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  1. #1

    Hosting Fantasy Grounds from an AWS Server

    During a discussion on Facebook in the Dungeons & Dragons - Fantasy Grounds group I was asked to share my solution to my player's lag and connectivity issues by setting up a Virtual AWS Server that I start and stop for our gaming sessions. Providing up to a 10gb connection with far more uploading bandwidth than any of our local Internet Service Providers (ISPs) offer. With the ability to scale the computer resources as well we have a very cost-effective solution that creates a very fluid and stable environment for all the players. We love being able to see each of the player tokens move in real-time as they interact with them instead of on a delay or skipped entirely, it makes it feel more like we are actually gaming together at a table.

    I have added my walkthrough instructions as a PDF attachment.

    I can improve on them and add more screenshots if there is a request for it. I promised I would post something on here and I wanted to get that up.

    I hope some of you find this useful or are interested in it. We have found a huge improvement for our games.

    Norgewalk
    Guild & Dungeon Master
    Hold My Ale! D&D Guild
    Attached Files Attached Files

  2. #2
    This will get cheaper when the Linux version comes out.

  3. #3
    This is really good information!

    I skimmed your doc and see you upgraded your Instance Type. Do you see a noticeable difference?
    Fantasy Grounds Unity Lives! Good job, Smiteworks!

  4. #4
    I've been doing campaign build work on an Amazon Workspaces instance so that I can reach it from whatever computer that I'm at, and to avoid the startup/login & shutdown/logoff hassle of a straight EC2 instance. Minimum of $7.25/mo + per hour usage, but I haven't take the time to figure out how to automate the process on EC2. I haven't tried hosting a game from it, but it may be a decent solution for some people.

  5. #5
    I think somebody else had a writeup for a AWS instance too but can't find it right now. Or was that for building your own VPN.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Three of Swords View Post
    This is really good information!

    I skimmed your doc and see you upgraded your Instance Type. Do you see a noticeable difference?
    Yes we did. We had 5 players on and at the time had a map that was well beyond the recommended image size. It was taking players a long time to load and we could not see the tokens moving. We also have a lot of modules and players had them all loaded. After upgrading the instance size there was no problem, they all moseyed along the map with ease and we saw the tokens move.

    I should mention I am also running Google hangouts on the server so I can see the players and I have the server using all three of my monitors.

    After the big campaign battle map we could downgrade one level and still have the same results. That higher level really just squashes any latency issues that could potentially come up. Pre-loading images, making sure all your images sizes are right, and all other practices are still good to do.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Norgewalk View Post
    During a discussion on Facebook in the Dungeons & Dragons - Fantasy Grounds group I was asked to share my solution to my player's lag and connectivity issues by setting up a Virtual AWS Server that I start and stop for our gaming sessions. Providing up to a 10gb connection with far more uploading bandwidth than any of our local Internet Service Providers (ISPs) offer. With the ability to scale the computer resources as well we have a very cost-effective solution that creates a very fluid and stable environment for all the players. We love being able to see each of the player tokens move in real-time as they interact with them instead of on a delay or skipped entirely, it makes it feel more like we are actually gaming together at a table.

    I have added my walkthrough instructions as a PDF attachment.

    I can improve on them and add more screenshots if there is a request for it. I promised I would post something on here and I wanted to get that up.

    I hope some of you find this useful or are interested in it. We have found a huge improvement for our games.

    Norgewalk
    Guild & Dungeon Master
    Hold My Ale! D&D Guild
    Excellent information. Out of curiosity, what is your monthly cost?

  8. #8
    I just set up on AWS as well and it worked like a charm. Thanks for the write up it was helpful with trying to estimate what resources I would need. Super easy, fast, and very responsive! I am loving it.

    Quick question though, why use the m5 instance type instead of the g4? Any reason for that?
    Last edited by AznBran; September 19th, 2020 at 01:12.

  9. #9
    Does this work with Fantasy Grounds Unity version?

  10. #10
    Welcome!

    I have not tried this myself but since all of the current Windows server OSes are 64 bit yes it should work with Classic or Unity. If you want to run Linux then you might want to wait for the Linux Unity native installer to be released before you venture down this path.
    If you want a Wishlist in the Fantasy grounds store klick the link and upvote it.
    https://fgapp.idea.informer.com/proj/fgapp?ia=135468

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