FGU conflicting with Discord Bot

[moostik]

There are some factors with players connected.

First, they don't always have the best of computer hardware, so while things might run like a champ on your system, they might lag the elf out of theirs.
Second, with players located in different geographic locations, different ISPs, and different network technologies, there can often be a lot of unanticipated lag that nobody can control.

Like you might have an elf ton of RAM but your player might be running 4 or 8GB and a large map with a lot of extra features and tokens might just kill their system.

There are so many possible reasons for problems, and one of my players lives in the dark ages of computer technology, so I tend to stick to smaller maps and only as many tokens as I absolutely need active at one time. That keeps her system from going off the deep end (most of the time) and makes everything run pretty fast.

I find that when my system is lagging and temp-crashing, it is almost always the size and complexity of my maps. Of course, the RMC ruleset probably adds some to the issues, there is a lot of mysterious magic under the hood making all that happen!

Maybe you could zip your campaign and Dakadin could take a look at it just to be sure it's not something in RMC?

It doesn't kill their system per se, it just makes their system kill mine.

Update: Dakadin connected to my campaign today and had a look at some things. I am hopeful we might have found some triggers and that this will help, we'll see this coming tuesday.
I will point out (as I already have before here) that if the server has to stop everything it's doing to communicate changes to the clients, and their lack of good machinery or a good line can lag, freeze, or crash the server,
then the problem lies within the code itself, not the use of the application.

However, I have come to understand that this is mostly due to limitations in the Unity engine, and its tendency to force such communication to single-threading. What this means is of course, until further notice I will have to adjust and change the use to be more forgiving for the network traffic.

Coming from more than a decade of using MapTool as my main VTT, I am used to the map being the VTT's main focus and automation being a bonus. FGU is simply the exact opposite, and the automation is why I switched.
All that being said, wish me luck, and I will post here again if I still can't make this work... because I really wwant it to.

[LordEntrails]

Elf ton of RAM..
I'm going to have to find a way to use that phrase at work this month...

[moostik]

Elf ton of RAM..
I'm going to have to find a way to use that phrase at work this month...

Yeah, i loved that one too. Metric elf tons and imperial dwarf tons FTW

[SALVADIO]

The fact that it freezes when someone connects is something that exists and that does not depend on the machine and not on the set of rules, but on the lack of multi thread related to the connection, having it when the first one comes in is "acceptable" having it always is sign that something is missing in the code or even in the chosen language and this is a recurring problem since the FGC that I believe we all believed (I still believe) that it would be solved.

[MrDDT]

All of the issues will most likely stem from the image sizes. You will need to resample the image to lower resolutions (optimally under 4kx4k).

The imagequality and vsync commands only apply to very specific cases, regarding FoW complexity and graphics card frame rate.

JPG

If this is the case it's super silly, luckily, it's not. Can't even have a 4k image lol. (yes I know Moon Wizard is the dev of the game)

4200*4200, 6.6 mb maps with a few light sources and 5 player tokens plus a dozen enemies will definitely cause issues on a modern gaming rig? My best bet is to resize those maps?
Because initially those were the largest maps in the campaign file, and I had issues from session 1.

I will try it if that's what you rcommend.

What you want to do is cut down the LOS points, and the number of tokens on the map (and lighting stuff). This would greatly affect movement and overall game lag with the map. (Also the new FOW turning that off will help, I have it off for NPCs)
Map size I've found has almost nothing to do with it. Unless you getting to extreme points (I've used over 1gig maps no problem that have no LOS and only 1 token)

Map size largest issue is the connection of people trying to get the file from you along with your upload speed. Don't forget when you right click share a map, it is now split your upload to xPlayers at the same time, plus they are limited in how fast they can download based on their speed and your split upload speeds. I tend to preload the maps that are large to players by putting them on share before they load into the game so they get that overwith on the first load in. Some players can even start your session before you play.

I can't stress this enough, LOS will have a MAJOR factor on your gameplay/lag.

