3 seconds of lag ever 15 seconds [Archive]

Psycholiquid71

January 19th, 2021, 11:24

I have always had it lag every 15 or so seconds. Especially noticeable when drawing LOS lines and figures. Wondering now if it is a campaign only issue.

Not real sure I have done a lot of testing and it seems it is an FGU issue. LOS makes it worse but with no LOS on any map it still does it only 3 seconds of lag ever 45 seconds. Either way very annoying.

Psycholiquid71

January 19th, 2021, 17:51

Ok more testing with this. Turned off all mods and exts created a map and put 6 tokens on it with a myst overlay running constantly. I let it run for 4:38 seconds and no lag. As soon as I touched a token to drag it, it lagged for about a second then let go. So it would seem there is an issue with Untiy that is causing this. But not sure why. Keep in mind I have no users connected. If one does connect it compunds.

Experiment setup:

No mods / Exts
Created map with no LOS or Mask
Added Myst effect as test
Added 6 tokens to map as test
Running game in Cloud mode.
Runs fine for over 4 mins without issue.

As soon as I drag an icon I get a second to 2 seconds of lag then rince repeat. The time in beetween differs depending on if I touch the tokens or not, if I grab one and constantly move it around the time to lag greatly decreases.

Trenloe

January 19th, 2021, 18:15

Can you describe exactly what you mean by lag?

If you could do a short video that could greatly help understand the issue.

Psycholiquid71

January 19th, 2021, 18:29

I'll get on making one now

Surge

January 20th, 2021, 11:44

As soon as I drag an icon I get a second to 2 seconds of lag then rince repeat. The time in beetween differs depending on if I touch the tokens or not, if I grab one and constantly move it around the time to lag greatly decreases.

My group has experienced this. In fact, we've been on a break from FG for quite a number of months because whenever we tried to play, the lag made it totally unusable that we gave up out of frustration. The fact that someone else is experiencing it now doesn't fill me with confidence about returning to our games.

Psycholiquid71

January 20th, 2021, 11:53

Trenloe

January 20th, 2021, 12:02

My group has experienced this. In fact, we've been on a break from FG for quite a number of months because whenever we tried to play, the lag made it totally unusable that we gave up out of frustration. The fact that someone else is experiencing it now doesn't fill me with confidence about returning to our games.
There was general slowness issues early on in FGU. There has been a lot of optimizations over the last few months, and there are still more to come. It's a lot better than it was but there is still room for improvement. I don't think the OPs issue is the same as the lag you experienced a number of months ago, it seems to be quite specific which is why we're looking to get a bit more info on exactly what is happening.

Psycholiquid71

January 20th, 2021, 13:49

Here is the video as promised the lag point are at 3:39 and 5:29 each for 2 seconds exactly which seems kind of weird. Something that specific isn't really internet related. I would think it would adjust from more to less if that was the case.

https://youtu.be/Bbn101HksL0

Psycholiquid71

January 20th, 2021, 13:51

Please keep in mind I move the token for purposes of being able to see the lag, this happens weather I move it or not. It is just harder to notice if you not moving it. and possibly moving it makes it happen more often not sure, I only had myself on the "server" at the time of recording to try and eliminate moving parts.

Trenloe

January 20th, 2021, 14:09

Thanks for spending the time to put the video together. Hopefully this will help the devs recreate the issue and investigate a fix.

Psycholiquid71

January 20th, 2021, 23:40

Added another video where I only added a few modules such as Dungeon Masters Guide, Players Handbook, and Adventure. All from Smiteworks shop.

I added Some weather Effects (Rain and Clouds)

I also added LOS

This seems to compound the issue greatly where I am seeing every 20-25 seconds 3 seconds of lag. This is all using cloud service for game, and no players connected.

https://youtu.be/X-syWweKvFQ

You'll see the lag at teh posted times:
11 seconds
41 seconds
1:08 min
1:34 min
1:59 min

You'll can also note that when dragging now with those things added the map considerably lags when dragging the token. I have a pretty beefy machine so I really don't think it is a limitation of the box or video card.

HArdware specs are as follows:

1080 TI 11GB
AMD FX 3.5 GHZ processor with 8 cores
32GB of memory
Running FGU on a SSD drive at:
Sequential Read Speed: Up to 550 MB/sec
Sequential Write Speed: Up to 520 MB/sec

Moon Wizard

January 21st, 2021, 23:17

Thanks for the videos and details. I've forwarded to Carl to review.

