Worth the switch to Unity yet?

[bmos]

Something else to consider is that, as far as I can tell, Unity will *not* run on any Windows other than 10. Which is one of the main things keeping me from switching: My only available non-work-PC is still Windows 7, and some of my potential players may be in the same boat.

I also still don't get the impression that FGU is quite "ready for prime time". Sure, it's now out of beta, but I still see people saying "really, it runs fine... if you have a good gaming-optimized PC... and if you don't mind the occasional 5, 10, or 15 minute wait in the middle of a game."
If FGU really is smooth sailing now (assuming Windows 10 or 64-bit Macs), somebody let me know.

Windows 8.1 (and possibly Windows 8) work also, I think.
I haven't had any serious Unity issues in months on my Windows 10 machine.

[Jiminimonka]

I have had no real issues with FGU at all. A few bugs but nothing that hindered gameplay.

Is the 40% upgrade discount over now?

Upgrade to Windows 10 if you are on 7 or just get Linux installed and skip all that Windows nonsense.

[HywelPhillips]

I run FGU on a 2017 iMac Pro. My two groups have had no significant performance problem in months. A couple of people had permissions issues installing but they seem to be fixed now.

I would not want to be without FGU's image processing features now. The ability to quickly customise maps is great. For example this morning I quickly repurposed one for a spider lair and adding cobwebs over the top using assets I already had on disk was really easy.

Players really like the FX, too. I'm running a ghost stories game and using mist, cloud, time-of-day, change colour and so forth makes it really easy to turn a bright and cheerful map into a scary night-time one in less than a minute. It's even more powerful now you can mask off areas and selectively apply the FX.

And it runs natively on Macs which makes it a no-brainer for me.

[allenw01234]

I have had no real issues with FGU at all. A few bugs but nothing that hindered gameplay.

Is the 40% upgrade discount over now?

Upgrade to Windows 10 if you are on 7 or just get Linux installed and skip all that Windows nonsense.

Thanks, but even if I could upgrade to Windows 10, I wouldn't want to make my players do so.

So, you haven't found FGU to be slow to load, or subject to random pauses? What kind of system do you have?

[Jiminimonka]

Thanks, but even if I could upgrade to Windows 10, I wouldn't want to make my players do so.

So, you haven't found FGU to be slow to load, or subject to random pauses? What kind of system do you have?

Ryzen 3700 4Ghz and Nvidia 1080ti and 32gb ram. Its a bit slow to boot but I have so many modules I expect that. Takes about 1 minute to open the table.

[jfg1984]

I just made the switch from FG Classic too FG Unity. I wasn't even aware of the issue with incompatibility with earlier versions of windows because I tend to buy a new computer ever 3-5 years to keep up with any video games I want to play, and since Windows 10 has been the standard issue operating system since 2015 all my machines were already carrying it.

From an ease of use and experience perspective, I found the interface to look exactly like it does in classic from a player and GM perspective with the exception of how the battle maps are handled.

If you're a player, the difference in how the battle maps are handled seemed very small to me. All I had to get used to was the fact that I'm no longer free to move my token around the map with the freedom I formerly had in which to do so. Those line of sight barriers that block your vision also often block your token's ability to move as well, so if you try to click and drag your token through a line of sight barrier the game isn't going to allow it to do so. This is mostly a problem when you are near the corner of a hallway in a dungeon and you want to move around the corner, and you try to path your token straight through the corner like this:

Capture.PNG

This might intuitively feel like you're just saving time because you're thinking of it like a board game piece being moved, but you're going to hit a barrier and get stopped. In actuality you have to move like this:

Capture.PNG

Aside from that, everything feels about the same with some minor tweaks that I found to be quality of life improvements.

As a DM, those battle maps are a lot more complicated than they used to be to create because in classic all I had to worry about was putting a grid on an image, and then masking the parts of it I wanted to mask until my players went there. But now, I have to put a grid on the image, then trace walls over all the walls depicted in the image, then trace doors over all the doors, then pits over all the pits, then trace terrain over all the terrain, and windows over all the windows, then test it by moving a character around the map to make sure there are no gaps or glitches in the line of sight code. And then if I want to add FX effects to it I have to play around with putting an FX effect down and then masking it until only the section I want the effect to go on is unmasked, and laying that FX effect with other FX effects if I want more than one per map.

It can feel a bit overwhelming at first, but honestly a 30 minute tutorial video on Youtube had me feeling way more confident in how to use the different features.

Overall I'm glad I switched to Unity now. I think the product is already quite polished.

[Laerun]

I would lean more to 'yes', than no. You have more local memory to use now, and you have more options for connectivity. Inside FGU, you also have some great map tools and ways to create your own maps similar to Roll20. The thing you will NOT get anywhere else is THIS community, so based on 'community' alone,i would pick FG over all else. Most of the rest of the changes are minor and not as visible to the players side of things, except for maybe the movement and slight option changes. If you need help or want to see more join FGGC, Fantasy Grounds College.

Laerun
https://discordapp.com/invite/Ew6nYyw

[Sulimo]

Thanks, but even if I could upgrade to Windows 10, I wouldn't want to make my players do so.

I know a lot of people are still on Windows 7, however, Microsoft officially ended support of Windows 7 on January 14, 2020.

Anyone still on Windows 7 should upgrade asap, Microsoft is no longer releasing any security patches for Win7, so the number of vulnerabilities will just keep increasing as time goes on, making those users still on Win7 vulnerable to anything from cryptolockers to identity theft if they continue to use Win7.

Microsoft made Windows 10 available as a free upgrade for the first year of its release, however, they have quietly supported a free upgrade from Win7/8 even to this day (see here for how).

[allenw01234]

Ryzen 3700 4Ghz and Nvidia 1080ti and 32gb ram. Its a bit slow to boot but I have so many modules I expect that. Takes about 1 minute to open the table.

Sadly, what I have is an office-surplus Dell Latitude laptop with Windows 7 Enterprise, an i5-4310M CPU @2.70 GHz and 12 GB of RAM. So, I have my doubts about it's suitability for FGU, even if I could get Windows 10 on it.

[spoofer]

I play with FGU once a week and with FGC three times a week. We are over the port forwarding hurdle with FGC so now it works very well. FGU, on the other hand, tends to drop player connections mid session. In my experience, it happens on average at most about once per session per player. You know it happened you roll dice but do not see the result. You then need to log out, log back in, and everything is fine again. Some players get dropped more frequently than others. Some don't get dropped at all.

Otherwise, FGU has been a wonderful experience. LOS is really neat.