18 months on : FG vs. Roll20 vs Foundry

[LordEntrails]

Finally, community comes up quite a bit in this thread. While the community here is good the moderation has trended towards heavy handedness in the last year, with quite a bit of thread suppression occurring. It was starting to feel like no one was allowed a dissenting opinion on these forums. I think someone might have noticed it because it's been better lately. Could have all just been my imagination though.

Moderation is always a challenge. And yes the last year or so has been tough. I will say in terms of the posts/threads that have been moderated their have been significant number of users on both sides of the issue. Even though the community does not see them, we have received a lot of reports and requests to moderate certain users more heavily than we have actually moderated them. So, it is easy to see when a thread is locked. But it is not so apparent when their are many requests by users reporting various posts and users and even requesting that such users be banned.

As I pointed out earlier in this thread, I think their is solid evidence that this community is more open to discourse and diverse opinion than the other VTT communities are.

For those who like to collect and analyze data, I would be curious to know the time distribution and count of posts by users in this thread alone. I suspect in the last 20 or so pages of this thread the vast majority of posts in this thread are probably attributed to a very small set of users.

[similarly]

Curiousity is always good. Why do you ask about helping Smiteworks? This is a comparison thread about sharing user experiences with the different VTT systems. If nothing else then it gives both users and devlopers a broader perspective and a look over the edge of the plate.

Here is one support/discussion thread about FGU's memory usage, for curiosity's sake.

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...age-collection

There were various others over the last two years.

I just wondered if you had any recommendations for smiteworks on the issue.

[Weissrolf]

Sure, take test-scenarios seriously. Run reproducible test-scenarios yourself. Write test-code around problematic procedures like the 5 minute auto-save memory leaking issue. Learn and be willing to use a debugger and run tests to find the culprits in your code. It is called Quality Assurance.

Innovate faster along the way. Try to get rid of the age-old Lua 5.1 interpreter. It is slow and it is inefficient at least with the coding style used by Smiteworks, as a consequence FGU cannot output get simple lists of formatted text without CPU overload (even less so if the corresponding window is moved).

Also make use of this: https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/MultiDisplay.html

Does anything of this post belong here? Nope. Wrong thread.

[Dakadin]

Real-world memory consumption - instead of just listed specs - for both Foundry in Chrome and FGU loading the same Pathfinder 2E system (PF2 Core Rulebook unloaded in FGU for ca. 100 mb less memory usage), same Fall of Plaguestone adventure, same map.

Foundry showing a higher resolution version of the map with all encounter tokens on the map vs. FGU showing a lower resolution version of the same map with no encounter tokens on the map:


Running a GM + player session on the same PC (both FGU processes started fresh):


Foundry server running on my Synology NAS (to which the Chrome client connects):

Hi Weissrolf,

Can you help me understand how you are getting the results that you are because when I do test similar to yours my results are quite different? I didn't have the adventure that you mentioned but did have Ruins of Gauntlight so I used Level 1 from that adventure.

FG
I created a new campaign. On the GM side, I only loaded the 3 modules in FG related to that adventure (so included the 2 player modules). I then loaded the 2 player modules on the player side and created a new PC. Then on the GM side I added the PC to the Combat Tracker and then added it to the map. After that I shared the map with the player side.

Foundry
I created a new World. Loaded the PDF to Foundry Importer and imported the adventure PDF. Then I created a new Actor for the player side and added it to the map in the same location at the I put the PC in FG and even zoomed the map to the same size. Then I connected to Foundry using the player account.

Here are my results:
Screenshot 2022-03-27 235242.png

Now I did notice the the GPU used decreases greatly if I don't have the Foundry tab selected in Chrome. On FG, the results didn't change much regardless of whether or not it had focus.

Any assistance you can provide in how I can replicate your results would be appreciated since from what I am seeing FG is using less memory and GPU but more CPU.

Thanks,
Dakadin

[Weissrolf]

Again, wrong thread. But my Chrome (no Foundry modules enabled):


Your Chrome: 16 processes, likely a whole bunch of Chrome extensions, maybe multiple open tabs.

And here I activated 149 Foundry modules, now Chrome stays at 8 processes even when I deactivate all modules again (most of them at 0 load and minimal memory):


So go through your Chrome extensions and Foundry modules (use the "Find the culprit" module to help with that).

You can also use the Chrome Task Manager:


PS: You can ignore that particular GPU reading of yours, because when you run both FGU and Foundry one of them produces those supposed peaks, which are not really happening if you measure at the GPU level. On my system Task Manager displays that for FGU instead, same thing.

[Weissrolf]

-double post-

[Weissrolf]

Let's get back to the real comparison. One thing I learned to love in Foundry and would very much like to see in FGU: Wall direction! In Foundry you can set any wall to only be blocking from one side, but not the other. Furthermore you can define that for movement, light and sound separately. Additionally you can switch between "normal" and "limited" for light and sound, the latter of which allowing light/sound to pass one wall, but be blocked by a second wall behind that. Last but not least, you can edit any wall afterwards.



In FGU I sometimes emulate a similar effect using pits, but it's rather difficult to set up and doesn't really work as well as having full control over walls. Here is an example where I used pits to allow tokens to be pushed into the water, but not getting back up (without GM assistance). Everything outside the pier and ship is one large pit (actually another for the backside of the ship).

[similarly]

I disagree with your statement that Dakadin's post and my post are the wrong thread. Mine, maybe. But Dakadin is talking about a comparison between FGU and Foundry. It IS on topic!

As for walls that allow light to pass, doesn't FGU have multiple wall options, including the ability to set a "window" that limits movement but allows light to pass? I use that all the time for balconies and barred dungeons.

[Weissrolf]

You missed the part where I specifically stressed the ability to have directional walls, where light/sound/movement can only pass from one side, but not the other.

But then again, you maybe did not look for discussion or information, you looked for a reason to put me into a corner of being the grumpy negative guy who is only posting about unreal flaws in one of the represented tribes?!

If the latter is not true then please take more care to read the posts you reply to, especially if they are as specific as my last post was about the feature being discussed. Like me putting an extra exclamation mark behind the topic of discussion: "Wall direction!" (and to a lesser extend being able to change walls after creation and all the advanced controls). This very obviously was not about windows.

[similarly]

You missed the part where I specifically stressed the ability to have directional walls, where light/sound/movement can only pass from one side, but not the other.

But then again, you maybe did not look for discussion or information, you looked for a reason to put me into a corner of being the grumpy negative guy who is only posting about unreal flaws in one of the represented tribes?!

If the latter is not true then please take more care to read the posts you reply to, especially if they are as specific as my last post was about the feature being discussed. Like me putting an extra exclamation mark behind the topic of discussion: "Wall direction!" (and to a lesser extend being able to change walls after creation and all the advanced controls). This very obviously was not about windows.

Well, my apologies for not reading carefully then. I was just asking a question. But I can see that this isn't a discussion I want to participate in further.