Thanks,
JPG

Psycholiquid71

January 27th, 2021, 14:23

Any updates on this? I would love to know if it is something I am doing wrong or if there is something with my machine that needs to be fixed. Making it extremely hard to run sessions for my players with it lagging constantly. If there is any testing you need me to do I will be happy to do it.

Moon Wizard

January 27th, 2021, 18:26

Our guess is that it has something to do with some sort of garbage collection happening. We don't have a fix at this time; and we haven't been able to pinpoint the issue. Since it's not happening to very many people, it may be a factor of drivers, graphics card power, or other machine-dependent settings as well.

My suggestion is to try to simplify your campaign in any way you can for the moment, until we are able to track it down.
You might look at the number and size of custom image/token assets you have added to the FG data folder, number of modules you have loaded, and try the scenario without FX on.
I noticed you already removed all the extensions to rule those out.

Regards,
JPG

Psycholiquid71

January 27th, 2021, 18:38

The test I showed in the last video did have only 2 modules loaded, but I am thinking you might be onto something I have a ton of images and assets in the program files/fg/data folder, does it poll those a lot when it is running? If so that def could be causing it

Moon Wizard

January 27th, 2021, 20:44

It's not "supposed" to access the assets until they are needed; but perhaps it's not that separated yet.
How many files and what's the total size of all your custom images/tokens?

JPG

SmackDaddy

January 28th, 2021, 02:02

Just wanted to throw my hat into the ring to state something similar to this happens to me quite frequently and when actually DM'ing and trying to approve movements or move tokens or anything I need to do has me and my players waiting while the "lag" resolves itself until it happens again....I've learned to work with it at this point as I anticipate the problem but would be nice if there was something that could be done client-side to resolve this. Thank you devs for looking into it! I have a similar set-up to the OP although my video card is 8GB and not 11GB

Psycholiquid71

January 29th, 2021, 12:37

Moon Wizard

January 30th, 2021, 19:12

1 GB in 8270 files is a lot of assets.

Can you try a test where you temporarily remove/rename most of the assets (maybe leave a few), start a brand new campaign, and see if you encounter the same lag?

I want to see if the number/size of assets is a contributing factor in your setup.

Thanks,
JPG

Psycholiquid71

February 3rd, 2021, 14:10

So I tried just that this morning, removed all Images, Tokens, Portraits. Cleared the cache in FGU and created a new campaign, Loaded the DMG Mod and Dragon of Icespire Peak MOD (To get a map and an NPC). Created an example character and put them and one NPC on the CT. Added them to the map and same issue exists.

I know I have seen others having similar issues. I have informed them to come post their hardware specs on this post in hopes that maybe we can figure this out. My session was all but stopped last night due to lag (admittedly I have a player that has to constantly move his token, like a kid with ADHD he cant sit still.) I don't want to have to stop players from moving their tokens but even if I do the issue persists.

Moon Wizard

February 3rd, 2021, 23:36

Can you provide a screenshot of all the windows open on the screen when it is happening?
Also, can you send a copy of the new campaign that only uses the built-in materials that has the issue, so I can try here?

I'm trying to see if we can nail down what is triggering what you are seeing; since I can't reproduce locally. (number of windows, types of windows, type of data loaded, amount of data loaded, type/amount of assets loaded, etc.)

Regards,
JPG

Psycholiquid71

February 4th, 2021, 16:29

Here you go, I am attaching empty campaign with zip, walkthrough step by step images in zip and video:

https://youtu.be/59rQ-4EgAx0

It seems even with only the two modules loaded moving the token still causes lag.

Psycholiquid71

February 4th, 2021, 20:27

So reading through another one of your threads you are helping with and I saw the /vsync 0 command I set it to 0 to see if it helps and it does a bit. Now knowing I have a really good video card maybe that will help you narrow it down some?

Still the same three seconds of lag just father apart on how long it take between doing it.

I have also gone ahead and turned off vertical Sync on my card all together to see if that helps it more or anything Ill update as I get results.

With those changes I can now have everything turned on Mods and Ext's and LOS / Effects and I only get the lag ever 1:17 and it is still 3 seconds of lag. So it is def something odd but specific.

Psycholiquid71

February 5th, 2021, 13:28

Going to attempt to put all this data and FGU on a VM today to see if get the same result. Will update with what I find.

After moving FGU to a VM and testing I am seeing the same result. This is a VM in a different space on different internet. (Using SSHD SAN to test the results.)

Went through and removed all Masks form all maps. Same result. More testing and will report back.

Unplugged internet and still get the issue so it is something def with my machine and FGU.

So I am watching resource monitor when it does it it drops the GPU all the way down to 0%

https://i.imgur.com/0qNrWcJ.jpg

Not sure why moving a token would use less GPU and then hang until it lets go.

