows the program sitting at around 3,300MB memory usage. At 3,580MB the clipboard error log pops up and starts spitting out read errors. One the GM side, I have minimized the amount of modules I have loaded, though the memory effects are not happening to me, just players. I can load every module I have and only go up to 1,600MB. This seems to only effect players. I only load Core Rules, Armory, and the current Adventure Path module.

As a reference, we last games two month ago and everyone had every module loaded, with everything running great with no issues. With us running a year worth of sessions also with no issues like this. Something definitely changed.

Troubleshooting steps already taken:

* All players have reset their cache. This was getting people to connect successfully without crashing, but memory was still high.

* I did the reset db command in the chat window

* Unloaded all my GM modules and only load a skeleton set.

I don't think I should have to unload that much stuff to run this. Wondering if anyone else had similar issues and resolved them.


I don't think hardware is the issue. This is the desktop my wife uses having the player-side issues:
8th generation 6-core i5
8 GB RAM
over 1TB drive space free
Radeon RX 560X with 4GB GDDR5
Windows 10 Home

[Temmpest]

I've been having memory issues too. What I have done is bring up the Task Manager (Ctrl + Alt + Del) and then I will turn off programs that load automatically that I am not using, such as Skype, Cortana, etc. I also have 8 GB of RAM but I am considering upgrading to 16.

[shartahl]

Problem with this particular thing is that the program is 32-bit, so it only supports 4GB, which ends up being around 3600M usable. This means you can have all the RAM you can muster, but the program is hard capped.

[Temmpest]

Ah! Good to know.

[damned]

What is the size of your campaign directory?
How many tokens in your \tokens\shared directory?
How many tokens in your \tokens\host directory?

[LordEntrails]

Tokens and shared images are almost always the culprit for high memory use. After you check your tokens, check the images list and see how many you have shared, and unshare anything that you don't need.

[shartahl]

I only have a few images shared. A single battle map and a few reference card images. Shared token directory has 5 in it, at about 120k each. In the host folder inside tokens, there are 2900 onjects, totaling 179MB. Are those still cached over, even though not shared? None of them are actually used in the current adventure, so I could just shift them to a temp folder outside the main folder.

[damned]

I would definitely move those tokens out as a first test.

For your 5 tokens - typically the largest these ever need to be is 200x200pixels.

[shartahl]

tokens in shared are 256x256 pixels, created using the token maker software. I am going to run some tests on the player side tomorrow with the things I have adjusted so far.

[Temmpest]

So, if I shift the tokens outside the host directory, can I still access them?

[damned]

You wrote earlier "None of them are actually used in the current adventure"
Just copy them back as you need them.

[LordEntrails]

Or put them into token modules and only activate the modules you need when you need them.

[Temmpest]

Can I search for them without activating module?

[LordEntrails]

Nope. But if you organize the modules, you will hopefully only need to load one or two or three. But, pro's and con's to each method.

[Temmpest]

I actually had a few hundred tokens in the host folder. Moved them out onto desktop. I can search for them manually through FG. I hope this helps my memory problems. Thanks!

[Trenloe]

I doubt that the tokens in the GM hosts directory are effecting the player memory use.

The Starfinder Armory was released just last week. I don’t have the FG product.

What is the player memory usage if they don’t have that module activated?
Is there a player and a GM module or just one single module?

[shartahl]

analysis and test results.
**Conditions**
Modules loaded on GM side: Starfinder Core, Starfinder Armory, Dead Suns Book 5
Modules loaded player side: Starfinder Core, Starfinder Armory
no tokens in shared, less than 1MB of tokens in host (5 tokens that are 256px256p and 130k each)
unshared all images for a baseline. I don't share any other items other than images


Fantasy Grounds GM side memory usage: 400MB
Fantasy Grounds Player side memory usage: 3,184MB

Memory after Starfinder Armory deactivated: 2,563MB (621MB reduction)
Memory after Starfinder Core Rules deactivated: 342MB (2,221MB reduction)



This is all very inconvenient, as I would like more than bare bones modules available. Is there any good reason why the Starfinder Core Rules on the player side is using 62% of the programs maximum memory allocation and the armor adding another 17%?

[shartahl]

Armor and Core Rules both only have a single module, since they are core items and don't have super secret info

[LordEntrails]

Sounds like the images in the Starfinder Core Rules needs to be looked into by the dev. Maybe reduced, maybe even a separate images module...

[esmdev]

Is it possible that the players have the tokens cached still?

[shartahl]

Is it possible that the players have the tokens cached still?

Cleared player cache after the token clearing from host. New memory levels

Core + Armory = 3011
Core = 2230
None loaded = 182

Core Rules Memory Usage = 2230
Armory Memory Usage = 599

Not much change after token purge. Something is still going on that is having the player side hold a huge amount of data in memory

[LordEntrails]

Player side client handles memory different than the GM side. It's part of the legacy architecture. Player clients open every image into session even if the player never opens the image or token.

So, every image in the Core Rules is opened by the players, even though the GM doesn't open them into RAM until they are actually used. That's why I said you need to have the Dev looking into reducing the images. If they have to reduce them enough, they might want to provide a high res images only module. i.e. the regular module would have only low res images, then make a separate module so the GM can access the high res version and share individual images as desired.

