Is roll20 data intensive?

Living in rural Australia, 3 hours west of Sydney, I have limited data usage piped in via satellite. I have ping speeds around 800 ms and only 18 gig available per month before speed is shaped down to can't-even-check-email. I assume roll20 is not for me based on my ISP. Can anyone explain how much data roll20 uses? 

I should say that the 18 gig is split 8/10 peak/off peak. 

No, the application itself is not intensive. When you first enter a game you will be sent the images but in most campaigns that should be less than 50MB. Some campaigns have as much as 300MB but the GM can archive maps he is not using to reduce the amount of information to what is necessary.  Now, after that is voice and video. If you get into a text only game (up to the people you join a game with) it wont be intensive at all. If you use Video or Voice of course that will go up. I don't know how much Video or Voice uses but I doubt you will run into your cap with voice.  As for your ping speed, that is not an issue either. The way Roll20 works is that you download everything when you get in and then you receive status changes. Example: If a token is moved then it's position is updated to the Roll20 server and then you are updated.  In short, you should not have a problem except for *maybe* video and/or voice.  If you are using Chrome, I can show you how to monitor your network use when entering a game. Then I can invite you to one of my campaigns and show you what usage you have.  - Gauss

roll20 itself consumes about the same amount of bandwidth usage as facebook but the video and audio options is the bandwidth hog. I've never thought about reviewing how much it actually uses. With your limitations, you would be seeking a text based game probably not voice and video.

dang it. Gauss ninja posted on me.  :P

Muahahah! :D - Gauss

Gauss, I do use Chrome - I would be interested in knowing how to monitor usage. I'll google it when I get home. We have four users at home and we have to be careful about what we do in the Internet so that we don't hit that cap too soon. We usually spend the last 3 - 7  days on the shaped speeds for peak hours with 1 or 2 gig remaining for off peak.  Thanks for your offer of joining a campaign as spectator. I'm on holidays next week and might take you up on that. 

I think this page explains it :&nbsp; <a href="http://osxdaily.com/2013/07/05/monitor-web-bandwidth-usage-easily-with-chrome/" rel="nofollow">http://osxdaily.com/2013/07/05/monitor-web-bandwidth-usage-easily-with-chrome/</a> Brief instructions from that page if this is what you meant Gauss. Using the Bandwidth Usage Monitor in Chrome This will instantly start keeping track of data that has been sent and received through the Chrome browser: Quit out of Chrome if it’s open already, then relaunch it to start a fresh browsing session (not technically necessary, but it makes this much easier) Press Command+L to jump to the location bar and enter the following exactly: chrome://net-internals/#bandwidth Bandwidth monitoring begins immediately, hit “Stop” to end bandwidth usage monitoring, or hit “Reset” to reset the data usage counter back to zero If you didn’t relaunch Chrome, or you just want to start over, hit the “Reset” button to push the counter back to zero. The data transfer is reported in kilobytes (kb), and if that’s not human readable enough for you, then just use a simple calculation to turn the number into megabytes (mb): Number in KB / 1024 = MB

Robert, I wasn't meaning as a spectator. I was going to walk you through how to monitor usage. However, it is pretty easy so I will just explain here:&nbsp; 1) Open the tab you plan on using for your game.&nbsp; 2) Go to the Campaign Details page.&nbsp; 3) Hit Ctrl+Shift+Del and checkmark "Empty the cache". Select "From the beginning of time" in the dropdown menu. Note: This will prevent the page from loading images from your cache. Only do this when testing the size of the campaign since cached images save you bandwidth. 4) Hit Ctrl+Shift+J to open your console.&nbsp; 5) Hit the "Network" tab in your console.&nbsp; 6) Click "Launch Campaign" You will watch things load. At the bottom there are statements for the number of requests, the amount of memory transfered, and the time it took to load the page.&nbsp; My main campaign is 16MB and takes me 27.29 seconds to load.&nbsp; My Axis and Allies campaign is 6.0MB and takes 48.53 seconds to load (it has a lot of tokens).&nbsp; To give you an idea of what caching does for me: If I hit refresh on my Axis and Allies game the amount of data is 71.1KB (not MB) and the speed to load is 22.04 seconds. If the game you join (or create) has over 50MB it probably means that the GM should archive some maps to save on bandwidth. Archiving prevents the images on archived maps from loading. They can be un-archived later. - Gauss

Metroknight, while that tool works it records everything across Chrome. My method records just the campaign data.&nbsp; However, your method may record the A/V usage if you are using A/V inside Roll20 or Google+ Hangouts. Some testing may be in order. :D&nbsp; - Gauss

I like your method. My jaw hit the ground when I saw that my pbp game loaded almost 10 mb then I realized that I forgot to archive about 6 maps. Now it loads about 5 mb and does that under 20 seconds.

Metroknight, in my time as a Roll20 Moderator I have seen campaigns with 200 MB. Archiving greatly reduced the amount of information those campaigns loaded reducing them to 20-30 MB.&nbsp; - Gauss

I noticed. I already had 15 maps archived, just forgot to archive the 6 not being used. Do you know how much the handouts and journals cause on the load? Just curious but I figure it isn't much since they are almost all text.

If you want to minimize video bandwidth, use Google Hangouts and set it to Ultra Low bandwidth. It turns off all video... but you can still use voice and roll20.

Metroknight, I don't know but it shouldn't be much except for the images. - Gauss

I wonder how much skype adds on to the usage. voice and / or video that is.

Gauss, sorry for misunderstanding your invite. I have copied your directions to a .doc to explore more fully when I am on holidays. It has been quite interesting to hear how little data is used by roll20. I'm going to email some friends to see if they are interested in playing via roll20.