Psycholiquid71

February 6th, 2021, 03:51

Well throwing a 1200$ video card solved it for the test campaigns. Switched to a AMD Radeon 6800 16GB and on the test campaigns it no longer does the lag or GPU drop when moving the tokens around.

However my original campaign which I have been playing since I got FGU still does it so time to rebuild that from scratch and see if I can find what caused it to mess up.

damned

February 6th, 2021, 04:55

Moon Wizard posted on another thread that some video cards are ignoring the Unity refresh rate settings.
Is there an option in your GFX card software to manually limit to 60fps for Fantasy Grounds only?

Psycholiquid71

February 6th, 2021, 13:39

Unsure I just bought this one to try and combat the lag issue (which in any case I am seeing a lot of people start to complain about). I will definitely try and find that today, Please don't take any of my posts as complaining I am truly trying to figure out what is the root causes of this so that everyone can benefit from my findings.

I know no one has come out and said I am complaining but I just want to put it out there I am honestly trying to troubleshoot the issue to get in front of it and share whatever I find to try and fix it for the greater good of FGU. I truly do love this software.

As of right now I have a machine broken down to just one stick of ram (8GB) the SSD and the video card and testing with a new campaign with one module and one PC. I am using one map with effect but no mask and everything seems fine. The only lag I am now seeing is the typical you open a new windows (table or otherwise) and it lags for a second there or when it autosaves which is around every 15 mins (I am guessing I will be timing today)

I am thinking because it is a flat file system (DB) that is probably some of the problem and no amount of hardware I throw at it will help. I even put it on a VM at work with a SSHD SAN as the hardware for the drives and 128GB of ram and it still did some lag.

But all that being said I'm willing to put in the time to try and get this resolved.

damned

February 6th, 2021, 13:51

How big is the "live" campaigns db.xml?
I think autosave is every 5 mins - or thats what it was in FGC.
Most of these high end gfx cards let you see a lot more info on what is going on.
But if its occurring at some random time interval and not all the time its not screaming video issue...
Im sorry but I dont really have any other suggestions.
Check the FPS - in Moon Wizards other post the person identified that when FGU was idle the FPS was racing as high as 1800fps or something crazy like that.
They were able to see specific settings for FGU in the gfx card software.

Psycholiquid71

February 6th, 2021, 14:13

Right now the live campaign is at 4.050MB

I did go through last night and removed cloned monsters and such as when I first started I was learning and this lowered it down some but there were only roughly 30 cloned NPCs.

I am right now using my test campaign and seems that everything is looking good so I will def check out the FPS limitation thing. The funny part is and I am not sure why. When ever this lag happens be it with my 1070 TI or my Radeon 6800 the GPU dips to 0% while it lags, then returns to normal. Something very odd I haven't seen before in all my years of troubleshooting software. I could understand if it was a graphics intensive game but it is not most times it is just static.

https://i.imgur.com/thY5g2D.png

Psycholiquid71

February 6th, 2021, 14:18

Someone did bring up the conversion from FGC to FGU in my campaign being an issue. I don't recall doing that as most time in anything computer or software related I choose to go all fresh and new but maybe I did and don't realize it in a rush.

LordEntrails

February 6th, 2021, 18:11

Did you try /vsync 1?

Psycholiquid71

February 6th, 2021, 18:27

So after all this it seems the video card change cleared up the issue (when using blank campaign with just one map) However my campaign still has issue but when moving everything over to a new campaign (Exporting into a module and loading into new campaign it resolves itself finally. So in shirt there may be a problem with the Nvidia driver (with my card only) that changing drives wouldn't fix. but my campaign of course exacerbated it.

After looking at all the machines I tested on they were all using Nvidia drives (The VM using a Nvidia Grid Setup) So in case anyone comes across this try a different card or differnt machine that isnt using Nvidia (keep in mind I love Nvidia)

Machine List tested on:

Home machine: EVGA Geforce 1070 TI 11GB
Laptop Machine: NVIDIA GTX1650
VM Machine: nVidia Grid K2 Array
Friends Machine: Geforce 970

I bought a Radeon RX 6800 XT and it solved my issue.

Psycholiquid71

February 6th, 2021, 19:07

Well I spoke to soon after rebuilding my campaign I turned on LOS after testing to make sure everything was fine and it happened again:

I literally just replicated it and made it do exactly what I have been talking about and it is related to LOS I believe I am posting a video of it now with all Mods and Exts loaded I have been fine all morning until I did this:

https://youtu.be/PCUHcc0NDiE

Watch the GPU when it does it. I wanna swear it is related to LOS which is kind of I think why everyone switch to FGU.

