dorpond: I think we've got most of the features down, but thanks for the offer! We have been keeping it low because of one player's computer problems.
Good news! The format and reinstall of windows solved all of that player's problems. It now connects and runs fine. Thanks to trevor for all his help the other night as we tried to figure out what was wrong.
Looking forward to our next session...
1.2 overall performance
Moderators: dorpond, trevor, Azhrei
Forum rules
PLEASE don't post images of your entire desktop, attach entire campaign files when only a single file is needed, or generally act in some other anti-social behavior.
PLEASE don't post images of your entire desktop, attach entire campaign files when only a single file is needed, or generally act in some other anti-social behavior.
Im using two moderatley old laptops.
One, the player laptop;
Dell Inspiron 8100
Pent3, 1ghz 8100 with 512mb ram
Win2000
The other, the GM laptop;
Dell Inspiron 8600
is a 1.4ghz with 1gb ram
Peer to Peer Ethernet network, no Internet
All Campaign data stored on external HDD
Neither machine is a performance champion.
I have been testing MT at home for the last couple weeks. We game sunday, and Im thinking of introducing it.
I could not use other VGT's because of performance issues.
Where MT is concerned, other than the obvious performance issues of a little lag on the player end while scrolling across large maps, MT in testing at home has performed as expected and with few glitches.
I use bounded maps cobbled togehter with various graphics from RPG sites at a fairly high resolution, something on the order of about 50 pixels per 5' or up to 61pix, which means my background maps are sometimes upwards of 5mb for a JPEG, quite large, then add in all the goodies.
So all of my maps are pre-generated before the game and I dont anticipate adding assets during the game, other than tokens.
I found that I cannot put all my maps in one campaign, and must break up the campaign into individual maps, which for me is not an issue.
When they are all combined, when I start a new session, I have not successfully transferred my campaign, which was pushing 60mb before I broke it up. During the transfer, it just sits there. It says laoding map, but I see no progress. I left it for over an hour, and it never completed.
When using individual maps, they take a little while to transfer but it's acceptable.
Since we play face-to-face I have no issues about players sneaking a peek at a campaign, I would love to be able to place the complete campaign map files in a folder somewhere and have MT just pull them up on the player's local.
But thats another topic.
Im confident enough to attempt to use it for the first time Sunday for my game. Im sure the guys will be thrilled about the LBL vision capability. We have talked about this kind of thing for years
I anticipate no major issues. And I will report back how it goes.
One, the player laptop;
Dell Inspiron 8100
Pent3, 1ghz 8100 with 512mb ram
Win2000
The other, the GM laptop;
Dell Inspiron 8600
is a 1.4ghz with 1gb ram
Peer to Peer Ethernet network, no Internet
All Campaign data stored on external HDD
Neither machine is a performance champion.
I have been testing MT at home for the last couple weeks. We game sunday, and Im thinking of introducing it.
I could not use other VGT's because of performance issues.
Where MT is concerned, other than the obvious performance issues of a little lag on the player end while scrolling across large maps, MT in testing at home has performed as expected and with few glitches.
I use bounded maps cobbled togehter with various graphics from RPG sites at a fairly high resolution, something on the order of about 50 pixels per 5' or up to 61pix, which means my background maps are sometimes upwards of 5mb for a JPEG, quite large, then add in all the goodies.
So all of my maps are pre-generated before the game and I dont anticipate adding assets during the game, other than tokens.
I found that I cannot put all my maps in one campaign, and must break up the campaign into individual maps, which for me is not an issue.
When they are all combined, when I start a new session, I have not successfully transferred my campaign, which was pushing 60mb before I broke it up. During the transfer, it just sits there. It says laoding map, but I see no progress. I left it for over an hour, and it never completed.
When using individual maps, they take a little while to transfer but it's acceptable.
Since we play face-to-face I have no issues about players sneaking a peek at a campaign, I would love to be able to place the complete campaign map files in a folder somewhere and have MT just pull them up on the player's local.
But thats another topic.
Im confident enough to attempt to use it for the first time Sunday for my game. Im sure the guys will be thrilled about the LBL vision capability. We have talked about this kind of thing for years
I anticipate no major issues. And I will report back how it goes.
-
trevor
- Codeum Arcanum (RPTools Founder)
- Posts: 11311
- Joined: Mon Jan 09, 2006 4:16 pm
- Location: Austin, Tx
- Contact:
I'm looking forward to hearing how it goes !venger wrote: Im confident enough to attempt to use it for the first time Sunday for my game. Im sure the guys will be thrilled about the LBL vision capability. We have talked about this kind of thing for years
I anticipate no major issues. And I will report back how it goes.
Dreaming of a 1.3 release
Today was the first time I used MT at our game session.
First the Issues-
I could not get MT to run over my peer to peer two laptop network using my (large) maps.
I have a feeling it is not a problem with MT as much as it is the slow cons, or rather the lack of processing power of my second laptop. It’s a P3 1ghz, with 512meg of ram
Another issue may be it’s a win2000 machine. I really don’t know at this point.
