My first FGU game

[g0ntzal]

Yesterday I ran my first game session on FGU. All three players connected directly to my iMac (we didn't use the lobby). We spent three hours and there were no combat scenes.


GM: iMac 2019 (MacOS 10.15.6)
Player1: MacBook Pro 2017 (MacOS 10.15.6)
Player2: PC Windows 10
Player3: PC Windows 10


Ruleset: Savage Worlds
Extension: Mutant Chronicles theme (background, decal, chat window, 2 new derived stats)
Module1: Mutant Chronicles Player Guide (translation into Spanish of gear items, skills, edges, hindrances… including the Savage Worlds stuff)
Module2: Luna City (big map with 100+ described locations)

Two players connected very fast.

One player was not able to connect because of he was running a very outdate FGU version. He ran the updater several times but he got some “permissions problem” warning and FGU version couldn’t be updated. Finally he uninstalled FGU and reinstalled the last version after a system reboot.

One of them had a new 4k display and FGU interface elements were tiny for him. He changed the screen resolution to 1080p (he will try /scaleui 200 command later).

So we spent 40 minutes in order to be ready to play.

All players were positively surprised because they found “very fast” the connection and files acquisition procedures. All three are veteran FG Classic players and they think FGU is much better here.

We found a bug in the PC sheets, the scroll feature didn’t work.

Sharing images, loading Player Guide module, rolling dice and all basic functions performed very smoothly.

Both Mac users found the FGU window tittle bar very irritating. Unity games can run full screen on Mac computers but FGU can’t. :cry:

We all ended up very pleased with our first FGU beta experience. Next week we will run some combat scenes and we will use the lobby. :square:

[qdwag]

Just finished an FGU game today. In general, 3/4 players (on Windows) and myself (on a recent MBP) had no problems. One player had a 2014 MBP without dedicated graphics card. FGU pushed her CPU to 400% - that is more than any game I've seen push a Mac!

I was just blown away. I shut down maps and turned off LOS and it went down to 200% CPU usage (FG itself was using this much). Because her machine was struggling to keep up, it caused me as host to lag with the Combat Tracker.

Don't really know what to say but damn, she can't afford to buy a newer MBP at this point, and FG shouldn't be using that much CPU in the first place.

[g0ntzal]

Hi qdwag... I'm using a MBP 2013 SSD and 16 GB RAM occasionally and I can hear the fan working, obviously FGU is stressing the CPU or GPU. I'll try to get some performance figures next time.

[qdwag]

Yeah the player who’s MBP was choking, is very similar to yours MBP. Take note of the CPU usage next time. FGU was almost unplayable for her at 400% CPU usage.

[Moon Wizard]

We've had a few similar reports, and it seems to be related to happen almost exclusively on MBP, though we have had a single report on Windows as well. The main thing we're struggling with is figuring out what the issue actually is, because we don't have any information on what is causing the issue nor any steps to recreate the issue on our machines.

Any information you can provide that seems to trigger the CPU spike would be appreciated; such as user keeping CPU monitor up and noting what happened just prior to any CPU spikes.

Thanks,
JPG

[qdwag]

Moon Wizard: that is interesting. Are there particular MBPs that tend to exhibit this issue?

I have a 2019 MBP with a Vega graphics card. No issues.
My gf has a 2014 MBP (no discreet graphics) - that is the one that shoots up to 300-500%. Soon as some images are shared or even if a small map (1024 px) is shared, it shoots up to 500% CPU usage. Otherwise, it hovers around 250%-350% idle, with nothing going on.

[Moon Wizard]

Some of our guesses are that it could possibly be related to older hardware, discrete vs. onboard graphics, or OS version. However, Carl has a 2014 iMac with onboard video that seems to not exhibit issue.

What Mac OS version is your gf's computer running?

Regards,
JPG

[qdwag]

We can eliminate the OS version for my case. We both have exactly the same OS running.

[Moon Wizard]

It would still be useful to know which OS version (High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina), since it could be a combination of items.

Regards,
JPG

[qdwag]

Moon Wizard:

My bad. I just checked her MBP specs. It DOES have a discreet graphics card - one of those Nvidia Mobile chipsets. Here are the specs:

Graphics and Video Support
Intel HD Graphics 4000
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 1GB of GDDR5 memory and automatic graphics switching

Running OS X Catalina.

Link to full machine specs: https://support.apple.com/kb/sp669?locale=en_AU

[Zacchaeus]

One of my players uses a MacBook Pro as well and in Sunday's game his CPU went up to 790%. It seemed that as the session progressed his CPU usage also went up. We were playing in Dungeon of the Mad Mage so the maps there are big and there's a lot of LoS. It did seem that the increase in CPU was related to the LoS as the players moved through the map and revealed more. He hit the 790% mark just about as we ended after about 3-4 hours.

His specs are:
OS Mojave 10.14.5
Processor 3,9Ghz Core Intel i9
Mempry 32 Gb
Graphics Radeon Pro 560X 4Gb
Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 Mb

[qdwag]

Holy crap. How was his machine able to make it through the game?

Was it an old MacBook Pro?

[Zacchaeus]

Well he has 9 cores so he was using about 8 of them with each each core running at about 95%.

And no it's not old.

[qdwag]

Can you find out what year model his MBP is?

Never mind. Saw the specs

[qdwag]

Your friend has almost the same machine as I do. Mine runs FGU decently. Ask him to upgrade to Catalina maybe.

