Running a PFRPG campaign on FGU

[39Sam]

Hello,

I shifted my campaign to FGU but the slowness was so awful that I had to rollback to FGC.

Knowing that I have the Core Rules, Bestiary 1-3 and both Rise of the Runelord and Crimson Throne loaded, are there any players successfully running their PFRPG campaign with FGU ? If so, what is your hardware configuration ?

[mozmonar]

I am running Rise of the Runelords in FGU. Was running it in FGC but got to the point it kept crashing in FGC due to utilizing more memory than the application could address. It works ok...still runs like a sloth and very, very frequently will freeze up for a few seconds at a time. I would not rate it as a pleasant experience but it does (eventually) get the job done.

[damned]

Hello,

I shifted my campaign to FGU but the slowness was so awful that I had to rollback to FGC.

Knowing that I have the Core Rules, Bestiary 1-3 and both Rise of the Runelord and Crimson Throne loaded, are there any players successfully running their PFRPG campaign with FGU ? If so, what is your hardware configuration ?

Curious - do you need the bestiaries if you are running the published AP?

[mozmonar]

For me the game still runs haltingly with minimum modules loaded. I do have a fair number of extensions loaded but that is virtually, if not literally, neccessary to make running the game manageable. I can confirm that the games doesn't run much better with no extensions loaded. It is actually rather disappointing. It has been improving over time and I have hopes that it will continue to improve.

[39Sam]

Curious - do you need the bestiaries if you are running the published AP?
I suppose they are not required if you stick to the campaign encounters, but tend to be creative and add/change monsters depending on the context. Plus I have a specialist summoner in the party !

[Trenloe]

Can the users experiencing slowness be specific where they’re seeing this please? The more specific the better (e.g. what modules are loaded, what view/process causes slow response, etc.) so that the devs have a better chance of identifying ways to provide improvements.

[39Sam]

Thanks for the feedback all. Well I guess for the time being I'll continue with FGC and hope for a performance improvement. I'm wondering though if this situation is due to PFRPG Core Rules itself and if FGU would run better with PF2 or D5.

[39Sam]

Can the users experiencing slowness be specific where they’re seeing this please? The more specific the better (e.g. what modules are loaded, what view/process causes slow response, etc.) so that the devs have a better chance of identifying ways to provide improvements.
I uninstalled, but sure I could give it a try again to provide a more detailled feedback. Is there a documentation or some debug/log feature to activate in order to provide an effective feeback ?

[Trenloe]

Is there a documentation or some debug/log feature to activate in order to provide an effective feeback ?
Pretty much compile the logs from the FGU console window, list what ruleset, extensions and modules are loaded, and describe the process followed to reproduce the issues.

Plus info regarding machine setup (spec, OS, etc.) and whether the campaign is new in FGU or migrated from FGC.

[Deslock100]

Hello,

I shifted my campaign to FGU but the slowness was so awful that I had to rollback to FGC.

Knowing that I have the Core Rules, Bestiary 1-3 and both Rise of the Runelord and Crimson Throne loaded, are there any players successfully running their PFRPG campaign with FGU ? If so, what is your hardware configuration ?

I have been running my Rise of the Runelords Campaign weekly for 6 people since the end of Aug. without seemingly any issue. I currently have 13 modules loaded with 5 shared. The initial load is slow, but that could be due to my internet performance. (I have very slow internet. I have to run the game off my cell phone for it to be any good.)

Once loaded though and everyone is in I've not noticed any problem and no one says anything about the program being slow, once or twice they have said something about a map load but again that is likely due to my internet. I did have one crash a few weeks ago but that was the only one.

I run on:
I7-4790
32 gb ram w/ an 80gb virtual memory setting
program is installed on an SSD

[bmos]

I've been playing in a Strange Aeons campaign in Unity since March. It was pretty iffy at first and we had to go theater of the mind a few times when it just would not work, but these days it is totally usable.
I ran a 5e game March - May using Unity with some weirdness but don't remember it ever stopping a session.
I ran Plunder and Peril April - June using Unity with only a few issues early on.
I just started running Yuletide Terror last night in Unity also.
I have considered bringing my Return of the Runelords group to Unity for a variety of improvements it brings, but that game is only a couple levels from the conclusion, so I am sticking with Classic there so I don't have to help my players migrate.
I have about half of the official PF1e rule modules and all 5 officially-converted bestiaries along with a few community modules. I use about 12-18 extensions.
My computer is Intel i5-10400, 32GB DDR4 RAM, NVMe SSD, NVIDIA GTX 960. It runs at a very usable speed and never freezes for more than a second at a time (and even that is pretty rare).
In fact, in some things I find it much faster than in Classic (scrolling, window movement, general responsiveness basically--especially with the interface).

I recommend using community classes and archetypes module, community spellbook module, official ultimate equipment module, official bestiaries, and community feats module.
This will give you almost everything for ~$300 without there being duplicates in your reference libraries from things being in multiple places.
That being said, I used only official modules until this Yuletide Terror game and did not notice terrible performance.
Until July I was using my old computer which was AMD Phenom II X6, 16GB DDR3 RAM, SATA SSD, NVIDIA GTX 960. It was definitely slower in Unity than Classic but still very usable. Personally I see the most change coming from the SSD upgrade (from SATA to NVMe) and the much newer CPU, although the RAM speed going from DDR3 to DDR4 is a big part too.
EDIT: I don't think 32GB RAM is at all necessary for FG unless you have a really complex/large campaign (and even then maybe not).
EDIT2: My Internet is ~100mbps down and 10mbps up

[Decade]

How is the performance demand balanced between GM & players on FGU ?
I've been very happily running my PF1 campaign on FGC but just bought FGU (I don't mind if it's a slow migration, I bought this with a view to the future if it isn't quite ready yet).
Because I do CG, my PC is very high-performance, but some of my players not so much (although none are truly potato-PCs).
I wondered, how much of the extra performance demands of FGU fall on the GM side & how much on the player side ?

[bmos]

How is the performance demand balanced between GM & players on FGU ?
I've been very happily running my PF1 campaign on FGC but just bought FGU (I don't mind if it's a slow migration, I bought this with a view to the future if it isn't quite ready yet).
Because I do CG, my PC is very high-performance, but some of my players not so much (although none are truly potato-PCs).
I wondered, how much of the extra performance demands of FGU fall on the GM side & how much on the player side ?I have definitely had players complain about their laptops running hot.
This seems to be mostly addressed by the new /vsync chat command (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?56503-FGU-using-GPU-at-almost-100/page11&p=551846#post551846) they added to Unity.

[39Sam]

Thanks a lot for this feeback guys, this is encouraging. I think what I need really is more memory seeing these 32GB around (I only have 8GB, that's likely the issue here).

[Decade]

I have definitely had players complain about their laptops running hot.
This seems to be mostly addressed by the new /vsync chat command (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?56503-FGU-using-GPU-at-almost-100/page11&p=551846#post551846) they added to Unity.

Thanks bmos, I think I'll have to make the experiment & see how things go.

[Morquendel]

Running campaign with all stuff I could Grab it gets sluggish at load.
After load there seems to be a delay between GM and players. But seems ok.
AMD 2600 16 gb ram
SSD
DSL 50mbit

[Deslock100]

If you have a computer that you can easily upgrade your memory, then yes that would be my first move. Memory prices are pretty cheap. Like bmos said 16GB is likely all you need. Try to match any new memory speed to your current memory speed. Also while probably not necessary I would look up videos on how to increase your virtual memory if you have the disk space. It might provide a slight bump in performance.