Dice rolls laggy as heck while any FG windows are open (maps, etc).

[frostfiretulsa]

Hi Guys,

My DM is having a issue over the last couple weeks. When he has a map (or any FG campaign windows) open, dice rolls are really really laggy - the more dice, the more laggy.

We have searched the forums and google, and found multiple references to this issue, with most having some success by turning off anti-aliasing etc for FG executable, and/or setting the windows priority gaming options for FG.exe in the windows settings. None of those options worked for us.

His video card is a GTX 960. We installed the latest drivers with no change (he was on older drivers). We tried just about everything I can think of (and I have been doing PC tech support for decades).

At the time of the "lag", CPU is pegged at 25%(ish), and GPU steady around 10% usage. If its a graphics issue, it sure seems to not be using much of the GPUs resources at the time of the lag. I never saw it spike above 15%. This leads me to think its a CPU issue with a single core pegged at 100% causing the lag.

Another weird issue with his install. He does not have a 64bit executable. I did not do a full reinstall of FG, but I did update and switch to and from test mode, but its still not there, so i could not test that to see if it was better.

Any kick in the right direction much appreciated! We are going to miss our session tonight because of this issue. The lag is bad enough that we are cancelling to work on fixing it.

Thanks,

Frosty

[Moon Wizard]

If he wasn’t having any issues and it started getting laggy; it usually means something changed on the machine whether graphics driver updates or something else.

Some people have had success trying older drivers, and reporting the issue to the driver company.

Another thing to check is to make sure that all overlays are disabled (such as Steam, FRAPS, or anything else that tries to add overlays to other applications. Overlays do not work well with FG.

Regards,
JPG

[Zacchaeus]

Also there is no 64bit executable. FG is 32 bit. There was a period where a test 64bit version was available but it was withdrawn due to a host of issues. So make sure none of you are still using it in error.

[frostfiretulsa]

If he wasn’t having any issues and it started getting laggy; it usually means something changed on the machine whether graphics driver updates or something else.

Some people have had success trying older drivers, and reporting the issue to the driver company.

Another thing to check is to make sure that all overlays are disabled (such as Steam, FRAPS, or anything else that tries to add overlays to other applications. Overlays do not work well with FG.

Regards,
JPG

Yup, tried all that.

And yes, I assumed it was due to a change of some sort, but if so we cannot find it.

We did not try more than the 2 drivers... yet. That will be on the to-do list for tonight if no other info comes our way. We will be trying to fix that instead of our weekly game (sigh!)

[Moon Wizard]

I would really dig in on seeing what is running in the background. Every company is overlay crazy these days. Try manually shutting down all non-Windows backgrounds tasks through Task Manager.

Regards,
JPG

[frostfiretulsa]

Ok, after hours of installs, reinstalls, updating and downgrading drivers.. I finally stumbled on the answer.

One of the various suggestions I found for this issue was to browse to Windows Settings : Gaming : Graphics : and in there, add our executable and set it to High Performance. In that dialog it shows the GPU assigned for both Power Saving and High Performance modes. The problem is it does not let you select this... or manipulate it or do anything at all with it whatsoever. In my DMs case the GPU listed was his on-board GPU - with no option to select his Nvidia card. Since there was no option, I ignored this, figuring that the card running the monitor that contains the game would take precedence.

Turns out that using this option in this way forced FG to use the onboard GPU all the time, which may have been causing or at least worsening the issue.

In order to get another GPU there as a option, you need to select one of the monitors being run by your good GPU as your "Primary Display" in the windows display settings... once you do that, remove FG from the Settings : Gaming : Graphics Options list and re-add it... and the GPU will show your "good" GPU. In our case, that solved our problem completely.

I hope these notes are easy to follow... its late, and I'm pretty tired lol. Hope it helps someone else with the issue.

Frosty

[Zacchaeus]

Thanks for posting this solution. It may well help others since it comes up now and again.

[Moon Wizard]

Really appreciate the information. It sounds like it took some digging to find.

JPG