Web Player Issues/Quality

Support
#1

Hi There,
With the winter coming, I have begun to explore the Online Web Player a bit more, as I plan to use it when we return to gaming online for several months (currently enjoying in-person play). First, let me say, I enjoy the idea of having a web-based player, as it makes it easier on my players to enjoy the great sound effects and music Syrinscape provides! That said, I have been having some really bad playback issues through the Online Web Player - static and dragging and skipping music. Also, the music is just not as crisp and clear as through the Syrinscape Online Player. I have tried using the Online Web Player through both Chrome and Firefox (on Windows 10), but the results are the same. I did turn off my anti-virus protection to see if that would make a difference, but it did not.

I understand it can take lots of time and effort to get these things to work as intended. So I have a couple of questions: Is there anything I can do on my end to fix this issue of lag/static/skipping? If the Syrinscape team is still working on and debugging the Web Player, will the ability to download the Syrinscape Online Player and use it still be available?

#2

I totally agree with your assessment and was wondering about this as well.

I just ended up returning to the online player rather than the web player. My players have not noticed the same poor quality from the web player, but I cannot handle it so had to revert to the the online player.

I am hoping that this issue is rectified in the near future… so much more easier for the players to click the copied link than having to go through the hassle of trying to figure out how to update the online player.

#3

Hiya both,

Yes, yes, yes and yes. :slight_smile:

Soooo… theoretically the sound in the Web Player should be significantly better than that coming out of our Unity build.
a) The Web Player uses convolution panning, which means positioned audio elements have an increased sense of spatiality = they sound more 3D.
b) The Web Player uses convolution reverb, which is a more advanced reverb type (more realistic and natural) than the comb reverbs of Unity.

BUT:
a) both these processes use more CPU than their old more primative ancestors
b) the Web Audio API (upon which the Web Player is built) is less optimised than the Unity engine

These things combined means that SOME devices, not just weaker devices, but also percularly some specific types of processors or OS setups struggle to play audio cleanly.

Things to do about this:
a) go back to the Online Player for now (that’s why we haven’t blown it up yet)
b) we have many plans for optimising playback in the Web Player (including making it more effecient, but also giving people a ‘quality’ slider = mainly to reduce the number of simultaneous samples being played back). We are just starting work on testing options here, but will let people try our solutions once we have something to try. Make sure you’ve got “Experiemental features” checked on your User Dashboard
c) stop a few Elements yourself (especially those set to low volume) (OR particularly busy things).
d) try different browsers and setups (some people have had success using different browsers OR audio settings in their OS)

Keep reporting on the forums how you go = more info for us (and the whole community) the better.

And mainly, GAME ON, and GAME LOUD! :slight_smile: :crossed_swords: :bug:

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Web Player popping/lag
Australian subscription cost
#4

Thanks Ben for the detailed reply! Much appreciate it! I will continue using the Online Player for now (and glad it is still an option), but will definitely continue to play around with the Web Player and use some of your suggestions to see what works as I go. :slight_smile:

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#5

Easy!

May all your rolls be optimal!

#6

Hey Ben,

Really appreciate the response.

I will also continue to use the online app during my gaming sessions until the web player seems to be running optimally.

During my preparation sessions though, I will play around with the web player. Let you know how it goes!!

Thanks for the suggestions, I will give them a spin.

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#7

Cools!

We’ll keep people up to date here on the forums as we are able to roll out a few of our optimisations we have planned.

#8

Yeah I am having problems with my Ryzen 1600 with 16GB of computer ram and SSD. Cracking in the music. My players don’t and I have the memory and CPU load. My players (I host using Fantasy Grounds) don;t have any problems with audio quality.

#9

@acroyear4 @markthompsonwood @andrew2

Wanna try something for me.

Run the Web Player in Firefox.

I found some good success recently doing that.

Let us know how you go! :slight_smile: :game_die: :pizza: :cupcake:

#10

Will do, Ben. I should have time to try that option out this coming weekend!