Its definitely something to do with the hardware I believe
The Buella map I tried to load several times would get to 70-something percent and then just hang there, with a question mark in the lower right corner and no images on the display.
Even my smallest map took between 5-8 minutes to load.
Just connecting to draw ad-lib maps was ok but laggy.
So eventually I abandoned the network, and I just ran MT off my main laptop, outputting the video out the external monitor to the 32” HDTV
In that way, running MT was a success.
I had to run with FOW turned on and Player View turned on so I wouldn’t reveal the map layout, and I controlled the revealing CNTRL-I
Thanks for those capabilities alone
Now the good stuff-
The topology capability was the subject of oooh and ahhhs immediately as they journeyed through a forest to find their adventure site.
Imagine the screen starting black and I describe their journey, and then hit CNTRL-I to reveal the tactical map on a heavy forest trail.
There was a chorus of "Ohh Cools" when we started moving tokens around doing reveals in the woods!
Especially the thrill of first spying the adventure site through a break in the trees was quite satisfying and enjoyable.
Then entering the dungeon and having doors blocking the light until they were opened was greeted with nods of approval and more "ahh kools!"
I saw grins around the table and was sporting one m’self
It was soon evident that MT would function well in this aspect.
When we entered combat, the ability to set “State” conditions to the tokens was a widely lauded ability, making the battle map a more concise and clear picture than we had before.
When we get the ability to add multiple tags/labels when you hover over a unit that will make Rolemaster tables play MUCH better and easier.
I would like to be able to change the States text too, but really thats no biggie... we needed one for being Stunned, and Disarmed but I used the existing ones to good effect anyway, blue circle for disarmed, red x for dead is right on... and seeing those red X’s accumulating on the dungeon floor was considered rather satisfying by all accounts
I used MT through the rest of the night and after the game I asked for the guy’s opinions, and MT was well received by them.
The game was an overall success, with MT contributing to a successful game session.
First the Issues-
I could not get MT to run over my peer to peer two laptop network using my (large) maps.
I have a feeling it is not a problem with MT as much as it is the slow cons, or rather the lack of processing power of my second laptop. It’s a P3 1ghz, with 512meg of ram
Another issue may be it’s a win2000 machine. I really don’t know at this point.
Its definitely something to do with the hardware I believe
The Buella map I tried to load several times would get to 70-something percent and then just hang there, with a question mark in the lower right corner and no images on the display.
Even my smallest map took between 5-8 minutes to load.
Just connecting to draw ad-lib maps was ok but laggy.
So eventually I abandoned the network, and I just ran MT off my main laptop, outputting the video out the external monitor to the 32” HDTV
In that way, running MT was a success.
I had to run with FOW turned on and Player View turned on so I wouldn’t reveal the map layout, and I controlled the revealing CNTRL-I
Thanks for those capabilities alone
Now the good stuff-
The topology capability was the subject of oooh and ahhhs immediately as they journeyed through a forest to find their adventure site.
Imagine the screen starting black and I describe their journey, and then hit CNTRL-I to reveal the tactical map on a heavy forest trail.
There was a chorus of "Ohh Cools" when we started moving tokens around doing reveals in the woods!
Especially the thrill of first spying the adventure site through a break in the trees was quite satisfying and enjoyable.
Then entering the dungeon and having doors blocking the light until they were opened was greeted with nods of approval and more "ahh kools!"
I saw grins around the table and was sporting one m’self
It was soon evident that MT would function well in this aspect.
When we entered combat, the ability to set “State” conditions to the tokens was a widely lauded ability, making the battle map a more concise and clear picture than we had before.
When we get the ability to add multiple tags/labels when you hover over a unit that will make Rolemaster tables play MUCH better and easier.
I would like to be able to change the States text too, but really thats no biggie... we needed one for being Stunned, and Disarmed but I used the existing ones to good effect anyway, blue circle for disarmed, red x for dead is right on... and seeing those red X’s accumulating on the dungeon floor was considered rather satisfying by all accounts
I used MT through the rest of the night and after the game I asked for the guy’s opinions, and MT was well received by them.
The game was an overall success, with MT contributing to a successful game session.
-
trevor
- Codeum Arcanum (RPTools Founder)
- Posts: 11311
- Joined: Mon Jan 09, 2006 4:16 pm
- Location: Austin, Tx
- Contact:
That was a fun read venger ! Sounds like you guys had a lot of fun
Bummer about the networking issues though, that's kinda weird. Is there a router between them, or just a crossover cable ?
I use win2k at home, so I know that's not the problem.
Look for user configurable stats early in 1.3 development
Bummer about the networking issues though, that's kinda weird. Is there a router between them, or just a crossover cable ?
I use win2k at home, so I know that's not the problem.
Look for user configurable stats early in 1.3 development
Dreaming of a 1.3 release
Its a network in its most rudimentary form, a crossover cable.
What perplexes me is that the network seemed to function just fine here at home with the sample maps and one map I was toying around with.
I really dont understand it either. But thats a tech issue I have to resolve here and not a MT issue.