I will make another video with nothing to be sure but this campaign I have been building all morning and testing this exact scenario all morning.

lostsanityreturned

February 6th, 2021, 19:36

Another test you can do to see the issue in play is drawing slow spirals, the cursor will freeze/skip a little resulting in big straight edges.

Psycholiquid71

February 6th, 2021, 20:01

Well here is a really good replication video, I start with clean and start building it up with modules and you can see it compounding the lag as it goes. The time stamps are in the description to help skip around and see it better.

https://youtu.be/MJxPhuBWNdU

IT may still be processing the HD version but the SD version is up.

Psycholiquid71

February 7th, 2021, 13:36

My real question is, has anyone been able to replicate what I am doing I would love to know if it is me (my computer) or FGU

Psycholiquid71

February 8th, 2021, 23:39

Spent some time today replicating this one a few other machines to be sure it is happen I can confirm it. But not sure why I am not seeing other people seeing it.

damned

February 8th, 2021, 23:54

is it still 3seconds every 15?

Psycholiquid71

February 9th, 2021, 00:03

Well that's the thing if you look at the video it gets progressively worse. So it starts very small and grows but it doesn't seem to go over 3 seconds every 30-45 seconds. I would think with the few mods (7) that I loaded more people would be seeing this and I would love to blame my machine but testing across a multitude of machines on different hardware and different internet providers (I am a sys admin and have that kind of stuff at my disposal) using the same test in the same order produces the same results. I even loaded a VM on a flash array san with an Nvidia Grid GPU array to try and see if I could throw a ton of hardware at it and got the exact same results.

Psycholiquid71

February 9th, 2021, 00:08

I also in testing today kept the console window open the whole time as not to confuse campaign saving lag (not a big deal) with the lag I am seeing and to see if there were any messages and saw nothing.

ddavison

February 9th, 2021, 05:32

Here is my folder in size:

Images = 1.00 GB (8270 Files)
Tokens = 4.95 MB (60 Files)
Portraits = 2.62 MB (12 Files)

Please know that I keep these in the data folders root not the campaign folder as I like to use them across other campaigns and it just makes it easier, if this is wrong please let me know.

43320

Are you running with your data folder on a flash drive? If so, can you try moving your settings to another drive and see if you can recreate it with the same campaign?

Psycholiquid71

February 9th, 2021, 11:05

Yes I tried that multiple times on multiple computers didn't make a difference.

I also did it with a clean data folder, most of my tests were performed with a clean install.

Jiminimonka

February 9th, 2021, 13:03

I was editing a map yesterday, I too have loads of assets (4gb in the images folder, 2.9gb in the tokens folder) and I was getting regular freezes (I didn't time it). I had an SSD with windows sitting on it, so I cleaned that up (yay, get lost Windows) and formatted it and put all of FantasyGrounds Unity on that SSD - so far today the issues of freezing have not recurred today. I did have the App and Data folders on a normal 2TB HD before. I might put the FG App data on the NME drive and leave the data on the SSD to see if that improves it.

Psycholiquid71

February 9th, 2021, 13:10

Like I said I threw it all on a Flash array, this is a bank of SSHD HDDs that work in tandem to allow for a great amount of speed. Made no difference. With a clean install and nothin in the assets folders I was able to do what the video shows. Fundamentally something is wrong I just want to get to the bottom of it so I can resolve it and move on. I love this software and have sunk a lot of money into it already.

Its just really annoying trying to DM a game to have to say hold on every 45 seconds to wait for the game to unfreeze.

Psycholiquid71

February 9th, 2021, 13:12

The main thing being I am testing with a clean install of FGU on multiple machines all using the same test data to replicate the results.

ddavison

February 9th, 2021, 15:04

The main thing being I am testing with a clean install of FGU on multiple machines all using the same test data to replicate the results.

Thanks, this is helpful information. We are trying to figure out where the bottlenecks might be happening. You seem to have a repeatable, significant event that is happening for you which does not seem to be the case for most other users. I am not simply trying to point the finger away from our coding at all, but it seems likely that there is some common setup that you do that might be different than what other people do that could be linked to the issue. It's kind of like how we sometimes get more networking issues with more sophisticated network engineers because they've modified their systems in some way that is non-standard. One issue I remember is that FG Classic had problems binding to the proper NIC when people had multiple network cards and the first one was disabled.

Are there any OS level services running in the background that might possibly interact with the data files while they are in use by FGU?

