On 13Apr2020 1237, xxxxxx@gmail.com wrote:
>
> My Skype starts to labour at times (even on an i5-8400 with 16 Gb or
> RAM) when I get 6 player streams. I have upped its processor priority
> which helps a bit, but unless the MP3 stream or .WAV stream was a low
> burden, it'd just chunk things up more. Now, mind you, when I had the
> 3rd party recorder when they had the API for that, it may have run as
> a separate thread and it seemed not to clog up my older machine. So
> I'll have to try finding recording in the Skype on Win 10.
It ran fine on my FX-8320 (16GB RAM) with four others, but we weren't
recording then (it wasn't an option). Currently I've only got three
players and three and recording works fine (I'm not the one recording,
but I don't think the player who does has a particularly hot PC and he's
not had issues that could be traced to that). I do wish there was a
better option that didn't cost in money or excessive annoyances.
>
> We've found people constantly drop and lose dice in their computer
> areas. Online rolling is just less annoying. (different folks,
> different strokes)
One player uses an app, having gotten tired of dropping their dice on
the floor.

>
> There are so many excellent deck plans out there and floorplans and
> battle maps.... I like that aspect (you give up something not being
> together but the visuals seem to really help us with clarity and with
> engagement).

I tend to not do set-piece encounters very often, so I like to draw out
any maps on the spot. I've not struck a way of doing that super fast on
a computer, and then load it into a tool that can share it, and even
then I'd still be manually managing fog of war, etc., because it'd take
too long filling in all the LOS blocking stuff, etc.

I'd love to be able to do LOS and fog of war using a PC tool and share
it, but if I get my players to install and setup something that does
this, and/or I pay for such (I note most allow non-paying users to link
to one person's paid subscription, or some similar plan), I'm committing
to a given tool, and I'm also committing to using it, which means a
change in how I do my encounters, more prep time spent on maps and such
(and thus either more time overall or less time on other prep), and so on.

It's something I consider from time to time, but it doesn't seem to have
the right cost/benefit ratio *for us* at this time.

--
Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com>