Questions on VBL Slowdown

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jackolas
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Re: Questions on VBL Slowdown

Post by jackolas »

I have noticed a serious difference in speed between the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Java. Since I made sure I only have 64-bit java on my pc the games I run are much smoother (use maptools version 1.4.0.5).

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J.P.
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Re: Questions on VBL Slowdown

Post by J.P. »

I can try to get the debug information but the laptop belongs to a friend of mine. Since i don't plan on seeing him until next game, I will ask him via Facebook to get a copy of it and send it my way so I can post it here. His schedule is pretty full though so there may be a wait for the information.
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J.P.
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Re: Questions on VBL Slowdown

Post by J.P. »

I'm still waiting on the player to send me a copy of the debug data. I have also told him to make sure that he is using the 64-bit java.

I remember way back in the day of 1.3.b... 18? 19?... there was an option to select the memory usage. It was 512MB, 1G and 2G. Does that option still exist?

Does double clicking the memory usage in the bottom right corner of Maptool still clear the cache?
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Full Bleed
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Re: Questions on VBL Slowdown

Post by Full Bleed »

J.P. wrote:I remember way back in the day of 1.3.b... 18? 19?... there was an option to select the memory usage. It was 512MB, 1G and 2G. Does that option still exist?
There used to be multiple bats to run... it's easy enough to create a custom bat though. I usually create custom bats for my players catered to their systems and OS. One size does not tend to fit all.
Does double clicking the memory usage in the bottom right corner of Maptool still clear the cache?
Yes. But you don't want to rely on doing that to have a "stable" system. You want to be running the proper memory configuration to begin with.
Maptool is the Millennium Falcon of VTT's -- "She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts."

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J.P.
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Re: Questions on VBL Slowdown

Post by J.P. »

Full Bleed wrote:There used to be multiple bats to run... it's easy enough to create a custom bat though. I usually create custom bats for my players catered to their systems and OS. One size does not tend to fit all.
How do I create a custom .bat?

I heard back from the player last night. He hasn't had time to look at it.

And while I don't know exactly what he has on his computer as far as settings and software, I do know that it is slightly better than the laptop I was using. The short version of the story is that I bought 2 laptops, one for me and one for my wife that were very similar. Both Dell Studios but after a long period of not using mine, I sold it to him. My wife kept hers and now that we are using Maptool again, I dusted it off and updated everything for my use.

His laptop: The one having the issues...
Studio 1737, Intel Core 2 Duo T6500, 2.1GHz, 800Mhz, 2M L2 Cache
4GB, DDR2, 800MHz 2 Dimm
512MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650
250G 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 Home Premium 64-bit Edition English

My wife's laptop is almost identical but it only has 2GB of RAM instead of 4GB. Aside from the difference in memory and screen size, everything else is the same so now I'm scratching my head trying to figure out why a 4GB setup would have trouble running Maptool when the 2GB setup doesn't seem to have any issues at all.

Edit: I looked at some of your other posts Full Bleed and found the mt.cfg file. Mine is set to 512 with StackSize+2. So if that is the issue on his laptop, it must be set lower than that.
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jackolas
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Re: Questions on VBL Slowdown

Post by jackolas »

This is how I do it:

Open up notepad (or other similar text editing software)

Code: Select all

set VERS=1.4.1.7-fat
start javaw -Xms512M -Xmx1400M -Xss5M -jar maptool-%VERS%.jar run
change the "VERS=1.4.1.7-fat" to the right version (the version name of the maptools java file)
so "MapTool-1.4.1.7-fat.jar" will become "VERS=1.4.1.7-fat"

Change the -Xms, -Xmx and -Xss to your requirements.

save the file as "Launch Maptools.BAT"

drop the bat file in the folder where maptools reside.
launch maptools with the bat file

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Full Bleed
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Re: Questions on VBL Slowdown

Post by Full Bleed »

J.P. wrote:Edit: I looked at some of your other posts Full Bleed and found the mt.cfg file. Mine is set to 512 with StackSize+2. So if that is the issue on his laptop, it must be set lower than that.
Yeah, he could be using the default 256 which always causes problem for people.

I would take yours up to 1024 with a 4 stack.

And you can put his at 2048 with a 4 stack.

Make sure you BOTH are using 64 bit java. This is the most important bit. Verify this in his Gather Debug (don't take his word for it... a lot of people think they're using 64 bit java when they aren't.) ;)
Maptool is the Millennium Falcon of VTT's -- "She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts."

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J.P.
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Re: Questions on VBL Slowdown

Post by J.P. »

Well we played another session yesterday and I've got some good news and bad news.

I double checked his system and he is runnin 64-bit Java with Maptool 1.4.05 with a MaxMem of 2048 and Stack Size 4. I am running MaxMem 1024 and Stack Size 4.