Some things which might help to track it down:
1. Start off with a blank install of FGU and no external assets or extensions
2. Don't run on a VM
3. Run a local copy only with no players connected
4. Make sure the install location is on a typical SSD or HD and no automated backup, OneDrive/GoogleDoc style cloning is running on that location
5. When running local, try temporarily disabling A/V or File Protection features.
6. Like #5, but add an exception to the data folder

Look in the Resource Monitor to see if any spikes for sub-systems correlate with the slowdowns. Do you see activity spikes for the GPU at that time, the disk, network, etc?

Psycholiquid71

February 9th, 2021, 17:29

Are there any OS level services running in the background that might possibly interact with the data files while they are in use by FGU?

None at this time. I just formatted in hopes that maybe my OS (2 years running without format) was the issue. So other than minecraft, discord, FGU and drivers that is all I have right now. (Keep in mind the VMs I tried this on had nothing but VMtools drivers and FGU)

Some things which might help to track it down:
1. Start off with a blank install of FGU and no external assets or extensions
Did this one three machines with all the same results. If you see the video that is what that is.

2. Don't run on a VM
Tried on VMs and physical Laptops and workstations.

3. Run a local copy only with no players connected
Tried that also with same result.

4. Make sure the install location is on a typical SSD or HD and no automated backup, OneDrive/GoogleDoc style cloning is running on that location.
I am positive it is local and not part of a backup routine.

5. When running local, try temporarily disabling A/V or File Protection features.
I have at this time turned off all AV and Firewalls on all machines I have tried this I have also for run reset my router to defaults after making a backup to see if that may cause it. I also took it out of the mix and went straight into my cable modem to see if that would fix it.

6. Like #5, but add an exception to the data folder
I haven't tried this but I will right now.

Look in the Resource Monitor to see if any spikes for sub-systems correlate with the slowdowns. Do you see activity spikes for the GPU at that time, the disk, network, etc?

The only thing I have seen in resource manger is a GPU drop to 0% when it happens. I have also wiresharked and I don't see any adverse network traffic that correlates with the lag (I really hate calling it that because it isn't lag persay)

ddavison

February 9th, 2021, 17:38

Thanks. That should help rule out some possibilities.

Psycholiquid71

February 9th, 2021, 18:08

Not a problem, any other things you want me to try I am more than willing.

Psycholiquid71

February 12th, 2021, 13:15

Any update of anyone being able to replicate what I am showing in the video?

ddavison

February 12th, 2021, 14:54

I was able to recreate something similar if I have a token moving in circles with LOS activated. It glitches for about a second for me and then resumes. It may take some time for us to find the root cause for this.

Psycholiquid71

February 12th, 2021, 15:51

No that's fine I just wanted to be sure I wasn't alone in this which would be odd since it happens across multiple machines for me on clean installs. Thank you so much for seeing it.

Keep in mind the more mods you add the worse it gets.

Psycholiquid71

February 17th, 2021, 16:44

Ohh was so hoping this update would magically fix the issue, but it has not.

Moon Wizard

February 17th, 2021, 19:34

Psycholiquid71

February 17th, 2021, 20:05

Cool. Ill keep an eye out. Appreciate all the hard work you guys do.

lostsanityreturned

February 17th, 2021, 20:57

The update yesterday was ruleset code only.

All client updates are gated behind upcoming vision/lighting changes we're hard at work on. I did talk to @cpinder about this again yesterday, and ask him to take a closer look. One of the challenges right now is that the new client code we're testing is completely refactored for images, so performance will be different.

Regards,
JPG

Did anyone end up looking into why the actions tab has such extreme slowdown when heavily populated (it isn't an issue in FGC)? (5e, PF2e)

(tested on 15 unique PCs now with 3 of which action as the server, 12 of which were my players and a mixture of laptops and desktops, all presented the exact same issue.)

There wasn't a response to my report so I have no idea if it is on your radar. I now have two players who are asking me to swap to using Foundry for my long running games because they hate the slowdown (and GMing advantages are harder to justify to people who aren't GMing). Another player is putting up with it and says he is fine, but his turns are getting slower and he has taken to muttering complaints when he has to scroll through spells in combat.

Youtube link example posted again for visibility (https://youtu.be/0U8t_iU2m44)

Kelrugem

February 17th, 2021, 21:46

Did anyone end up looking into why the actions tab has such extreme slowdown when heavily populated (it isn't an issue in FGC)? (5e, PF2e)

(tested on 15 unique PCs now with 3 of which action as the server, 12 of which were my players and a mixture of laptops and desktops, all presented the exact same issue.)

