FG slowing down

[Booker Grimm]

When I have more than one or two windows open on a laptop that meets the requirements (and exceeds them) FG slows down noticeably.

Can anything be done to stop this?
My laptop is not connected to anything else and I'm running no extensions and only have the sample 5e module loaded.

Cheers.

[Zacchaeus]

Most likely this will have something to do with settings on your graphics card. Try turning down some of the more advanced settings for Fantasy Grounds.

[LordEntrails]

Other than graphics card, another possibility is if you have very little available RAM and are going into Swap. This will depend on installed RAM and what other programs are using. Check your Task Manager.

[Booker Grimm]

I have 6 gig of memory. 2.2gz processor and can run most games fine. Its just if I have the map screen open or CT, FG slows to 5 fps.

I think its the software. Not my laptop, but thanks anyway.

[LordEntrails]

Its probably a combination of how the software runs on your laptop. i.e. a combination of settings, hardware, drivers, etc.

FG is known to use an old version of DirectX for dice. It also wasn't designed to handle all the advanced capability of current graphic cards. hence the suggestion to "turn down" or off some of the advanced effects in your graphics driver. Most graphic card control panels allow you to set a profile for a specific application. Another indication to tell if it is related to the graphics card/driver; does the behavior change when you are in/out of full screen mode?

[esmdev]

FG can use around 3gb, the OS depending on configuration can take more, so depending on the overhead of other applications the system will offload some of the apps to the swap file (basically ram on your hard disk, so crazy slow). It will swap things in and out as they are being used which creates speed bottlenecks. If you are curious about what is using how much ram you can control-alt-delete and select task manager, it will bring up a list of what is running and how much it is using.

I've also found that having some websites open can cause slowdowns if their script heavy, like the ones that have dozens of ads and a small bit of text you were actually looking for. Especially when the adware script crashes and drops into an infinite loop in the background.

[esmdev]

Sorry for the double post but I just noticed your referencing opening a map. Do you happen to know the pixel dimensions of the map? I got one once from drive thru that was an awesomesauce map that was sooooo huge it sucked the life out of my system every time I tried to move it. The problem was fixed when I resized it downward a bit.

[Booker Grimm]

Thanks.

I was looking at the others threads and I believe that it is the way FG generates fonts. The slowdown is definitely related to the amount of text on screen. With the CT open and story window and a character sheet, it slows to a crawl. I think that they are sorting this problem out with FGU, but it is still usable, but annoying all the same. Perhaps it will be fixed in a further update, but I am not holding out much hope. I only used the laptop for my face to face game anyway, and I don't really need a lot open then.

[LordEntrails]

One of the things that I think I have picked up about fonts with FG is when using FGFonts that and not running at 100% scaleui it adds to the processing overhead because the fonts are (mostly) not TrueType and hence your adding to the processing load. IF I'm right about that, you can try setting your scaleui to 100% and see if that helps. Not ideal, but might be a workable solution for you (IF it even makes a difference).

[Booker Grimm]

The Scale is at 100%. Is there an extension that completely changes the way the font is generated?

And am I correct in saying that this will be corrected in FGU?

It seems ludicrous that my laptop can run some of the more demanding games but struggles to render a few dice and open windows.

Poorly optimised, sums it up.

[Kelrugem]

The Scale is at 100%. Is there an extension that completely changes the way the font is generated?

And am I correct in saying that this will be corrected in FGU?

It seems ludicrous that my laptop can run some of the more demanding games but struggles to render a few dice and open windows.

Poorly optimised, sums it up.

According to Moon Wizard's answer in another thread


If you are using the UI Scale setting in FG, then the text is scaled after it is rendered, which can cause text to appear blurry. There's nothing in the current FG engine that will help with that because the current FG Engine allows rulesets to use pre-rendered fonts. In the upcoming FG Unity version, everything is switched to TrueType fonts only, which gives us more options (though display scaling is not implemented yet).

