When switching Vision to Night, MT slows to a crawl.

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Dracwrym
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When switching Vision to Night, MT slows to a crawl.

Post by Dracwrym »

This happens even when I don't have Fog of War turned on and not in server mode, just editing the map. When I first make the switch, it takes about a minute before there is any response.Then moving a token takes about 10 seconds to register the move. When I don't have any tokens on the map at all, it works at normal speed, but if I put even just one token on the map, it slows down. Is it saving the Fog of War in the token each time, thus being slow? If so, can I disable that and choose to save FoW manually?

I'm using v1.4.1.7 with 8GB max memory, 1GB min memory, and 128kb stack size.

Thanks

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aliasmask
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Re: When switching Vision to Night, MT slows to a crawl.

Post by aliasmask »

Try clearing the token's FOW data. Should be fine after that.

Dracwrym
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Re: When switching Vision to Night, MT slows to a crawl.

Post by Dracwrym »

aliasmask wrote:Try clearing the token's FOW data. Should be fine after that.
I use Restore Fog-of-War but that doesn't help. I hadn't noticed any individual remove FoW from tokens. Also, should NPCs have "Have Sight" checked?

Thanks.

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aliasmask
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Re: When switching Vision to Night, MT slows to a crawl.

Post by aliasmask »

NPC vision doesn't expose FOW, but gives you an idea of what they can see with white border of their vision limit. Some macros require NPC vision to be on to know if they can see another token like with Wiki: canSeeToken(), but generally speaking they don't need vision on.

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Full Bleed
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Re: When switching Vision to Night, MT slows to a crawl.

Post by Full Bleed »

Dracwrym wrote:I use Restore Fog-of-War but that doesn't help. I hadn't noticed any individual remove FoW from tokens.
Yeah... I think that's misinformation that gets passed around the forum. I think it's Ctrl-Shift-O that removes the FoW stored on a token.

And I think there may be an issue with it storing individual FoW on tokens by default as you noted in the OP... I actually wish this was NOT the case. I specifically disable individual FoW when I game to avoid these performance issues... but that's not much use if it's storing it when I don't have the server up.
Maptool is the Millennium Falcon of VTT's -- "She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts."

Dracwrym
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Re: When switching Vision to Night, MT slows to a crawl.

Post by Dracwrym »

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I disabled vision on all NPCs and that helped a bit.

Does disabling vision erase stored FoW?

Do you think the developers will be open to having a settings option to disable individual FoW on tokens when the server is not up?

I like having Night vision on so I can see how the light sources are filling the space.

Cheers.

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JamzTheMan
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Re: When switching Vision to Night, MT slows to a crawl.

Post by JamzTheMan »

a lot of lights affects performance.
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Full Bleed
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Re: When switching Vision to Night, MT slows to a crawl.

Post by Full Bleed »

Dracwrym wrote:Does disabling vision erase stored FoW?
Probably not.
Do you think the developers will be open to having a settings option to disable individual FoW on tokens when the server is not up?
One might be open to it... but there isn't much development going on right now... and there may be some obscure reason why it's the way it is right now.
I like having Night vision on so I can see how the light sources are filling the space.
So leave the Night vision setting on... just turn FoW off and clear the tokens. Only turn the FoW on when you're getting ready to game.
Maptool is the Millennium Falcon of VTT's -- "She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts."

mlangsdorf
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Re: When switching Vision to Night, MT slows to a crawl.

Post by mlangsdorf »

I'm having a similar problem with dev1.4.1.7:
* Large (4 MB+) background image
* 100+ tokens on the map
* many light sources
* 6-10 tokens with visions
* Night and Fog of War enabled

Performance is awful. MapTools hangs for 90+ seconds after closing a token. Sometimes moving a token causes MapTools to hang for 90+ seconds. Turning Fog of War on or off causes MapTools to hang for 90+ seconds.

I tried clearing and turn off Fog of War and it hasn't helped any.

I have the exact same campaign in 1.3.b91 and I'm not seeing hangs like this.

Copy of the campaign is here:
https://www.prismnet.com/~mlangsdo/East ... -v1.4.cmpn

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Re: When switching Vision to Night, MT slows to a crawl.

Post by mlangsdorf »

Following up on my own post:
Setting vision to Day removes the hangs, but then my map doesn't work the way I want it.

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jfrazierjr
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Re: When switching Vision to Night, MT slows to a crawl.

Post by jfrazierjr »

Dracwrym wrote:Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I disabled vision on all NPCs and that helped a bit.

Does disabling vision erase stored FoW?

Do you think the developers will be open to having a settings option to disable individual FoW on tokens when the server is not up?

I like having Night vision on so I can see how the light sources are filling the space.

Cheers.
No.. there was a specific decision to make IFoW when MapTool first open. If you want specific settings, be explicit about it by starting the server with the settings you want!
I save all my Campaign Files to DropBox. Not only can I access a campaign file from pretty much any OS that will run Maptool(Win,OSX, linux), but each file is versioned, so if something goes crazy wild, I can always roll back to a previous version of the same file.

Get your Dropbox 2GB via my referral link, and as a bonus, I get an extra 250 MB of space. Even if you don't don't use my link, I still enthusiastically recommend Dropbox..

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Full Bleed
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Re: When switching Vision to Night, MT slows to a crawl.

