Slow, Slow, Slow!

[Lexi the Red]

Lately whenever I have more than about a half dozen to ten NPCs in the Combat Tracker (on top of the 6 PCs), Fantasy Grounds slows to an absolutely unusable crawl. I'm not using any unusually large maps (mostly maps from official WotC content and even turning off all lighting effects barely makes a difference. There is LoS engaged, but again, the maps aren't particularly large, so not too many points, and turning it off or running a map without any LoS points at all doesn't help either. Playing D&D 5e, by the way. I've also tried disabling all of the few extensions I run, and that doesn't seem to make any difference.

I've got a pretty beefy system, with an AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core Processor, running 3.60 GHz, 4.2 overclocked, 32 GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. I have 1 GB cable internet, with only a couple other devices (phones and such) connected, so they aren't eating up much bandwidth. I am running with Discord and Syrinscape Online running, and a couple of web pages, and that's it.

It's getting to the point of frustration that I am actually considering taking a closer look at Foundry, but I really don't want to do that, I know FG so well, and I really, really like it, when it's running correctly. If anyone has any thoughts or ideas I'm all ears. I'm a full-time pro DM, so this is my livelihood. I run a lot of campaigns, and it happens across all of them.

[Moon Wizard]

Can you please post a zipped up copy of your campaign folder; along with directions on how to find the map you are having a problem with?

(The campaign folder can be found be opening the FG data folder using the Folder button in upper left of FG launch screen; then navigating to campaigns.)

Regards,
JPG

[Lexi the Red]

Here is the link to the campaign folder on Google Drive (should be available for anyone with the link.)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yKrSJgenvXDvDsxy_OhyndzuVDLqewNU/view?usp=sharingg

The specific map I was using was Iniarvs Tower Player, from the WotC Sleeping Dragons Wake module. I appreciate your assistance and any insight you can provide.

[lostsanityreturned]

It's getting to the point of frustration that I am actually considering taking a closer look at Foundry, but I really don't want to do that, I know FG so well, and I really, really like it, when it's running correctly. If anyone has any thoughts or ideas I'm all ears. I'm a full-time pro DM, so this is my livelihood. I run a lot of campaigns, and it happens across all of them.

Warning, as someone who uses foundry a lot and moved there after being frustrated at (still existing) major performance issues with FGU and the actions tab for longer running games with spellcasters.
Foundry's 5e implementation is pretty awful even once you get all the modules set up and put a lot of effort into making sure things work together.

Now, PF2e, Forbidden Lands, Old School Essentials and more are actually well handled in foundry. I would actually highly recommend trying out PF2e at some point anyway, 5e is a great system but PF2e is also a heck of a lot of fun and extremely well balanced.

But yeah, unless you are happy with very low levels of automation and a lot of GM hassles I would avoid 5e foundry.

As for your performance issues, goodluck. One thing I would check is to make sure your power mode isn't set to power saving, Ryzen processors tend to do weird things with fantasygrounds when power saving mode is on rather than high performance or balanced. But I doubt it is your problem.

I know this is a standard query, but have you tried fully uninstalling FGU (backing up your campaign files, tokens, images ofc) and reinstalling, while adding campaigns and content back one at a time?

[richthecyclist]

Adding to this thread. My system (as DM) is well spec'd (ryzen 3700x 32 gb RAM rx580 gpu) and is starting to lag but, more importantly, my players with less beefy systems area starting to see freezes (white screen) or are simply unable to interact with their tokens. This is now starting to get in the way of the game. We're running Sunlit Citadel from FG official yawning portal campaign. What steps can we take to help out my players?

[Zacchaeus]

Welcome to FG.

See Moon Wizard's post #2 above. Start a new thread and attach the campaign and post as much information about the issue as possible.

[richthecyclist]

Thank you Zacchaeus, will do

[Laerun]

Lately whenever I have more than about a half dozen to ten NPCs in the Combat Tracker (on top of the 6 PCs), Fantasy Grounds slows to an absolutely unusable crawl. I'm not using any unusually large maps (mostly maps from official WotC content and even turning off all lighting effects barely makes a difference. There is LoS engaged, but again, the maps aren't particularly large, so not too many points, and turning it off or running a map without any LoS points at all doesn't help either. Playing D&D 5e, by the way. I've also tried disabling all of the few extensions I run, and that doesn't seem to make any difference.

I've got a pretty beefy system, with an AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core Processor, running 3.60 GHz, 4.2 overclocked, 32 GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. I have 1 GB cable internet, with only a couple other devices (phones and such) connected, so they aren't eating up much bandwidth. I am running with Discord and Syrinscape Online running, and a couple of web pages, and that's it.