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#11

Hi Ben, Ran a game today 9 November using FireFox with Windows 10 and Fantasy Grounds and the Link software running. No drop outs.

6 players + GM

System Specs
|—|---|
|Processor|AMD Ryzen 5 1600 Six-Core Processor 3.20 GHz|
|Installed RAM|16.0 GB|
|System type|64-bit operating system, x64-based processor|
Nvidia 1070GTX
SSD

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#12

This is good to hear (get it?) hear? :smiley:

Glad it’s working better for you.

Others reporting here would be useful too when people are able! :man_technologist:t3:

#13

Hi Ben,
I had time to sit down and play with the Online Web Player this morning, using Firefox as you suggested. I got much better results than when I tried it on Chrome a month ago! No static or skipping or delays in music or sound. I also launched Roll20 from my Firefox to see if adding that operation had any effect on the sound streaming through the Firefox browser, and I did not notice any serious issues! My only additional comment is that I’m still not sure the sound quality is as sharp as when I use the Syrinscape Online Player, but this is a vast improvement and it is much, much better. :slight_smile:

I have yet to try the Online Web Player while running the rest of my normal programs for gaming online (Discord, Excel, PDF viewer), but so far this is much better than my first experience.

I am running on Windows 10, 8 GB RAM, on current version of Firefox.

I will continue to test this out, as next month I will begin prep and creating sound packages for my upcoming winter D&D campaign. I’ll post any feedback if things change for better or worse!

Thanks for listening to our feedback!

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#14

Thanks for the update @acroyear4, I’m sure a lot of people will find this helpful. Let us know how the testing continues to go :grin:

#15

Hello there,

I’ve continued testing of the Online Web Player the past few weeks, and have had a return of the original playback issues.

Firstly, I did switch to using Firefox as Ben had suggested a while back, and it worked for a bit, but recent (December) prep on it to use in our upcoming online game resulted in the same issues for playback of static, skips, and just bogged down sound.

Again, I am running Windows 10, 8 GB RAM, current version of Firefox and no browser extensions with Norton Anti-Virus turned off.

This afternoon I had an issue with uploading/updating sound sets on my Fantasy Player for a D&D game I was running for my wife (using my Samsung tablet). So I decided to try using the Online Web Player on my tablet instead. I used Firefox on my Galaxy Tab S6 Lit, but got the same issues with static, skips, and bad playback. I also tried to run the Online Web Player through Chrome, but as expected, I got the same poor playback quality as well.

At this point, I don’t see the Online Web Player as a viable option for me, but am grateful to still have access to the Syrinscape Online Player program, which I have not had any issue with, and will continue to use going forward.

Sorry I don’t have better feedback at this time. :disappointed:

#16

Heya @acroyear4,

Thanks for the specific info. Very useful. :slight_smile:

We DID have a server issue that was causing the instal probs in the Fantasy Player… we are still working on a proper fix for that.

Sad to hear about the performance/sound issues you are getting from the Web Player. We are looking forward to spending some good time on getting something like quality settings so that sound will play on ALL devices AND are also interested to see if the browser creators themselves might do some performance work on the Web Audio API to which we are beholden here.

Let’s hope we can make some good progress soon!

NOTE: there WAS a day when the Fantasy Player was TOO much for some devices, but as power crept up, those problems disappeared. Hopefully SOON there will be NO number of simultaneous elements that will break playback on ANYONE’S device! :slight_smile:

Tiny sidenote the three things are called:
Fantasy Player (you got this right)
Online Player (you got this basically right = the app you install)
Web Player (you got this almost right = when you play back sound at app.syrinscape.com)

#17

Ben,

I want to apologize for my late reply… I did what you suggested and running Syrinscape through Firefox has worked great!.. Been doing it for the last few months too, so a good sampling!

Learning more on handling the sound management through Fantasy Grounds.
Starting to place one shots and sound elements within the Story Line. I have also developed numerous sound boards too.

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#18

Woot!

Continue to give us feedback and we will continue to work on things to make them better!