Attachment 55311

This is the typical map size and type I use. And yes, different group members have different vision types and there may or may not be light sources on the map depending on time of day etc. I sometimes use weather effects and oteher FX as well but not always.

If FGU can't do what it's made to do and I need to constantly make sure I don't throw to many enemies at the party or use a map over 2mb because the game might crash, then that tbh is a massive disappointment. If it caused slowdowns and froze for a few seconds I could deal with it and manage my resources, but a CTD or freeze without recovery is unacceptable. I really hope there is something that can be done.

Thank you all so far, I have a few things I can try now at least.

Normally large maps = a lot more points of LOS that's (as I said before) is the major issue, but large maps or high res maps (I often use 200px per 5ft) is not an issue unless you have players with bad net, or your upload is really bad.

****Lighting, FX, LOS, # of tokens and FOW, all have a much larger factor than anything else.**** -- Can't stress this enough--

I want to also throw this in there just in case, Extensions can have a huge impact on lag. First thing I would do if you get any lag, is turn off all exts and see if it's still there. There are some really poorly done exts that will loop things or just really degrade the speed of the game (mostly in dice rolls but can also greatly effect adding things to the CT, opening NPC or player sheets, movements on maps etc)

I use a lot of exts and I can tell you that some are harsher on performance than others.

[moostik]

Thanks, @MrDDT

yeah idk.... today I tried running session again, it took until the first attack for the thing to freeze up again. Something else is wrong I think. I tried basically everything suggested so far in today's session. Tiny map, no effects, tiny bit of LOD, 11 tokens total, no luck.

I'm gonna try removing every trace of FGU from my PC, reinstalling it to a new disk, generate a brand new campaign file, and salvage what I can from the old one.
If that doesn't help, I think i'm done. 7 sessions down the drain, keep it up I'll lose all my players.

I'll give it one last proper push to make it work, if it refuses I'm going back to MapTool.

-M

[Trenloe]

yeah idk.... today I tried running session again, it took until the first attack for the thing to freeze up again.

Was it a player making the attack or the GM?

When a player does any action that rolls dice, some of the processing is passed off the GM instance of FG. If it's freezing when a player makes an attack then it could well be related to the player connectivity (which we've touched on in some of the posts in this thread). It's probably too late, but it would be great to get the full GM logs and the full player logs (the one whose action was around the time the freeze occurred) when something like this happens. Info on how to compile the logs can be found in the Wiki here: https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassia...o+Compile+Logs

[moostik]

Was it a player making the attack or the GM?

When a player does any action that rolls dice, some of the processing is passed off the GM instance of FG. If it's freezing when a player makes an attack then it could well be related to the player connectivity (which we've touched on in some of the posts in this thread). It's probably too late, but it would be great to get the full GM logs and the full player logs (the one whose action was around the time the freeze occurred) when something like this happens. Info on how to compile the logs can be found in the Wiki here: https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassia...o+Compile+Logs

Ok so what happened was:
All players had connected and the map was up for everybody. I had combat tracker up, we rolled initiative, First player in the list made his attack roll. Table resolver came up. Meanwhile, Player 2 plotted his movement for his turn. I hit the button to resolve the attack. FGU froze with the (not responding) text added to the window title and the transparent white overlay indicating as much. Waited for 10 minutes this time. FGU did not recover. I closed FGU and a message popped up with some unity engine standard crash message (the windows one where it asks if you want to send crash data to Microsoft)

We restarted everything, and this time something was corrupted probably - crashed properly for two players during connection and eventually froze again for me as soon as all players had successfully connected.
After that I contacted Dakadin and we had made attempts getting stuff to work, but long story short we couldn't so we cancelled session.

[Trenloe]

The next time anything like that happens, please compile the logs for the GM and one of the players involved.

[ColoradoGM]

Umm, don't do that. Smiteworks and almost everyone here will tell you to NOT do that.

Don't update on a day you plan to run? Why? I run 7 days per week, sometimes 2 sessions per day. I have no "down day" for updating.