[Zacchaeus]

It's 2 years old. And yes, the next step is to upgrade. I have had a few issues with people connecting to Unity so we've only recently moved over from Classic so he's been holding off upgrading his OS for that reason. But since we've had no connection issues this last few weeks I think it's time to take the plunge.

[Moon Wizard]

Very interesting that it is spread across multiple cores so heavily. I've forwarded that tidbit on to Carl to think about. FGU is mostly single threaded (due to Unity UI requirements, and ruleset/Lua interactions requiring single threading); but there are several places where we use multi-threading to help (loading, networking, LoS/FoW, ...).

Thanks,
JPG

[damned]

Other posts on heavy Mac cpu load show 300% usage on a quad core cpu.
Interesting that it is using all but one core when this happens.

[qdwag]

Very interesting that it is spread across multiple cores so heavily. I've forwarded that tidbit on to Carl to think about. FGU is mostly single threaded (due to Unity UI requirements, and ruleset/Lua interactions requiring single threading); but there are several places where we use multi-threading to help (loading, networking, LoS/FoW, ...).

Thanks,
JPG


You might be on to something about the single core FGU usage!

[qdwag]

Moon Wizard:

So I am trying to troubleshoot the problematic MBP (the 2013 one) right now. Launched the same exact campaign, shared the same images and ran the same maps. The laptop is sitting at a constant 55% CPU usage and 30% GPU throughout the whole thing!

I don't understand why it is suddenly working perfectly? There were some updates that I did just before starting the test, but I think those updates were for the modules, and not FGU itself. This old MBP is running in line with my newer MBP, and the CPU/GPU usages (for FGU) are on par, almost. This is so weird.
Did you guys change something last night?

I'm gonna keep testing to try and make it spike to 300% again. Just wanted to mention the above.

[qdwag]

I've spent 1 hour trying everything I could to make this old Macbook Pro push above 100%, but I wasn't able to. The highest I've managed to get it to was 90% but it only stayed that way for a few seconds and dropped back down to the 50-60% range. GPU stayed very stable at around 30% with multiple maps loaded (no LOS, as I never use that feature in my games anyway).

I did the exact same test 2 nights ago and without opening a map or any images, CPU usage for FGU sat at 300%. I am completely stumped to see the difference.

I don't know what has changed but I hope it stays this way. Keen to hear some thoughts from you Moon Wizard.

[Moon Wizard]

No, we haven't pushed a new build since last Wednesday.

What you're seeing is pretty consistent with what we've heard from users (i.e. it seems to be working fine when they test, but spikes during play). It seems to have something to do with time/usage where we haven't identified the correlation yet.

Regards,
JPG

[qdwag]

Not really. You see, when I was doing the previous tests with just my host machine and this MBP, it was already at 300% straight off the bat. There were no other connected players.
Now I am running the test again under the exact same circumstances.

Same machines, same images shared. Same test actions were done. And it's holding super stable!

[Zacchaeus]

An update to this after our last game - see Post #11 for the specs of the player's mac. The only difference now is that the Player has updated his OS to Catalina.

On start up where we left off the CPU was running at 76%. The player was operating two characters since one of our players was unable to make it and we were playing in level 12 of Dungeon of the Mad Mage. Part of the map had already been explored in the previous sessions. As soon as the player moved one of the characters which revealed a little more LoS information the CPU went up to 277%. As the game progress with more movement the CPU gradually increased until after about an hour and a half it was up around the 700% mark. The characters were involved in a huge battle with many tokens on the map and it is a big map so a fairly robust test.

At this point I suggested that the player disconnect and then reconnect and on reconnection the CPU usage was back down to around 70%. However it quickly climbed again after the player moved his characters and the battle recommenced. By the end of the evening it was back to around 600% or so.

After the game, as an experiment he disconnected and then reconnected and we just left the character sitting there doing nothing for a couple of hours. After that period the CPU was only running at about the 70% mark so our tentative conclusion is that time isn't a factor and that the character needs to be doing something for the usage to climb.

[qdwag]

The interesting part of this is where it sat at 76% upon start up.

[g0ntzal]

I ran my 2nd game on FGU with a 4th player joining to the group yesterday. We fought a combat scene on a LOS map with a discrete number of tokens (10). This time we used the lobby...

Performance was very smooth for each player and GM too.

[qdwag]

So before when you had the issue with the 4th player, you connected via port forwarding?

[kevininrussia]

I serve with port forwarding here. Had 5 people not including me connected in yesterday's game for 5 hours. No issues accept the targeting arrows disappear after some hours played on the same map.

[g0ntzal]

So before when you had the issue with the 4th player, you connected via port forwarding?

No, we were only 3 players first time. We had no performance issues at all. I just could notice some problems testing the campaign using my MBP as the player computer. We will play our third game next week.

[Willot]

Wonder if the MAC security isn't trying to investigate "odd" network behavior from an "odd" application or something

[qdwag]

I serve with port forwarding here. Had 5 people not including me connected in yesterday's game for 5 hours. No issues accept the targeting arrows disappear after some hours played on the same map.

At its peak, how many tokens did you have loaded into the combat tracker?

[kevininrussia]

About 20

[qdwag]

20!? And no slowdowns?

[kevininrussia]

Two groups of minions the players got to slice through. The players went through them pretty quick with area effect spells so I didn't notice any slowdowns

[qdwag]

That's impressive. This issue is quite elusive - some people experience it, some don't. That makes it so tricky.

[qdwag]

Kevininrussia - what kind of computer were you hosting with?

[kevininrussia]

Ryzen 12 core, 16gig ram, GeForce 1080, windows