Post by Full Bleed »

jfrazierjr wrote:No.. there was a specific decision to make IFoW when MapTool first open. If you want specific settings, be explicit about it by starting the server with the settings you want!
But what's the point of having IFoW on by default when the server is not running? We know it compromises performance over time and the "individuals" are not connected to benefit from it... so extraneous information is being stored on the tokens for no reason. I avoid IFoW for that reason. Not because I don't want the functionality or don't like the idea, but because you can't tell what's going on with it ("Why are things slowing down?") and it's not transparent about how to "clear" the IFoW.

Forcing a "feature" that causes performance problems on people who don't want to use it for legitimate reasons doesn't make a lot of sense.
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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Re: When switching Vision to Night, MT slows to a crawl.

Post by JamzTheMan »

Full Bleed wrote:
jfrazierjr wrote:No.. there was a specific decision to make IFoW when MapTool first open. If you want specific settings, be explicit about it by starting the server with the settings you want!
But what's the point of having IFoW on by default when the server is not running? We know it compromises performance over time and the "individuals" are not connected to benefit from it... so extraneous information is being stored on the tokens for no reason. I avoid IFoW for that reason. Not because I don't want the functionality or don't like the idea, but because you can't tell what's going on with it ("Why are things slowing down?") and it's not transparent about how to "clear" the IFoW.

Forcing a "feature" that causes performance problems on people who don't want to use it for legitimate reasons doesn't make a lot of sense.
You may also want it as is a default (for instance, it has no performance impact on me and the way I create maps. And I prefer to "see" what a token can see as I place them and VBL. (can't please ALL users with any one setting)

However, I do concede the point. IF I were to make changes myself, I wouldn't change the defaults. Instead, I'd probably add a set of "Server" buttons (after Fow & VBL). Probably one for "Reveal on Move", "Individual Views", & "Individual FoW". (I don't think any of the other server settings would apply? maybe "Use Tooltips"? Then instead of starting a server, you could just change these settings for the internal server and save the settings on exit of MT.

BUT, I think I would rather put the time into rewriting the Light/Vision code. It's showing it's age and needs a performance rewrite...
-Jamz
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Full Bleed
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Re: When switching Vision to Night, MT slows to a crawl.

Post by Full Bleed »

JamzTheMan wrote:You may also want it as is a default (for instance, it has no performance impact on me and the way I create maps. And I prefer to "see" what a token can see as I place them and VBL. (can't please ALL users with any one setting)
Well, no, you can't please everyone. But it's an *optional* feature in games. So not making it *optional* outside of games, with its caveats, just doesn't make sense. It's like making a car where the radio always comes on when you get into it, but if you start the car up, you can have the option to have it on or off. The solution isn't to say "You can't please everyone" it's not not force a feature on people that they don't have to use.

And, for the record, I've never run into a problem with it either. But part of that is because I never use it (though I suppose it's unnecessarily writing data when I'm testing outside of games? But I guess I don't do a lot of that either.) I also tend to create optimized VBL and use very few non-token light sources because I'm performance conscious. But I've read enough about people that have had problems, and I simply can't be bothered to have it happen during a game (especially since I suspect it will affect different players differently.)
And I prefer to "see" what a token can see as I place them and VBL. (can't please ALL users with any one setting)
You don't have to have IFoW on for that... at least with regard to "as you place them". You still get the radius outline of the token's vision when hovering on it. It's the, potentially, complicated IFoW that causes the issues.
BUT, I think I would rather put the time into rewriting the Light/Vision code. It's showing it's age and needs a performance rewrite...
No doubt. Most of us MT users will take what we can get... but nothing runs a new player off like something that will crush their (or one of their player's) performance or ability to use the program... it undercuts and overrides everything. So, again, it's just silly that something entirely *optional* in a game has the power/potential to do that.
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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jfrazierjr
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Re: When switching Vision to Night, MT slows to a crawl.

Post by jfrazierjr »

Full Bleed wrote:
jfrazierjr wrote:No.. there was a specific decision to make IFoW when MapTool first open. If you want specific settings, be explicit about it by starting the server with the settings you want!
But what's the point of having IFoW on by default when the server is not running? We know it compromises performance over time and the "individuals" are not connected to benefit from it... so extraneous information is being stored on the tokens for no reason. I avoid IFoW for that reason. Not because I don't want the functionality or don't like the idea, but because you can't tell what's going on with it ("Why are things slowing down?") and it's not transparent about how to "clear" the IFoW.

Forcing a "feature" that causes performance problems on people who don't want to use it for legitimate reasons doesn't make a lot of sense.
At the time I first was playing with IFoW code, the dev team went into several days worth of discussion about the topic. I was rather ambivalent on the matter(I think?), but the ultimate consensus was to have it be default, so that's what we went with. I honestly have no trouble with the thought process of swapping that other than the fact of user retraining vs how it has been working for 7 years(or more). I don't have the emails from that time, but I THINK I recall Az and Dorpond heavily voting to have it default that way so that GM's can build out their FoW easier(or some such, I really have a shitty memory) and as I said, I was fairly much whatever and set my code to the decision.
I save all my Campaign Files to DropBox. Not only can I access a campaign file from pretty much any OS that will run Maptool(Win,OSX, linux), but each file is versioned, so if something goes crazy wild, I can always roll back to a previous version of the same file.

Get your Dropbox 2GB via my referral link, and as a bonus, I get an extra 250 MB of space. Even if you don't don't use my link, I still enthusiastically recommend Dropbox..

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