I’m trying to understand the impact of modules size (functionalities) on the usability of a module.
And what impact this size has and how I can rework my modules to make it usable.
To all you Vassal guru’s out there I’d like to heard your comments and recommendations.
I have a module I’ve just recently completed (sort of) which weighs in at about 136MB.
In the testing of this modules I’ve have a plethora of user issues.
Unable to load the module.
Unable to save a module scenario.s
Extremely slow loading of the modules and/or scenarios.
Commands which take minutes to complete.
So I’ve had users bump their Vassal (and individual scenario) heap sizes. Helps a little.
I’ve streamline the module so there are no excess images or files.
Unused images in the module will have no impact on memory usage when the module is loaded. Dimensions of your map images will. (Note that dimensions are distinct from image file size, which is mostly unimportant.)
The important thing is the Dimension in pixels, not inches. Vassal doesn’t know anything about physical size, only pixels. Those maps sound very large, depending on the Pixels per inch, which is most probably causing your problems. I tend to cut large maps to pieces around 3000x5000 pixels and have no problems. Those numbers are somewhat arbitrary based on some early maps I worked on and I’ve kept using that size. Somewhat larger would probably work also.
If the maps are hex based, then you can avoid any issues with units stacking on map joins by making sure you cut the maps so the cuts do not run through any hex centers.