There wasn't a response to my report so I have no idea if it is on your radar. I now have two players who are asking me to swap to using Foundry for my long running games because they hate the slowdown (and GMing advantages are harder to justify to people who aren't GMing). Another player is putting up with it and says he is fine, but his turns are getting slower and he has taken to muttering complaints when he has to scroll through spells in combat.

Youtube link example posted again for visibility (https://youtu.be/0U8t_iU2m44)

I personally believe that it's related to that FGU has in general worse problems with long lists than FGC; in 3.5e/PF1 the action tab is also extremely laggy (tested with my lvl 11 bard having a lot of actions) :) As far as I know and remember the devs already know of that problem but they could not pinpoint it yet

Moon Wizard

February 17th, 2021, 22:30

Yes, we are aware, but have not pinpointed cause as Kelrugem mentioned. It's a balancing act between keeping promised features rolling, and shoring up existing capabilities and performance.

Also, please start another thread unless it is specifically related to the exact same issue. It keeps the troubleshooting cleaner for all issues.

Thanks,
JPG

Howell

March 24th, 2021, 22:13

Psycholiquid71

April 12th, 2021, 12:09

Just logged in after months of not playing due to this bug. Still no movement. Sad that I spent this much money on what was a very good platform.

nephranka

April 12th, 2021, 14:55

I have had the same issue since I started using FGU. Periodically the program will freeze, becoming totally unresponsive for 2 to 15 seconds or so. The freezes come more frequently when there is a map open with LOS and or other FX going. Having lots of tokens on the map also seems to have an effect. At this point I'm loving FGU but the lag thing is the only major downside. Please Fix!

I have seen the same issue!

I noticed that the GPU drops to 0% for the time the system is frozen even though I am no where near full GPU usage or memory usage before the event. This seems to correspond to a disk write action that is very brief and can be seen in prefect sync with the lag event.

I have it happening both in Windows and Linux (Fedora).

Weissrolf

April 12th, 2021, 15:12

GPU load drops down because the CPU (single core) is overload and not feeding the GPU any data in this moment. Disk access, garbage collection or general memory related operation could well be it. My personal lags are too short and in quick succession to pinpoint it down to such an event, but something as big as shown in the videos should be measurable more easily.

nephranka

April 12th, 2021, 15:28

Interesting. My setup is:
Intel® Core™ i5-8265U (1.6 GHz base frequency, up to 3.9 GHz with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology, 6 MB cache, 4 cores)
Memory, standard 16 GB DDR4-2400 SDRAM (2 x 8 GB)
Video graphics Intel® UHD Graphics 620 Integrated (8 GB shared)

So, I am not sure it is a single core issue for me as I have 4 but maybe that is still not enough. I always assumed it is the low video card but not seeing the usage maxed so not sure it is even getting close to being pushed to the limit.

The behavior looks like the CPU gets busy doing something (maybe working with the disk) and stops sending info to the GPU. Then it takes a beat for the GPU to fire back up? I will watch the CPU traffic to see if there is a tie in.

Sterno

April 12th, 2021, 15:36

So, I am not sure it is a single core issue for me as I have 4 but maybe that is still not enough. I always assumed it is the low video card but not seeing the usage maxed so not sure it is even getting close to being pushed to the limit.

From what I've read in these forums, the version of LUA that FGU is using is single-threaded, so it doesn't matter how many cores you have. It'll just use one.

And I have the same impression as you... it seems related to disk access, or possibly whatever processing it's doing to prepare to save. Oddly, I never see this pop up during live games (maybe because my "live" campaign is only 2.2 MB right now?), but when I'm working on large modules (usually once they reach about 5 MB of data), I'll get periodic freezes that seem to correlate to when it autosaves. The larger the DB gets, the longer the freezes seem to become. I'm running off a m.2 SSD so it's not like the drive is slow, but those hangs can get pretty long, and we're only talking 10-15 MB of data.

Weissrolf

April 12th, 2021, 15:37

FGU's Lua mostly only runs on a single core, except for the network part and maybe some other minor stuff.

Weissrolf

April 12th, 2021, 15:38

As far as I can tell the db.xml file is saved every 5 minutes. No idea if there are specific events that make it save in between?!

nephranka

April 12th, 2021, 15:44

From what I've read in these forums, the version of LUA that FGU is using is single-threaded, so it doesn't matter how many cores you have. It'll just use one.

And I have the same impression as you... it seems related to disk access. Oddly, I never see this pop up during live games (maybe because my "live" campaign is only 2.2 MB right now?), but when I'm working on large modules (usually once they reach about 5 MB of data), I'll get periodic freezes that seem to correlate to when it autosaves. The larger the DB gets, the longer the freezes seem to become. I'm running off a m.2 SSD so it's not like the drive is slow, but those hangs can get pretty long, and we're only talking 10-15 MB of data.