I would suggest you post in the SF bug thread and link back to these posts.

[shartahl]

I will do that, thank you!

[shartahl]

I have it posted on the bug thread and it was acknowledged on testing they did, that the Starfinder core was pulling 2200M and Armor was pulling almost 700M. It may have to do with the size and number of images embedded in the rulesets.

[vainazzo]

I have this happening on the GM side as well... But not starfinder, Castles and crusades and savage worlds. I even created a new campaign and just sat there while I watched the memory climb not doing anything. Once it hits 3.58GB boom bad allocations. I was using the 64 bit guy fine but it seems it was turned off during an update or an I mistaken?

[Trenloe]

I even created a new campaign and just sat there while I watched the memory climb not doing anything.
If all you did was create a new campaign, without opening any library modules, the cause will more than likely be tokens you have in your FG /tokens directory - these are all loaded by the GM instance of FG when the GM starts the campaign. How many tokens do you have, and what is the total file size of them?

The 64-bit experimental application had issues (primarily around image unmasking) and so has been withdrawn for the time being.

[Zacchaeus]

I have this happening on the GM side as well... But not starfinder, Castles and crusades and savage worlds. I even created a new campaign and just sat there while I watched the memory climb not doing anything. Once it hits 3.58GB boom bad allocations. I was using the 64 bit guy fine but it seems it was turned off during an update or an I mistaken?

the 64bit client has been withdrawn, yes. For the DM to have this issue is very unusual and is generally caused by having too many tokens in the tokens/host folder. Given that you are saying this is happening in a new campaign that is the likely cause in your case since normally there would also be open modules and graphics as well to be considered.

[vainazzo]

the 64bit client has been withdrawn, yes. For the DM to have this issue is very unusual and is generally caused by having too many tokens in the tokens/host folder. Given that you are saying this is happening in a new campaign that is the likely cause in your case since normally there would also be open modules and graphics as well to be considered.

so I loaded up a fresh new castles and crusades campaigns. NO MODULES LOAD. Once I get the screen pop that you get with new campaigns. I'm showing fantasy grounds is already pulling 3.4 gigs. that is with no modules loaded.

My shared token size is 358mb
I'm running on a laptop.
i7 6th gen
16 gigs of ram.

[Trenloe]

My shared token size is 358mb
That's actually huge for tokens. How many individual tokens do you have in there?

Simple way to see if these are the issue: move all of the token files off to somewhere outside of the FG \tokens and then reload FG.

[LordEntrails]

so I loaded up a fresh new castles and crusades campaigns. NO MODULES LOAD. Once I get the screen pop that you get with new campaigns. I'm showing fantasy grounds is already pulling 3.4 gigs. that is with no modules loaded.

My shared token size is 358mb
I'm running on a laptop.
i7 6th gen
16 gigs of ram.


Note, the ~3.5GB issue is a limit with memory addressing of every 32 bit application, not just FG. It doesn't matter how much RAM you have in your computer or your processor, it is an architectural limit of 32-bit architecture. (Note, if you are running a 32 bit application on a 32 bit operating system, the limit is about 1.3GB. On a 64-bit OS the limit is about 3.5. These numbers are not set in stone, each OS will vary these numbers slightly as well as they can be modified with tweaks to the OS, but they are hard limits.)

[vainazzo]

That's actually huge for tokens. How many individual tokens do you have in there?

Simple way to see if these are the issue: move all of the token files off to somewhere outside of the FG \tokens and then reload FG.

I pulled out all my tokens... it's under 400mb for ram now... But my tokens.... I guess I need to clean them out.

[vainazzo]

Note, the ~3.5GB issue is a limit with memory addressing of every 32 bit application, not just FG. It doesn't matter how much RAM you have in your computer or your processor, it is an architectural limit of 32-bit architecture. (Note, if you are running a 32 bit application on a 32 bit operating system, the limit is about 1.3GB. On a 64-bit OS the limit is about 3.5. These numbers are not set in stone, each OS will vary these numbers slightly as well as they can be modified with tweaks to the OS, but they are hard limits.)

Yeah I know I was just giving system specs. I'm a software developer by trade.

[Trenloe]

I pulled out all my tokens... it's under 400mb for ram now... But my tokens.... I guess I need to clean them out.
Yep, you do. Sorry. :/

First thing - assuming these are creature tokens, reduce the size if they're above 200x200 pixels (unless they're massive creatures). The general rule for FG commercial products is 100x100 for medium or smaller creatures, 200x200 for large, and 300x300 for larger than large.

Then, put them into token modules (not just one big module). Make them relevant to a specific category - so you only need to open the token module when you need it, and can close it after you use it. If you're attaching tokens to NPCs, you can close the token module after you've used it and the FG campaign will still be able to access the token when in a closed module (that a simplification, but it's essentially what happens).

[LordEntrails]

I pulled out all my tokens... it's under 400mb for ram now... But my tokens.... I guess I need to clean them out.
Put them in token modules. Then only load the modules you need when you need them. I think you can even unload the module and FG will still know the link to the token and it will pull them up as needed.

Also, check the image resolution. Generally most people say medium size creatures should be 100 pixels square.

[vainazzo]

Thanks guys!!! Sorry I was a pain. Now I can get this new CnC campaign started. It's new people new to the system hopefully they will let me stream