Tips on Large Maps and Slow Computers

I had it in my head that if I keep the details of the map simple and draw them in rather than drop objects onto the map (brown circles for barrels for example) that a large map would run a bit smoother on a computer of a slower computer. Is this logic sound? The map is 100x100 and I personally haven't had problems with maps this big but I have an awesome internet connects and computer. I'm just worried it might be too much for someone else. One of the critisms I saw for Roll20 was larger maps can be horrible for slower computers. Thoughts?

Roll20 has made some pretty sweet advances in larger maps. Earlier this year they changed the loading scheme. Roll20 automatically makes and loads sub-versions of your big map background graphic. I don't know if I can explain it properly but basically if you drop a large map image (say a JPEG), when you zoom in at certain levels it only loads a portion of the JPEG. When you zoom quite far out I believe it loads a version of the whole image that's appropriate for screen size. Considering this feature, I think that the best practices approach is: make your whole map as 1 piece in 1 JPEG-format image (except for moving parts like character tokens or a treasure chest perhaps, that could be added on top in-game). By the way I haven't had any problems with large maps loading even on a cheap laptop several years old, since they upgraded this feature some months ago. So I would say yes, dropping large quantity of objects on the screen is something that could slow it down, on perhaps a slower computer. Note that PNG images take longer to process, JPEG images are faster to process. PNG images can have transparency which is nice, but at a cost if you have a lot of them. Not sure if drawings from the drawing tools could ever slow it down. I think it might slow it down if you put a lot, like tons of walls and barrels and rivers all across 100x100 just drawn with the tools in Roll20. At that point I think it would be good to erase some of the lines in the sections of the map that you aren't using, or draw it in a graphics program and save-it down as one big JPEG.

Gold said: Not sure if drawings from the drawing tools could ever slow it down. I think it might slow it down if you put a lot, like tons of walls and barrels and rivers all across 100x100 just drawn with the tools in Roll20. At that point I think it would be good to erase some of the lines in the sections of the map that you aren't using, or draw it in a graphics program and save-it down as one big JPEG. With the exception of the freehand tool, drawings are extremely lightweight. A circle/oval, for example, is being generated from 13 points. Squares/rectangles have 5 points. (The first and last point for both oval and rectangle are overlapping, so there are actually 12/4 distinct points.) Polygons/polylines will obviously have varying numbers of points, but only the vertices are being stored for the path. The freehand tool, however, requires a lot more data. A freehand drawing is essentially a polyline with very very short line segments. This is why it was removed as an option for the dynamic lighting layer, because it is so much slower when compared to the other drawing tools.

Here are two pages from the wiki to look over when you are planning to use the drawing tool and large maps. The more individual components you have, the more strain on all the computers viewing that map. <a href="https://wiki.roll20.net/Drawing_Tools" rel="nofollow">https://wiki.roll20.net/Drawing_Tools</a> <a href="https://wiki.roll20.net/Optimizing_Roll20_Performa" rel="nofollow">https://wiki.roll20.net/Optimizing_Roll20_Performa</a>... quoted Limit the number of objects that you use. For example, try to use only a single image on the maps layer, instead of a large number of map tiles, furniture, etc. Instead, create the map in an external program and then import it as one JPG or PNG file. The fewer objects that Roll20 has to render individually, the better your performance will be.

Brian said: The freehand tool, however, requires a lot more data. A freehand drawing is essentially a polyline with very very short line segments. This is why it was removed as an option for the dynamic lighting layer, because it is so much slower when compared to the other drawing tools. Would you say the freehand it heavier or lighter than a typical object placed on the map of the same size?

The freehand tool causes more memory use overhead then tokens or tiles place on the map. These is because the free hand makes individual pixel points "..........." close together to simulate a line while the tile or token is a single object. If you have to draw by hand, it is recommended that you use the polyline "_____". The polyline drawing uses a fraction of the memory resource that a free hand does.

Well, in theory you could duplicate a freehand drawing using the polyline tool with the same resource load, but it would be difficult to do. IIRC a freehand line approximately the length of a grid square at default settings had somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 vertices. You could theoretically create a polyline of the same size with the same number of vertices, it'd just be a pain to draw. =) Freehand is basically the same as polyline as far as mechanics go; the difference is that you have to click for each vertex of a polyline, while a freehand drawing drops many vertices as you drag the tool around on the page.