On Windows, changing the OS desktop to a lower resolution gets rid of the need for UI Scale setting, since everything is drawn by desktop resolution.

I'm not very familiar with Wine or Linux; but my guess is that it's a Wine implementation/setting issue that you may be able to tweak in some sort of graphics configuration, or your graphics driver may be doing something extra for certain apps (like Wine). If the latter, you may try looking at disabling antialiasing for the Wine package.

Regards,
JPG

everything will be switched to ttf :) When I understood LordEntrails correctly then this should improve your situation maybe :)

[Trenloe]

The Scale is at 100%. Is there an extension that completely changes the way the font is generated?

And am I correct in saying that this will be corrected in FGU?

It seems ludicrous that my laptop can run some of the more demanding games but struggles to render a few dice and open windows.

Poorly optimised, sums it up.
It works fine for a lot of people, I know that doesn't help you in this issue. But, unless the *exact* issue can the identified, then it's very difficult to "correct" anything.

Standard FGF fonts are already rendered as bitmaps and are just displayed, with very little overhead. If you're using a ruleset (or an extension) that uses TTF fonts instead, then these have to be rendered and could cause slowdown.

A few questions:
- What ruleset are you using?
- What extensions are you using?
- Do you have Windows "scale and layout" set to anything other than 100%? Some info here: https://winaero.com/blog/set-display-custom-scaling-windows-10/
- Is the "Cross-platform compatibility mode for Linux and Mac" enabled or disabled in your FG settings window?
- Have you tried changing any graphics card settings?

[Booker Grimm]

1. 5e Ruleset
2. No extensions
3. Windows is set on 100% scale and layout, running at 1920 x 1080 (Recommended)
4. Cross platform Disabled.
5. No anti-aliasing selected on Graphic card settings.

Fraps reports it running at 15fps with no windows open. With the CT open or any other window it drops to 5 fps.
All the latest drivers and windows updates. Every other program runs fine.

[Trenloe]

There have been issues reported previously when running overlays (including Fraps).

- Do you see a similar slowdown when not running Fraps?
- Does the slowdown improve if "Cross-platform compatibility mode for Linux and Mac" is enabled?

[Booker Grimm]

I do not normally run Fraps. I only ran it to see how much the FPS drops when the CT or other windows are open. As I mentioned it immediately drops from 15FPS to 5. Down to 2 or 1 with four windows open.
Enabling or disabling Cross-platform compatibility has no noticeable effect.

I am at a loss to explain it, other than the text is generated in a different way than normal. If I can run Skyirm at 30fps, I should be able to run FG at 100 FPS! :)

[Trenloe]

If I can run Skyirm at 30fps, I should be able to run FG at 100 FPS! :)
As mentioned earlier, FG uses a very old version of DirectX, which a number of users have reported doesn't run well with their more recent graphics cards. What graphics card does your laptop have? One of the Intel series perhaps?

[Booker Grimm]

Yeah, Intel HD Graphics 500.

Not a great card by any means, but it can run Skyrim and Fortnite at about 15-20 fps on low settings. Not great, but playable. That's why I am surprised that a few dice and text slow it to almost a standstill. :)

[Trenloe]

We’ve had a few reports over the years of Intel graphics causing issues with DirectX 9.

[Booker Grimm]

I'm running direct x 12

[LordEntrails]

I'm running direct x 12
Yes, but FG has embedded in it and uses DirectX 9 (regardless if you have a newer version installed)

I don't know if anyone has ever tried uninstalling a more recent DirectX and seeing if that helps, or specifically doing a stand-alone install of 9. Might be worth it since you can always reinstall 12 after testing.

[Booker Grimm]

I'll uninstall it completely and then try and find an older version.

[Booker Grimm]

Just an update, tried an older version of direct x. Direct x 9c and I had a slight improvement. Still not running as smooth as it should for the hardware I have. Still at least now it's playable. Here's hoping that Unity performs much better.