Resource Hog

Anyone else finding that they can no longer really have Roll20 open with any outside video conferencing? I've been using it for years, and only in recent months has it become mostly unusable, even with a minimal map/no macros. Basically, everything crawls to a stop for everyone as soon as they log into Roll20.

What outside conferencing app are you using? We've been using Discord for A/V for about three years and rarely have any trouble with audio, and only one of our group has issues with video (he's on a DSL connection with crappy bandwidth, so he just keeps his camera turned off).

I would say, go through troubleshooting steps and try to track down the issue. It sounds like you're saying that your group experience lag in Roll20, when you launch another (third party?) video conference app? Is that like Discord, or Zoom?  Starting question --- has your GM totally disabled the Roll20 "Chat Tech"? (That's the word for Roll20's video mode, and just having all players select NONE for video is not enough. The GM of the Roll20 table needs to go into the Drop-down and change it so that Roll20's video-tech does not load in the background even if you aren't using it). 

I also noticed yesterday that I couldn't run Roll20 and Discord on the same machine. It would just slow everything down to the point of being unusable. Fortunately I have two machines running during games so I could adapt, but had that not been the case it would have made things unplayable.

Aardwulf said: I also noticed yesterday that I couldn't run Roll20 and Discord on the same machine. It would just slow everything down to the point of being unusable. Fortunately I have two machines running during games so I could adapt, but had that not been the case it would have made things unplayable. Same question, do you know for-sure that the GM had turned OFF the Roll20 Chat Techn (not just set Voice & Video to NONE, but actually disabled the feature entirely with the drop-down)? Asking because 1 step is to find out if Roll20's video feature is misbehaving when another video app is open on the same computer

All video is off (I am the DM), and it happens in Discord, Zoom or Teams, to pretty much everyone. I have a new laptop, good specs, still sucks.

Hedgehog Cannon said: Anyone else finding that they can no longer really have Roll20 open with any outside video conferencing? I've been using it for years, and only in recent months has it become mostly unusable, even with a minimal map/no macros. Basically, everything crawls to a stop for everyone as soon as they log into Roll20. Could you do the opposite test? Log into Roll20 first, confirm that it is working at-speed, without the lag. Then launch your Video Conferencing app and see if the lag begins.  With the pattern that you described in the OP, we can't know that it is related to outside video apps. You could just have fulltime Roll20 lag. Since you described launching Roll20 second, and the lag being seen instantly. 

I run Roll20 & Discord on the same machine but I didn't notice any trouble during my game on Sunday. I'll monitor in my game on Wednesday too.  Last year I had to run Discord & Roll20 on different machines, but I upgraded to an M4 Mac Mini in January.

Just adding ran a game last night and use discord for audio conference and ran into no issues (on satellite internet in a rural location as well, so not the best compared to fiber for example)

Hedgehog Cannon, Is your game particularly large or complex, or have very large maps that use complex dynamic lighting?