RHoD on an Asus EEE PC 701

[FdL]

This is mostly a technical report.
I'm happy to inform that my last session was a nice improvement of the ones before it.

My system is not very powerful, it's a sub-notebook, and lately I had experimented lagging using MapTool simultaneously with InitTool. But with b41 and the initiative panel, I didn't need InitTool anymore so much. To be honest, I need both, it's better that way, but I figured that with MapTool handling initiative all there would be left to carry over is the handling of HP gains and loses.

So anticipating that it could be laggy, instead of planning to use an actual grid map to track positions in combat I just used the tokens and we ran the combat with minis. I'm the only one who uses a PC there, and we still run combats with minis and stuff, so the game wouldn't suffer.

I filled the tokens with the rolls and stats, and learned how to use the init panel. It worked great, I got no lag or weirdness, and the performance was really good, it even allowed to run other little programs like a PDF viewer and TokenTool.

All I would like to improve for next session is macros to handle the gaining and losing of HPs, in the same way InitTool handles it (click, then dialog asking how many). I'm going to try to implement that.

The ideal scenario with this laptop would be to be able to plug its external VGA connector to a TV that's in the room we play, so I could display the map and minis to the players, even without letting them see the rolls and workings of the DM side (this ideally requires the twin monitor option promised for 1.3 release, but I can manage I think).

The campaign goes well, we're on the last chapter and the PCs are all level 10 now. Combat is challenging, though I feel they're way powerful. In any case the combat will be more fun now that the encounters are more demanding.

[Richard Weimer]

The ideal scenario with this laptop would be to be able to plug its external VGA connector to a TV that's in the room we play, so I could display the map and minis to the players, even without letting them see the rolls and workings of the DM side (this ideally requires the twin monitor option promised for 1.3 release, but I can manage I think).

If the PC has enough CPU power, I just open the program up a second time, and drag this 2nd window to the 2nd monitor/PC/projector (via a WinXP "extended desktop" option). I then create a session with my original instance, and log into it with the 2nd monitor's window as a "player". It works wonderfully for me using a projector this way.

Another variant that I do is to use a 2nd laptop connected to a projector. I then open a session there, and log into it as a player. I can then pass a wireless mouse around the table when it is a particular player's turn to move/act.

[trevor]

Thanks for the report back on that machine, I've been curious how well it would work.

[FdL]

You know, Trevor, I had written about this before, but that was prior to actual "hardcore" use.

I did have some lag problems and weird 100% system load at the point I was using b26-28-ish. But as I said, this has been fixed and has improved with the latest build, maybe aided by starting a campaign file from scratch.

The second instance tactic sounds good, though I'm not sure that it'd work with my Eee. But it's worth giving a try. The second laptop scenario is cool too, but I think that it could be good too to use the big tv screen and have a second mouse for players. Or rather, for unobtrusive functionality, the ideal would be that THAT second player-laptop would be the one plugged at the TV. That way we could all see what the players are seeing at the same time.

Now I'm improving my MapTool funcionality with macros. It's pretty amazing what you can do.

[DrVesuvius]

Hey FDL, I'm another Eee701 MapTool user. In my setup I had a server back at home base which I connected to as GM using the Eee on a HSDPA roaming broadband connection., with one other player connected to the server. Worked a treat, even with the Eee also running a TeamSpeak (Voice over IP) client at the same time. I was able to "plant" a tree object held on the Eee onto the map hosted back on the server, which was then visible to the remote player, and we were able to put down tokens and move them around without too much lag.

I'm putting together a small set of lower-res textures and objects in case I have to use this setup for real, and on the 7" screen I'd probably struggle a bit with the number of Windows MapTool can have open these days, but otherwise MapTool on the Eee is definitely a go!

[FdL]

And it's a really good solution for using it as a tabletop DMing tool.

As I said, the problems with lag I had with earlier builds are gone, up to the point where I can think of trying to run 2 instances in case I get some kind of converter for TV output (which would be cool to have anyway).

Your setup sounds cool! Was it a pnp game then, with a single remote player through the EEE? I see that kind of thing happening with the technology nowadays. Reminds me a lot of Full Frontal Nerdity :p