Computer Specs

Hey guys,
I need to get a better computer to use Roll20 effectively. I am going to be GMing a game for me and my friends. What kind of computer specs are recommended to lessen the amount of lag that I have and to have a smooth experience? Thanks for any input!

Hi Rob. It might help to post what you are currently using. I asked the same question not too long ago System Requirements.

That is a hard question to answer RobDog. Every computer is different in the way it is setup and how it is used. Do you use voice and video or just voice? Do you use lots of tiles or just load a map with a few tiles, are you planning on getting a subscription and using dynamic lighting?

Each of those questions and more impact on the requirements that your computer will need to meet. For the bare bones basic campaign that is a few maps and tokens while using voice only (built in), any computer system that is at least 2.0 dual core cpu with 4 gigs of ram and a solid basic video card (DX9 or better) should handle it. That was my setup for the last few years and I ran roll20 on it with ease.

Now you have to remember that more programs you are running at the same time, the more impact on your resources they will have.

Good luck and let me know what system you are looking at. I might have a suggestion or two if you want to hear them.

Hey guys,
From what I think I'll be doing for the game I am thinking about getting a subscription in order to use dynamic lighting, but may change closer to the time I decide to start the game (I won't be starting it until January). I am also torn between using the built in voice or using skype, whichever works better for me will ultimately be what I use. Hard to say at this stage. The game I am planning is a Pokemon United game, so it will require using a lots of tokens due to different pokemon and such and I have so far planned out a whole world spanning different types of terrain so lots of different maps as well. Its a story that will hopefully span over a few months.

I haven't looked at any computers yet, since I am waiting for Boxing Day sales to come up, but I will be buying a new one in order to play out this game. As of right now I am torn between buying a new laptop that I can use for school and this game (since this laptop honestly sucks a lot haha), but if it's cheaper (most like is) I can also build myself a new desktop from scratch. I have built one in the past but is currently out of commission, so I need to buy new parts for it and such. I just needed a rough idea of how intensely Roll20 is based on the computer's internal hardware to make sure that whatever I get is up to snuff.

I am open to any suggestions that you may have, it would be greatly appreciated actually :P. This is the first time I'll be GMing a game so I really want it to work out. If you need anymore info from me let me know. Thanks!

I run Roll20 often on a fairly cheap, low-end laptop, that's a few years old. It's not a high powered one at all. It doesn't give me problems with Roll20 except a few limited situations, and the worst situation can't happen anymore. Roll20 fixed a problem that used to cause slower computers to bog down. Roll20 used to bog down in campaigns that had Dynamic Lighting and used the "freehand" drawing tool, making irregular borders for the dynamic light to calculate. Now Roll20 disabled the freehand tool for dynamic light, instead you use the straighter polygon tool, which doesn't cause computers to bog down anymore. The other thing I've seen slow down a computer is the Video feature. If it gives your group problems, you can still play with Voice without video, to avoid that load. Other than that I honestly believe most Roll20 campaigns would run fine on an average to low-end laptop built within the last 5 years or so, with little to no problems.

Robdog. I have a slightly older laptop and I use it for everything (Just graduating and getting an AAS in Computer Information Systems). It is an Asus K73E and it has and i7 4 core cpu running at 2.2 GHz, 8GB of ram and I have two harddives (main reason for getting it) in it. The first one is a 240 Gig SSD while the second harddrive is 750 gig 7200rpm The OS is just the simple Win 7 home.

I have yet to have any problems when i play with the various features.

@Pat. Yea, my laptop is definitely lower on processing power and RAM. AMD C-50 processor running at 1.0 GHz with 4GB of RAM. Most of everything else I have is basically the same. Good to know that really all I need to to have an upgraded processor and RAM though. Your laptop sounds similar to what I normally would get for myself. This originally was my parents laptop, that I had picked out for them a couple years back. Since they weren't going to use it for more than just browsing the web and photo storage I got a cheap one with low specs. But then my actual laptop decided to die a couple weeks before school started this fall so I took theirs so I had something without having to buy. But thanks for the help. Now that I have an idea of what I need roughly for specs I should be fine.

Glad I could help. I personally think a laptop would do you the best as you can use it for school and here. Try to get one around my specs or better and you should be able to handle anything roll20 and most other programs throw at you. I can even run some video games like Baldur's gate on my laptop with no problem also.

Pat's i7 is a powerful processor chip though (even if a couple years old, i7 was the top-end chip when that line came out). The Intel processor model that came out below that -- the i5 -- would surely be fine for this, and i3 laptops would probably run Roll20 as well just with certain precautions like shutting down other programs from running in the background. My lower-end laptop that works fine here, is AMD Vision A6 (and just 4GB RAM by the way), so it's tough to compare the AMD vs the Intel but this chip was statted and priced more like i3 or i5 than i7.

I know. I also had a desktop that used an athlon single core that ran 1.9 GHz with 2 gigs of SDR ram on windows xp with a video card that ran DX9 with 512 DDR2 ram and it handled roll20 well until I tossed dynamic lighting, voice, and camera up. I could do DL and voice or Voice and Video with no problems but if I tried all three, it choked and dragged.