It's getting to the point of frustration that I am actually considering taking a closer look at Foundry, but I really don't want to do that, I know FG so well, and I really, really like it, when it's running correctly. If anyone has any thoughts or ideas I'm all ears. I'm a full-time pro DM, so this is my livelihood. I run a lot of campaigns, and it happens across all of them.

There are also other factors that have been suggested for sluggish performance in addition to large images with LoS.

There could also be some other things that add to the memory load and the performance of the table. Reducing the size of encounters, which generally includes several combatants at one time on the combat tracker and have quite a few tokens attached to the encounter. As your campaign grows, often your content grows. If you have any images shared that are not needed, that might help a little.
Sometimes, video card settings have been suggested to change the vsync setting, this was included in the troubleshooting process and documentation on the Fantasy Grounds Unity Atlassian. This performance might also be contributed to having too many sources shared.
Also, things such as having more than five or six players at a time could also make things harder on the performance as well. Three to six players should not be too bad though for participating clients.

https://youtu.be/TPqaVDlE-ho

[Moon Wizard]

@Alexander Red,

I had a chance to dig into the data on this issue; and looking at working up some profiling and following up with our developer on this component.

One thing that I did already note is that there are 54 creature tokens placed on this map, which due to LoS/FoW and other features will create large slowdowns that we are already aware of, but somewhat limited in addressing at this time. We recommend only dropping tokens for the creatures currently in the combat tracker to ensure best performance.

Regards,
JPG

[Lexi the Red]

Thank you for looking into this. It was a big combat, all 54 of those creatures were involved and in the CT.

[damned]

The original post says more than half a dozen to ten NPCs. 50 is quite a lot more than that.

When Im running games that have large numbers of enemies I drop them in (using encounters) waves.
I put a dozen or so creatures in the first wave and as the party are half way through them I drop the next wave in - maybe from another direction or just following closely in from behind.
When the third wave hits the party is really feeling the affects of attrition and have often used most of their AoE spells and really need to be clever/creative to win through.

This helps me several ways - I dont have to cycle through and manage attacks and locating creatures for 50 opponents while the players twiddle their thumbs, it doesnt bog the game engine down and ofc the players really have to think about their tactics when they dont know for sure how to use/conserve their limited use abilities/spells.

[mapleybacons]

Adding a couple of cents here because our campaign had a big slow down recently that we cleared up by going into the campaign folder.

Firstly, we deleted the chatlog.html because ours went back like 6+ months and was up to a couple megabytes (this had a huge effect on speeding up campaign auto-saving and /save command). Not a huge deal for us because we keep track of conversations and whatnot in either character sheets, notes, or external programs. But, all of your combat is saved in that file too which is just unnecessary.

[LordEntrails]

Adding a couple of cents here because our campaign had a big slow down recently that we cleared up by going into the campaign folder.

Firstly, we deleted the chatlog.html because ours went back like 6+ months and was up to a couple megabytes (this had a huge effect on speeding up campaign auto-saving and /save command). Not a huge deal for us because we keep track of conversations and whatnot in either character sheets, notes, or external programs. But, all of your combat is saved in that file too which is just unnecessary.
Good reminder. But rather than deleting it, just append a date on it so you can go back to it if you want/need sometime in the future.

[mapleybacons]

Mmm.... pro tips. Good idea!

[frozzzt]

I'm having a constant low performance issue, sound likes this thread.
I'm using a map size 2000x2595px (587kb) plus 32 tokens plus light effects plus 4 players. After 5 minutes, everything slow down, a delay of 2 seconds to between turns, actions, rolls, everything.
I done what mapleybacons said, but no effect. I have this issue in most of my combat maps with more than 15 tokens on tracker. I disabled light effects and all effects sometimes, nothing change.

Anyone have any tip to improve performance? I used the tactic to make waves of npcs to improve sometimes, but sometimes, like in a tavern or big place, I have to put a lot npcs/minions with hp to take area damage or be a meat shield for enemies.

[Moon Wizard]

We would need to get more information on your campaign (and perhaps a zipped up copy of the campaign folder), as well as which map(s) are impacted.

Also, are you using any community extensions? Depending on the extension, they can dramatically affect performance.

Regards,
JPG

[frozzzt]

I using the extensions:


Advanced Effects
Automatic Return Damage
Critically Awesome Essentials & One Click Druid
Indicators
Elven Accuracy


The campaign zip: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qrp71TGb9Q1CF61hbk-BerBFvxSxChdW/view?usp=share_link

The map: secret_zariel_temple (secret_zariel_temple.jpg)

I disable all the extensionsm and the turn pass is faster. But I need more real to discover which extension is lagging my sessions.

