Huge performance decrease between 11/17 and 11/24

[dradams]

We have a weekly game. A pathfinder v1 campaign that worked normally last week was unplayable this week. All actions were laggy, delayed and unpredictable. No change in hardware for the group. The server computer is an Alienware R12--plenty of processor, graphics and memory. These problems occur whether or not clients are connected.

Did a recent update break the software?

[dradams]

A couple of fixes pushed out in last 24 hours made no difference. Still unplayable. Can't even move icons.

[Trenloe]

Please ZIP up your campaign, if its large upload to a cloud sharing app and the provide a link to it here. Also please provide info on which map/s show the issue. Thanks.

[dradams]

Thanks for writing back. Not our biggest campaign, but fairly big. Link below. Just to be clear, this went from silkly smooth operation to nearly frozen in one week (for all users). No new maps added during that time. "Temple of Desna" is current map (and one we've been using for a couple of weeks).

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Q6wRQrd4FpJkoTs2Lohfo-i-F1tNSBnk?usp=sharing

[Zacchaeus]

Thanks for uploading that, the more campaigns the devs see the more they are likely to figure out the problem with such big maps as the ones in your campaign. I see a bit of lag when selecting another token on the map you mentioned for some reason but movement seems reasonably smooth. But that may depend on a number of factors.

[dradams]

Understood, but we are at a standstill until there is a fix.

[Zacchaeus]

Understood, but we are at a standstill until there is a fix.

You can roll back to the previous version if you want. Select Settings and the Prev in the dropdown in the advanced tab and then update.

[dradams]

I tried that and a huge amount of content was missing when I loaded the campaign again. The roll back is not really an option without a save file migration tool to go with it.

[Zacchaeus]

I tried that and a huge amount of content was missing when I loaded the campaign again. The roll back is not really an option without a save file migration tool to go with it.

Rolling back the client should have no bearing on campaign content since that isn't changed in any way.

[Trenloe]

Rolling back the client should have no bearing on campaign content since that isn't changed in any way.
The campaign data is stored in a different place when rolling back - as you're actually using a different data directory - <FG App Data>\channels\prev


I tried that and a huge amount of content was missing when I loaded the campaign again. The roll back is not really an option without a save file migration tool to go with it.

If you've never rolled back before (moved to the "prev" channel), FG will copy all of your currently data from the live channel. If you've rolled back previously, FG won't do the copy and you'll be playing with the data that was copied the first time you changed to the "prev" channel. This includes campaign data, modules, extensions, etc. that aren't updated via the FG update process. Therefore, it's very possible that switching to the "prev" channel won't have recent data.

The best way to switch to the "prev" channel, assuming you don't want to keep any data in the "prev" channel, is to delete <FG App Data>\channels\prev before you switch.

[claedawg]

This is strange as I was having a different, but similar, issue last night. My battlemaps and overland map had no issues. Tokens were giving me no issues at all (wasn't even getting the slowdown on PCs that had a light on them, which usually happens in my games from before any of the updates from this year, lol).

The only time I had an issue was on images that had Paint or Text layers and mostly happened when attempting to move the paint or text layer. There was an update late last night after my game, so I'm hoping that fixed the issue.

[Trenloe]

Thanks for writing back. Not our biggest campaign, but fairly big. Link below. Just to be clear, this went from silkly smooth operation to nearly frozen in one week (for all users). No new maps added during that time. "Temple of Desna" is current map (and one we've been using for a couple of weeks).

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Q6wRQrd4FpJkoTs2Lohfo-i-F1tNSBnk?usp=sharing
I also have slow token movement using the Temple of Desna map. And the map can take a while to fully load. On my system, this appears to be present when lighting is enabled.

The map has an excessive number of lights defined (see image below). Disabling/enabling lighting on the map takes a few seconds for me, so this seems to indicate that the lighting is impacting performance.

As a temporary workaround - disable lighting. I know this isn't ideal but it may get you up and running quickly. Another, more labor-intensive option, is to reduce the number of lights. However, I hope this may help the devs make improvements around this.

However, if I change to the "prev" channel and then run an update - you must run an update in order to get the old application executable, the performance of this map is improved - it's still a bit laggy (due to all of the lights) but I can move the tokens around better than before.

