Dial up

[irondog]

Got a quick question. Will fantasy grounds work well over a dial up connection? Got a buddy who is interested but he only has dial up. Thanks

[joshuha]

It depends on how large your images are. These are usually the most bandwidth intensive part of Fantasy Grounds but if you stick to small map sizes and no fancy super hi-resolution tokens you should be ok.

[Yenooc]

I'm sure that FGII is improved, but it was hit and miss with FGI when a player was using dial-up--and, as Joshuha said, it was the size of files to be transferred that was the cause of problems.

With FGI I had two players using dial-up, and it would take much longer for their systems to receive the files being transferred. I would have to do a "poll" so that everyone could check the box upon having received the file. And sometimes they were booted from the game during the process. :(

But I won't be able to answer with regard to FGII, since both players have since upgraded to either cable or DSL.

[kimba]

Got a quick question. Will fantasy grounds work well over a dial up connection? Got a buddy who is interested but he only has dial up. Thanks

I have found that preloading images at teh start of a session was very helpful in that regard. I simply pulled up all the images I wanted teh players to have in a session and preloaded them. then while we were playing they all came down and ba da boom - all was well with the world. when I showed the pics there was no real delay at all.

I did have to plan a bit ahead though

[Griogre]

As others have said you need to keep your maps and images to small file sizes and use the preload option. Also you need to be careful how you refresh your maps. Don't share all if you just had a broadband guy jump in. Just send the map to him individually.

[Sigurd]

Its sort of like comparing hand washing with a washing machine. Small pieces, lots of effort and mixed results.


Sigurd

[Astinus]

I'm going to try DMing on dial up and I searched for the following but wasn't able to find anything.

Can I distribute images (maps, tokens etc) prior to the game, as a download from my website?

If so, where should players save the images? Then, during the game, will FGII realize that the players already have the images in question, or will it try to share the images again?

I'm aware of the preloading function, and the fact that cheats will be able to view the images, but if I can distribute images before the game I can't imagine anything preventing me from hosting on dial up.

Any help appreciated.

[Griogre]

In FG2 players can no longer cheat (or cause crashes) by peeking at images transfered by the DM. You should preload everything and keep your maps very very simple and small if you are going to transfer them. The absolute simplest map is the one drawn with the pen while playing.

I have not tried this in FG2 but I presume it will still work. You can have the players download and place maps in the folder with your campaign name. It's possible they will not have a campaign folder already which means they will have to create one and it will have to match what you called yours exactly. Maps go in the image folder, which they will need to create probably.

They did some stuff to stop token spam and I don't think it will do you any good to send tokens to players ahead of time.

[Astinus]

Thanks Griogre. And I guess when I share an image, FGII will first check the images folder to see if the image is already downloaded? I'll have to test it.

[Griogre]

FG2 caches the maps now in a way that the players can't read. FG2 will check the cache on the player's computer to see if he's already got it. I believe it next checks the image folder for the file.