[Laerun]

I using the extensions:


Advanced Effects
Automatic Return Damage
Critically Awesome Essentials & One Click Druid
Indicators
Elven Accuracy


The campaign zip: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qrp71TGb9Q1CF61hbk-BerBFvxSxChdW/view?usp=share_link

The map: secret_zariel_temple (secret_zariel_temple.jpg)

I disable all the extensions, and the turn pass is faster. But I need more real to discover which extension needs to catch up to my sessions.

One can use more mob-like NPCs, or one NPC represents 5-10 people, especially if they are all similar in NPC stat blocks, like in some mass combat situations. This is only a suggested work-workaround to help lower the NPC count. and is done well in the MCDM content: "Strongholds & Followers" module on the FG store, which might help. Sometimes, when the CT is loaded up with more than a dozen actors, it can bog things down, especially with several tokens, a big map, etc. If the extensions pull on the combat tracker and engage with 32+ actors, that can create some steep overhead, too, depending on what it does and what the actual behavior does. DnD5e does not support mass combat out of the box, so a few third-party content creators have tried to address these issues mechanically.
DM's Guild FG Module with mass combat NPCs and ideas:

Advanced Effects and One Click Druid are likely, but NOT necessarily the issue here, and might clash somewhat.

Mass Combat:
DM's Guild FG Module with mass combat NPCs and ideas: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/280148/Argols-Comprehensive-Guide-to-Infrastructure-A-Complete-Guide-to-Constructing-Cities-for-with-Players-Fantasy-Grounds?src=also_purchased&filters=0_0_0_0_0_45462_45545_0_353357
Strongholds and Followers: https://affiliates.fantasygrounds.com/316071/15958/url_27868

[Moon Wizard]

I'm going to guess that it's either Advanced Effects or Critically Awesome Essentials & One Click Druid, but maybe Indicators.
The others sound pretty focused on a specific activity.

Usually, if there is no initial slowdown and then it accelerates, it's usually some sort of internal network/update loop in an extension that keeps spawning until it takes over all resources.

Regards,
JPG

[frozzzt]

I had my session today with my other campaign, and I enable and disable all the extensions (only modules are on). It was terrible, the combat of 4 players against 10 npcs was super laggy, 2 to 3 second to map respond and rolls, even the mouse was lagging hard to move in screen. At start of the session all was fast, after 5 min everything was slow and some players crashed. If I have FG openned in the background, all my others desktop app lags to. and my desktop is pretty good for design and video editing.

It has been a nightmare to dm with this problems. I still dunno what to do. Reinstall everytinng?

I dont think is the extensions, I dont find anyone complaining about.

[damned]

I dont know what you might have tried in these but I would try the following:

on each PC in CT add an effect:
VISMAX: 60
or choose another more appropriate number like 100, but do put a limit on it. This will reduce the number of LoS calulations that are getting done.

On your computer and on each player computer have everyone enter in chat:
/vsync 0
Or on slower computers try:
/vsync 4

On all computers try:
/imagequality 3

Are you using maps you did the LoS on or are they store bought ones?
If you did them do they have a lot of intersections/points? Trying to limit the number of points can make a big difference.

[Trenloe]

Some of the settings damned is referring to are detailed in this FG Wiki thread: https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FGCP/pages/1638006786/Reducing+GPU+Usage I'd recommend trying some of the steps mentioned there (as well as the VISMAX effect mentioned by damned) to reduce the load on your computer.

[frozzzt]

I dont know what you might have tried in these but I would try the following:

on each PC in CT add an effect:
VISMAX: 60
or choose another more appropriate number like 100, but do put a limit on it. This will reduce the number of LoS calulations that are getting done.

On your computer and on each player computer have everyone enter in chat:
/vsync 0
Or on slower computers try:
/vsync 4

On all computers try:
/imagequality 3

Are you using maps you did the LoS on or are they store bought ones?
If you did them do they have a lot of intersections/points? Trying to limit the number of points can make a big difference.

Wow! I gonna try this, I never done this kind of setup. Thank you for the help. I gonna answer after I do the tests here.

Maps with LoS I bought and they are from modules. My own maps are HD and have only effects like light and water etc.

[Wintermute]

Just wanted to add my two cents in. I run a ton of extensions (35 at last count) including indicators (my #1 favorite extension), advanced effects, and one-click druid/more. I would be really surprised if those are the issue.

Could internet connections be playing a part in it? I have one player down under, and one player a few hundred miles from me who occasionally experience internet issues. Generally when I have problems with speed, one of these two seem to be having internet slowdowns and/or other problems. I started wondering about this during one slow down. When the player disconnected, we stopped experiencing issues until he reconnected, at which point the slowdown started again.

What do you think Moon Wizard?

[Zacchaeus]

Yes, slow internet will indeed cause lag. Especially if the DM is the slow one.