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=62742

[Zacchaeus]

Ooh, I never looked at the umber of lights. I only looked at the LoS occluders and they were fine. But that many lights will certainly slow stuff down.

[Blackwolfe]

A couple of fixes pushed out in last 24 hours made no difference. Still unplayable. Can't even move icons.

Just adding $.02 to the subject.
We didn't have our regular Sunday game today, so I updated. With just DM copy open the difference in performance is crazy bad. All good this morning unplayable after update.
I can't even work prep on the game.

[Trenloe]

Just adding $.02 to the subject.
We didn't have our regular Sunday game today, so I updated. With just DM copy open the difference in performance is crazy bad. All good this morning unplayable after update.
I can't even work prep on the game.
Please provide a copy of your campaign and give details of a couple of maps where you're having issues, and describe the issues encountered. Thanks.

[LukeDowd1978]

As all above weekly game very slow can not target monsters or tokens. very laggy. attached campaign zip. file Pathfinder 2.0. Thanks for all you do and hope you can resolve this quickly.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tQ9eNLVpi2ZVOEDYU40pntszdoJoOnHb/view?usp=drive_link

is the entire campaign folder

[Trenloe]

As all above weekly game very slow can not target monsters or tokens. very laggy. attached campaign zip. file Pathfinder 2.0. Thanks for all you do and hope you can resolve this quickly.
Thanks for providing the files, it's not the full campaign directory, so we may not be able to recreate your issue/s. Which images show the worst performance?

Plus, try it without the FG Aura extension. This has been reported to cause some slowdown with the recent update.

[Moon Wizard]

@Trenloe,
Which module is the Temple of Desna map from? I couldn't figure it out from a search online, and already checked Wrath of the Righteous AP.

EDIT: Trenloe PM'd me that this came from one of the sample campaigns provided. Thanks.

Thanks,
JPG

[dradams]

1. Firstly, thank you so much for all of the good ideas, including information on how to roll back (which is what we'll likely need to do)!
2. Absolutely granted that the map has many lights and occluders. However, as mentioned, it was working flawlessly last week (really no lag whatsoever on my machine). If it had been laggy when I was buidling/testing it, I would have changed course with my design.

So, my take away is that the devs made a change that severely exacerbated issues that *can* arise with large and crowded maps. I hope that it these issues will be identified and remediated.

[Blackwolfe]

it was working flawlessly last week (really no lag whatsoever on my machine). So, my take away is that the devs made a change that severely exacerbated issues that *can* arise with large and crowded maps. I hope that it these issues will be identified and remediated.

This. IF it wasn't an issue and worked before the update, it should work after the update.

[dradams]

@Trenloe,
Which module is the Temple of Desna map from? I couldn't figure it out from a search online, and already checked Wrath of the Righteous AP.

EDIT: Trenloe PM'd me that this came from one of the sample campaigns provided. Thanks.

Thanks,
JPG

Credit: https://www.reddit.com/r/dungeondraft/comments/j3nnyl/temple_of_light_45_x_35/?rdt=51892

[dradams]

Essentially no improvement with most recent update. Is light coverage feature new? That could be it if so.
***
Removed 50% of lights. No appreciable improvement.
***
Tried other, very small maps. Those work normally. So, back to last update dramatically slowing large/complex maps (and ineffective attempts to fix so far).

[Moon Wizard]

Thanks for letting us know. Your map is one of the maps we are looking at as still having issues. We've found a handful of items causing issues based on different use cases. Carl has one other fix in the queue that he is doing extra testing on, and is looking at a lighting specific issue right now (including your map).

Regards,
JPG

[Moon Wizard]

We just pushed a hot fix version that should help with the lag. Please run a new Check for Updates.

If you're still having issues, you may need to disable ambient lighting or all lighting on maps you are using until we're able to fix more completely.

@dradams, we're aware that your Temple of Desna map is still affected, and one of the ones that lighting would need to be disabled on in the short term.

Regards,
JPG

[dradams]

1. Thanks again for working on this, for me and the community. Our group has been playing D&D since the 70's. We're spread out around the country now, so FG has been a Godsend.
2. For an update, there is a very subtle improvement with the Desna map with 1/2 of the lights removed. Certainly not back to where it was two weeks ago. The map freezes frequently and it is difficult to move the icons around. I look forward to a more definative fix, but I'll strip out most of the content from this map in the meantime.