I too have a m.2 SSD, so I thought it would not be an issue...

Griogre

April 12th, 2021, 22:12

Some motherboards share m2 channels with hard drive or other channels. I have one like that. If you have another non m2 drive you might try installing FG to it and seeing if it makes any difference.

nephranka

April 13th, 2021, 02:01

Some motherboards share m2 channels with hard drive or other channels. I have one like that. If you have another non m2 drive you might try installing FG to it and seeing if it makes any difference.

Ok. So I tried the on board SSD and I tried a SDcard. What I found was the card reader sees a much bigger spike in activity than the SSD drive, so clearly the SSD is faster. In both cases the GPU still drops and it is definitely tied to the saving action. It happens every autosave and even if I /save. The bigger the db file the longer the down time on the GPU.

No noticeable effect on a small test campaign (400 KB db file). I can see a little dip but not detectable to the eye in game. I have one campaign with a db of 10 MB and I get 2-10 secs drop on the GPU. One additional factor is any images being open and activity on the screen. More of that gets me closer to 10 secs.

It appears that HD speed is not the issue, nor location. It looks like something with the CPU and the GPU?

I guess I am back to that it is the specs of my machine. The video card specifically. (for the record it happens in windows and Linux. All video drivers are updated and one is open source (Linux))

damned

April 13th, 2021, 02:08

As far as I can tell the db.xml file is saved every 5 minutes. No idea if there are specific events that make it save in between?!

every 5 mins plus any manual events kicked off with /save

Psycholiquid71

April 16th, 2021, 14:12

Weissrolf

April 16th, 2021, 14:50

Windows cache disabled (for said drive) maybe? Reading your background in between the lines and given how cache is enabled by default, not likely, but you never know.

I only play bought adventure modules with db.xml files just 1 mb large (yet). So I cannot test this for you. My main guess would be that the saving maxes out the main-thread for whatever inefficient algorithm was used and thus suffers from a CPU bottleneck (like most of the time with FGU), not a IOPS or bandwidth one. If it isn't the CPU then the write mechanism really would be messed up, which unfortunately can happen with various software.

Jiminimonka

April 16th, 2021, 15:09

Zarestia

April 16th, 2021, 15:12

Here's a kicker for you guys, we put it on a Flash SAN at work and an Enterprise Internal Solid State Drive and still the same issue, now we are talking IOPS of unimaginable speeds for this game and problem still exists. My whole engineering team just kind of laughed when we saw it do this on that kind of hardware.

If you put software with an "error/bug" on the fastest supercomputer in the world, you can normally still see the problem. Furthermore, enterprise hardware is not always best for consumer prodcuts, a game probably performs better on a high-end "gaming" computer than on a 64-core server with local NVME drives, 512 GB RAM and a big quadro card...

In your latest shown test video in mid february you moved a token on a map with LoS and enabled modules, after many modules were enabled there were some "freezes" as you tried to move the token. When LoS was disabled, the rest was fine. This seems to indicate some kind of garbage colletion and/or FoW history problems (first was already written by Moon Wizard).

Just some short ideas:
- Does the freeze happen when you enable the modules before you move the token?
- Does the freeze happen when you don't have LoS enabled?
- Does the map size affect the freezing?
- Does the freeze happen if you don't have any tokens on the map?
- A really clean campaign (with no other campaings, modules or extensions in all the folders) was tried, right?

I personally haven't seen this issue in my campaigns.

@Weissrolf: If there would be a problem with the saving mechanism, OP would be able to recreate when typing "/save", which was so far not tested as I read in the thread. Also please share your reverse-engineering findings of the "inefficient" algorithm so the devs can fix.
Maybe @Sterno can share one of his/her big modules to let others/the devs investigate a "saving issue" (should in reality be a new thread.). Would be really cool if this thread stays focused to OP's issue :)

Weissrolf

April 16th, 2021, 15:52

A suggest to look at memory changes if garbage collection is to be the culprit.

PS: If the campaign could be shared others may indeed take a look at it.

Weissrolf

April 16th, 2021, 16:09

I took the large "Keep on the Borderland" campaign uploaded by another forum user. It features a 32 mb db.xml file, lots of LoS walls and I populated the map with extra tokens. The many tokens with the many walls make map operations perform very badly with the main thread's CPU core being maxed out, the wall removal workaround works against that. But there is no 3 seconds lag every 15 seconds and no high load when no map operations are touched.