[Trenloe]

Could internet connections be playing a part in it? I have one player down under, and one player a few hundred miles from me who occasionally experience internet issues. Generally when I have problems with speed, one of these two seem to be having internet slowdowns and/or other problems.
Yes, absolutely. Virtually every action a player undertakes (attack, damage, etc.) that rolls dice and provides a result (i.e. not just throwing dice in the chat or rolling without a target number/DC) results in the player instance passing off a portion of the process to the GM instance - this is because the GM instance has access to all data and can apply damage to targets, store the result of an attack, etc., etc.. If the communication from the player side to the GM is slow/flaky then this will result in slowdowns - if you're seeing dice rolls being slow, especially the presentation of the dice roll and the end result text (eveon the GM side), then that could well be being caused by a player's connection.

[LordEntrails]

My session Wednesday night (-7UTC) had performance issues as well. In a campaign that we've been running for a long time. We have archived the chatlog.html so it wasn't too big. We tried with and without extensions. Have not had time yet to investigate further, but intend to take a look later today/tomorrow and will post details.

[pindercarl]

I dont know what you might have tried in these but I would try the following:

on each PC in CT add an effect:
VISMAX: 60
or choose another more appropriate number like 100, but do put a limit on it. This will reduce the number of LoS calulations that are getting done.

On your computer and on each player computer have everyone enter in chat:
/vsync 0
Or on slower computers try:
/vsync 4

On all computers try:
/imagequality 3

Are you using maps you did the LoS on or are they store bought ones?
If you did them do they have a lot of intersections/points? Trying to limit the number of points can make a big difference.

Setting a VISMAX value on tokens does not reduce the line-of-sight calculations. In can improve performance of fog-of-war and, to a limited extent, it may improve the drawing performance. Depending on the map, the FOW calculation may be significant. I believe the current default for NPCs is no FOW. The number of LOS points has a direct and linear impact on the calculations.

[LordEntrails]

Tested with both a local and remote user and could not reproduce the performance issues. Looking at the logs (prev is with all extensions, default is without), I see a lot of connection issues, so I'm thinking something network related was going on Wednesday and has since resolved itself.
57199

[damned]

Setting a VISMAX value on tokens does not reduce the line-of-sight calculations. In can improve performance of fog-of-war and, to a limited extent, it may improve the drawing performance. Depending on the map, the FOW calculation may be significant. I believe the current default for NPCs is no FOW. The number of LOS points has a direct and linear impact on the calculations.

Thanks Carl.

[frozzzt]

I've tried vsync and image quality - all modes, it makes no difference, not even turning the extension on/off. I realize today that is laggingon the login screen, without opening any map, even just with me (GM) connected LAN or CLOUD.

My next attempt will be to reinstall FG. I just need to make sure I don't lose my campaigns..


PC SYSTEM INFO --------------
OS Name Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core Processor, 3593 Mhz, 8 Core(s), 16 Logical Processor(s)
Adapter Description NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 16.0 GB
Total Physical Memory 15.9 GB
Available Physical Memory 10.7 GB
Total Virtual Memory 18.1 GB
Available Virtual Memory 11.1 GB

[Trenloe]

I realize today that is laggingon the login screen, without opening any map, even just with me (GM) connected LAN or CLOUD.
Sounds like your GPU is taking a lot of the resources. See the previously linked Wiki page about reducing GPU load - you’ll need to force your GPU to run at lower resources (FPS primarily) for the FantasyGrounds.exe application.

[damned]

That Wiki page has some reccommended settings for your Graphics Card.
Make sure you update your GFX drivers and then reboot.
You might also want to check that you are actually using the NVIDIA - eg you are not plugged into the onboard gfx port.
Then follow the Wiki.

[Moon Wizard]

For FPS checking,

Can you run a FPS counter for applications, and see what FG is running at?
For /vsync 0, it should target to run at 60 fps or less.
For /vsync 1-4, it's a factor of your monitor refresh rate.
There are some settings on graphics cards that let you override application specified frame rates; so you might want to make sure that you don't the control panel overriding application settings.

Regards,
JPG

[frozzzt]

My FPS is at 60 after some tests. I investigate my players connections speed to, everyone had a OK speed (150 Mbps or higher). I updated my video card driver and etc.

At end, I reinstall/backup data and started from scratch a new installation of FG. and worked! no more lagging at all. I have no ideia what was going on the old installation.

Thank you damned and moon wizard for the support. At least I know what is NOT a problem. Extensions OK, internet speed Ok, drivers OK. Maybe my old installation had some HUGE files or something that after I cleaned everything, go back to work as some months ago.

\o/

[damned]

Thanks for sticking it thru and posting your final solution.