The server was setup with players being able to reveal Fog of War and Individual Vision for each token but not individual Fog of War.

We started playing and less than 10 minutes into the game, there was the issue with lag. It was so bad that he couldn't move any of the player tokens on his computer. And we spent about 30 minutes troubleshooting it without any progress but then there was a breakthrough! He turned off the Snap to Grid on his token and it could move freely without any noticeable lag. So we played the rest of the game with Snap to Grid off.

As the group moved through the cavern, their individual light sources revealed the FoW just as I had hoped it would but I'm not sure if that was Auto-Reveal (since it had been checked on the Server setup) or if the player was revealing the area manually when he stopped. I seem to recall back in the day that Snap to Grid had to be on to auto-reveal FoW but now I'm wondering if that has changed in some of the more recent Maptool updates.
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taustinoc
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Re: Questions on VBL Slowdown

Post by taustinoc »

He must have been doing it manually. I had to remind myself just yesterday that snap to grid has to be one for auto-reveal to work.

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Full Bleed
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Re: Questions on VBL Slowdown

Post by Full Bleed »

J.P. wrote:The server was setup with players being able to reveal Fog of War and Individual Vision for each token but not individual Fog of War.

We started playing and less than 10 minutes into the game, there was the issue with lag. It was so bad that he couldn't move any of the player tokens on his computer. And we spent about 30 minutes troubleshooting it without any progress but then there was a breakthrough! He turned off the Snap to Grid on his token and it could move freely without any noticeable lag. So we played the rest of the game with Snap to Grid off.

As the group moved through the cavern, their individual light sources revealed the FoW just as I had hoped it would but I'm not sure if that was Auto-Reveal (since it had been checked on the Server setup) or if the player was revealing the area manually when he stopped. I seem to recall back in the day that Snap to Grid had to be on to auto-reveal FoW but now I'm wondering if that has changed in some of the more recent Maptool updates.
Well, a couple things possibly going on here...

You use two settings that I don't use so one is likely to be causing the problem:

1) Players can Reveal Vision
1A) Auto Reveal on Move...

I'd guess it's the auto reveal... I reveal FoW using Ctrl-I or a macro on my GM sheet using Wiki: exposeFOW(). Doing manual reveals probably greatly reduces the number of reveals since many times it just isn't necessary or people might pickup and drop their token 3 or 4 times a move (doing 3-4 exposures when 1 would have sufficed.)

I don't know why turning off snap to grid fixed your problem unless doing so reset the token's FoW... a dev more familiar with that might have an answer.
Maptool is the Millennium Falcon of VTT's -- "She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts."

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J.P.
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Re: Questions on VBL Slowdown

Post by J.P. »

I spoke with the player about an hour ago and he was revealing the FoW manually. It's an "okay" workaround for the cavern map but I'm hoping that we can use the auto-reveal on future maps. I guess my next step is to reach out to the Devs and see if they know what's going on.
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wolph42
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Re: Questions on VBL Slowdown

Post by wolph42 »

with snap to grid FoW is calculated for each cell you move over. With stg off only the start and end point are calculated.

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JamzTheMan
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Re: Questions on VBL Slowdown

Post by JamzTheMan »

The best thing you can do is go back to your original settings and see if it happens again. If so, tell us your exact server settings and post a copy of the campaign file along with memory settings and # clients connected.

Obviously if we can recreate this outside of your live game, that would be helpful. We may not be able to get you a full fix but there's a lot of experienced players here that could suggest changes to server settings/fow/lights to alleviate some of the pain.
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inconnunom
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Re: Questions on VBL Slowdown

Post by inconnunom »

JamzTheMan wrote:
Wed Sep 20, 2017 9:55 pm
Thanks. I took that map, ran it through photoshop to create a mask, imported that mask and original map into MapTool, used 'generate vbl' on the mask to get detailed vbl to see what the worst case scenario. With same setup, I was getting 1-2 second lag (which isn't completely terrible given the level of detailed vbl)

But ya, you want something between this and Full Bleed's VBL (closer to FB's of course).

I'll keep this in the bank to test future enhancements...
insane level vbl
insane-vbl.jpg
Hi, I'm fairly new to Maptools. I was wondering how you imported the mask into Maptools and used Generate VBL? I can't seem to find any method beyond manually adding VBl by hand.

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aliasmask
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Re: Questions on VBL Slowdown

Post by aliasmask »

It's best to hand draw it, but you can create a mask/image where you want all your vbl. I once did this with a large maze. I removed the floor making it transparent and then deleted some of the walls with the expand select tool. That game me a bare bones image of the walls of the map. I then drop that image on to the map, generate vbl and then I replace the token image with the full map. Depending on coloring and style of map, this isn't always the easiest thing to do. I usually just line up the map to the grid and start drawing my walls in with the VBL line tool. If I get fancy, I do it this way: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=21877&p=225029#p225098

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