Need help with Slow Maptool

[tcharleschapman]

Hi Maptool community, a few questions.

When I run games at local stores and at home I do it from my computer. I run two instances of Maptool with one on my laptop and the second on a TV or Monitor. I see the GM screen and the players see the player screen. I usually have an internet connection but I still run it over a lan connection just to keep it simple. This has served me quite well. However, lately, when I open up to maps with vision blocking, even simple vision blocking, and tokens the program bogs down so much as to make it unusable (30+ seconds for a token to move). I then check my task manager and both instances of Maptool shoot up in memory usage (Player: 350,000+; GM: 450,000+).

1) What can I do to make this work or remedy this problem? The players enjoy this program and I find it easier to run games so fixing it would be nice.

2) I'm looking at getting a new laptop soon. What can I equip this new computer with to make the Maptool experience more fun and easy to use.

3) Could my problem be my maps are too big? If I shrink the original image size down would it work better?

Current setup:
Dell Latitude Laptop
Intel Core i5-2540M CPU @ 2.60 GHz
8.00 GB Ram
Windows 7 Enterprise - Service Pack 1
Nvidia NVS 4200M with 512MB RAM

[wolph42]

Vbl is really tricky in Maptool. In can be great and it can be destructive. Eg draw one vbl line on an empty map with vision distance 1000 and move a token (with vision) there: Maptool will crash.

Two easy solutions
1 hit ctrl+shift+o to reset fow
2 drastically reduce vision distance too eg 100.

in the bag of tricks there is a setting that resets foW on every move, this too helps a lot vs drag.

Also: which version are you using?

[Full Bleed]

You're probably going to have to clear the VBL like Wolph suggested.

But many times when I hear about these problems it ends up stemming from using individual FOW. If you don't need that, try turning that off, too.

[tcharleschapman]

Thanks everyone!

[tcharleschapman]

Finally got a chance to sit down and work on it.

SOrry to post this now, but I'm using the latest version of MapTool (b89).

Individual FoW was off. Turned down the vision distance. That did the trick.

[wolph42]

Finally got a chance to sit down and work on it.

SOrry to post this now, but I'm using the latest version of MapTool (b89).

Individual FoW was off. Turned down the vision distance. That did the trick.

B90 is faster link in sig.

[Full Bleed]

Turned down the vision distance. That did the trick.

TIP: One of the things I do with every map is place a VBL frame around the visible map to set the edge (using the "hollow rectangular" tool). On some maps this will save a lot of extraneous vision calculations out into nothingness.

[tcharleschapman]

Before anything else I'm still having issues with running slow. I updated to .b90 but I still have issues. My vision on maps is turned down to 100. When I start a server I had the following selected.

Players can reveal vision
Auto Reveal on Movement

So I tried again and turned off "Auto Reveal on Movement" and it runs smooth and just fine now but I have to push Ctrl+I every time I need a token to reveal Fog of War. What other settings can I mess with to get this working smoother. I feel there is something I am doing wrong.

[wolph42]

You could turn it on again and use a setting in the bag of tricks (link in sig) which restores Fow each move. That can help as well.