Saving the campaign via /save takes about 3 seconds (on my rig) with the main thread's CPU core being maxed out, so that would fit somewhat. But auto-saving only happens every 5 minutes, not every 15 seconds.

So no luck reproducing the exact same issue here.

Moon Wizard

April 16th, 2021, 16:31

@Psycholiquid71,

Are you still having the same performance hiccups using the latest build released on Tuesday?
Did we ever get a sample campaign exhibiting the issue from you?

Thanks,
JPG

Moon Wizard

April 17th, 2021, 01:24

I just tried to recreate the scenario you showed in the video with the current Test build.

I could get a small hesitation when constantly moving the token back and forth about every 5 seconds; but it was perhaps a quarter second. Are you seeing something different with the current Test build?

Thanks,
JPG

Psycholiquid71

April 17th, 2021, 14:53

Testing,

Same issue. Tried on clean campaign and current campaign.

Link to Campaigns:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NsP0myU9lyvSZJ3vIHm_VRbEu5E9C3Ul/view?usp=sharing

Weissrolf

April 17th, 2021, 16:05

Psycholiquid71

April 17th, 2021, 16:13

This is when I realized that you are using an AMD FX CPU. Please try to set CPU affinity to cores 0/2/4/6/8 via Task-Manager -> Details -> right-click on fantasygrounds.exe -> Set Affinity.

I also wonder that you are now experiencing the issue on a clean campaign when originally you posted that a new campaign did work? What changed in between?

Please go see post 14 I proved with a clean campaign that it has the issue.

Of course there is no 8 in cores as all computer hardware start with 0 so not sure if you meant 0/2/4/6 or not but I am willing to give it a try.

But I really shouldn't have to do this and I am sure I am not the only person in all of FGU using this processor.

Psycholiquid71

April 17th, 2021, 16:17

Same problem exists.

Weissrolf

April 17th, 2021, 16:25

I don't doubt you, just wondered if the original "new campaign worked better" was a one-off or if something technically reproducible changed.

The reason why I asked you to test using only even numbered cores is because the AMD FX series comes with "compromised" cores where two cores share several resources. Windows keeps switching software threads around cores to spread heat which caused people (micro)stutters with AMD FX series (particularly in games). Testing this takes less than a minute of your time and makes sure that your specific CPU architecture is not to be blames.

All that being said, (micro)stutters will keep happening with FGU's current state of optimizations and almost everything running on a single core. I posted a screenshot demonstrating that I sometimes get fps drops (and corresponding lag) down to every second. These drops are less than a second long, though, certainly not 2 (on a 9900K that is).

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?63289-Moving-tokens-drops-output-every-1-second-pointers-every-2-5-seconds.

Garbage collection was named back then, too, but then the thread died and I did not hear back from devs anymore.

Weissrolf

April 17th, 2021, 16:29

I just re-read my old thread and noticed that changing /vsync had an impact on my regular spikes. Try that as a workaround and to report back how it affects your own experience.

Psycholiquid71

April 17th, 2021, 16:35

Tried the vsync a while back. However, tried the Clean Campaign with only the modules and it seems to only hang for a second every so often. Not hardly as much as before so I am wondering now if there is something in the campaign that is causing it to show its nasty head a lot more. I am going to try and add in some stuff to the clean one today (Another copy so I can keep a base that I know works) and see if I can pinpoint what may be bringing the hang to the front.

Weissrolf

April 17th, 2021, 16:43

Also watch for short CPU spikes when the dropouts happen. Don't look for 100% CPU load, but rather for around 12%.

Psycholiquid71

April 17th, 2021, 16:51

Nope still doing it, the more I add the worse it gets. Same CPU and GPU effects as all times before. Will wait for more updates to come out and try it again later. Got Talespire to mess with in the mean time.

Psycholiquid71

May 28th, 2021, 21:37

Well after formatting again and only loading FGU and drivers I think the lag is gone. I have all my mods loaded that are official FGU bought and everything seems good. Still cant tell you what was causing it.

Durhazz

September 20th, 2021, 22:07

Yes! I have the same issue. IS there a fix for this?

JDMcComb

September 21st, 2021, 02:08

I was on a game that had serious lag issues like this. We ended up pulling out of the game because things were lagging too much.

Moon Wizard

September 21st, 2021, 04:11

This is not the same issue. We are aware of some performance issues with the most recent patch that we are working on narrowing down, since it appears to be an issue related to some infrastructure changes for future releases. We should have a patch release this week to help, and narrow down further if needed.

I'm going to close this particular thread; since the way the program works for vision/lighting has changed almost completely since this thread was initiated.

Regards,
JPG