I am going to mess with it more in the upcoming days, and good to know MT works fine on Win2K.
What perplexes me is that the network seemed to function just fine here at home with the sample maps and one map I was toying around with.
I really dont understand it either. But thats a tech issue I have to resolve here and not a MT issue.
I am going to mess with it more in the upcoming days, and good to know MT works fine on Win2K.
How much memory does the campaign consume on the Host end? (I am talking about the numbers in the bottom right hand corner of MT)
Odd that it loads 70% and then stops. Makes me wonder if you are going beyond a memory setting of some sort.
Also, how are you launching it? Try launching the Bat files instead of the Webstart for giggles.
Odd that it loads 70% and then stops. Makes me wonder if you are going beyond a memory setting of some sort.
Also, how are you launching it? Try launching the Bat files instead of the Webstart for giggles.
in response to Venger's issues...
I've had issues like this too. Even with the more recent builds, my players often get to 85% loaded and then it stopes. If they close maptool, reopen and reconnect, it usually gets around it. There's no errors thrown anywhere so there's not much more to report.
------------------------------------------------------
Performance report:
I use maptool solely over a remote network. I run a game from Poland with the rest of the players in the UK. I use a laptop (1G RAM, winXP, 1.2GHz(?) dual processor). My players run it on 2 laptops and a desktop. I don't have the exact specs but the desktop is very shiny (definitely > 1G RAM). At the other end of the scale is one of the laptops that won't even run the original Neverwinter Nights...
However we manage fine with maptool on the 256RAM setting with both vision and FOW turned on. The sole bottle neck is the downlaod tie mentioned above.
As for the campaign structure I generally use the following:
bounded maps for set adventure locations - scanned in or lifted from Vry's galleries depending on whether it is a bought (eg Dungeon) adventure or whether I've made it myself. I usually scale these to 20px per cell for ease of use.
unbounded maps for random encounters - usually a forest map up for when I need it (we're currently advnturing around Cormanthor).
I don't use much in the way of set dressing so I keep the number of stamps down. I don't use any texture paint, unless I use an unounded forest - where the forest is painted onto a grass background.
After doing all that I check the campaign to make sure i sits well below the 256RAM limit when in use. If there were a detailed breakdown of which assets were causing problems, tha would help this enormously.
The one problem we get is a clash with voice programmes. With skype this manifests as a shriek. With ventrilo it shows up as lag. I think this is becase maptool is using all the bandwidth. It generally happens when I reveal a new map or move tokens with vision in a complicated setting. If there were a way to keep down maptool's total use of bandwidth, that would be great. I'd rather a slightly longer lag on maptool than the ungodly shrieking we get via skype.
Anyway, that's all my thoughts for the moment.
I've had issues like this too. Even with the more recent builds, my players often get to 85% loaded and then it stopes. If they close maptool, reopen and reconnect, it usually gets around it. There's no errors thrown anywhere so there's not much more to report.
------------------------------------------------------
Performance report:
I use maptool solely over a remote network. I run a game from Poland with the rest of the players in the UK. I use a laptop (1G RAM, winXP, 1.2GHz(?) dual processor). My players run it on 2 laptops and a desktop. I don't have the exact specs but the desktop is very shiny (definitely > 1G RAM). At the other end of the scale is one of the laptops that won't even run the original Neverwinter Nights...
However we manage fine with maptool on the 256RAM setting with both vision and FOW turned on. The sole bottle neck is the downlaod tie mentioned above.
As for the campaign structure I generally use the following:
bounded maps for set adventure locations - scanned in or lifted from Vry's galleries depending on whether it is a bought (eg Dungeon) adventure or whether I've made it myself. I usually scale these to 20px per cell for ease of use.
unbounded maps for random encounters - usually a forest map up for when I need it (we're currently advnturing around Cormanthor).
I don't use much in the way of set dressing so I keep the number of stamps down. I don't use any texture paint, unless I use an unounded forest - where the forest is painted onto a grass background.
After doing all that I check the campaign to make sure i sits well below the 256RAM limit when in use. If there were a detailed breakdown of which assets were causing problems, tha would help this enormously.
The one problem we get is a clash with voice programmes. With skype this manifests as a shriek. With ventrilo it shows up as lag. I think this is becase maptool is using all the bandwidth. It generally happens when I reveal a new map or move tokens with vision in a complicated setting. If there were a way to keep down maptool's total use of bandwidth, that would be great. I'd rather a slightly longer lag on maptool than the ungodly shrieking we get via skype.
Anyway, that's all my thoughts for the moment.
-
trevor
- Codeum Arcanum (RPTools Founder)
- Posts: 11311
- Joined: Mon Jan 09, 2006 4:16 pm
- Location: Austin, Tx
- Contact:
Thanks for the report torstan. Actually I don't think it's as much bandwidth (since it works great even over dialup), but instead is the CPU. Currently MT redraws the map at least once every two seconds, even when idle. This can produce a very brief cpu spike, and can have a negative impact on other programs. Let's tweak with this in 1.3 and see if we can make it more cpu friendly
Dreaming of a 1.3 release