computer hardware for smooth play

Lasu · Post by **Lasu** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 10:51 pm

oldgrayrogue wrote:Bloom, shiny water and water refraction are also culprits. There are actually pop up "tips" on those buttons as you scroll over em Mikayla =) *spoken as someone who is truly clueless when it comes to technology*

Agreed.

I'll post my laptop specs and my settings for best performance tonight!

fluffmonster · Post by **fluffmonster** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 10:51 pm

2.5 GHz dual-core 3-year old AMD cpu (250x10), 2 gigs ram, nvidia 8800GTS (G80) 640MB pushing 1680x1050, Windows XP Pro SP2.

On max settings the woods around Quervaar brought me to a total halt, not much better with shadows at medium. Everywhere else has been reeasonably smooth, more so with a bit of an overclock on the vid card. Haven't done combat with a party online yet though, we'll see about that.

AcadiusLost · Post by **AcadiusLost** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 12:07 am

fluffmonster wrote:On max settings the woods around Quervaar brought me to a total halt, not much better with shadows at medium.

We'll see how the area works for others as more PCs go exploring- trees are one of the more complicated parts of NWN2 exteriors and that area has a ton of them. It's possible the build will need to be adjusted to have less diversity of flora for the sake of playability.

indio · Post by **indio** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 12:13 am

I've kept all exteriors to under 5 tree varieties or less, but there are certainly a number of trees that don't need to be there in as great a number as they are currently. Removing trees is quick and easy.

Grand Fromage · Post by **Grand Fromage** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 12:26 am

The variety is what causes performance hits, not the number. If there are fewer than seven or eight seeds per area it should be fine.

Swift · Post by **Swift** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 6:43 am

Shadows, bloom, anything to do with water and Normal Mapped Terrain all give fairly decent improvements to your framerate. Knock them all off and it helps alot (though looks not as nice)

Lasu · Post by **Lasu** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 7:40 pm

Alright...

The computer on which I'm trying to play is a Dell Inspiron D830 with the following specs:

Core 2 Duo T9300 2.5GHz 800MHz FSB, L2 Cache
2GB DDR2 667 SDRAM
256MB nVidia Quadro NVS 140M
120GB 7200RPM HDD

For whatever reason the game drags even with everything on low...

Help?

Avaz · Post by **Avaz** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 7:55 pm

Lasu: I would say it's because your machine has an nVidia Quadro card, which is meant for workstations, not so much for gaming, IIRC.

Someone with more technical savvy would be able to give more information, in case I'm wrong.

Veilan · Post by **Veilan** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 8:06 pm

Core 2 Dueo E8400 @ 3GHz factory setting
4 GB DDR2 CL 4 RAM
nVidia EN9800GTX w/ 512 MB

It's not like I can even think about enabling shadows outdoors.

NWN 2 is one utterly disgusting shatheap of sloppy coding, all for a glorious look of rubber & plastic.

Vendrin · Post by **Vendrin** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 8:13 pm

My computer has less power then a lot of you folks and I have no problems running the game on high shadows, 1920 by 1200, high textures and antialaising on 2X, so I don't know what your guys issue is.

Mikayla · Post by **Mikayla** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 8:28 pm

Whoa.

So, I find that if things are going well, I can run: High Textures, Low Shadows, 1440xwhatever, and check the Normal Terrain Mapping thingy and maybe one or two other of those little check boxes. But I also frequently find that things slow down, things get choppy, and I lose control and such - so then I have to ramp everything WAY down, like, to 800x600, Medium Textures, Low Shadows, NO boxes checked for anything, etc. Then it runs really smooth.

Could it be my connection? I have DSL - could that be the problem? Not the computer itself?

Veilan · Post by **Veilan** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 8:33 pm

Mikayla wrote:Could it be my connection? I have DSL - could that be the problem? Not the computer itself?

Not really. Things turning choppy and the camera not going smoothly is a performance problem - the connection only influences stuff like things reacting too late, the action getting ahead before your orders are processed, people appearing to be "teleporting" around and so on. The connection doesn't have to do much heavy lifting, it's just response time that is affected, which becomes quite notable in real time games.

fluffmonster · Post by **fluffmonster** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 8:47 pm

Veilan wrote:Core 2 Dueo E8400 @ 3GHz factory setting
4 GB DDR2 CL 4 RAM
nVidia EN9800GTX w/ 512 MB

It's not like I can even think about enabling shadows outdoors.

NWN 2 is one utterly disgusting shatheap of sloppy coding, all for a glorious look of rubber & plastic.

huh...that card shouldn't have any problems with shadows. What drivers are you on? I'm on 163.11 I think.

And I think Vendrin is full of shit. He's blind enough he *thinks* his gfx are good.

And Lasu...yeah, a Quadro isn't a gaming card. 256MB of vid ram is also not enough for this game.

Veilan · Post by **Veilan** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 8:55 pm

fluffmonster wrote:huh...that card shouldn't have any problems with shadows. What drivers are you on? I'm on 163.11 I think.

I'm on 174.74. Have you tried any newer than yours, was there a difference? After all, with gfx card drivers, a newer iteration doesn't necessarily have to be better, hrm...

Mikayla · Post by **Mikayla** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 8:59 pm

fluff:

256MB of vid ram is also not enough for this game.

Maybe thats my problem - my 8600GT only has 256MB of vid ram. Alas. Still, I am glad I can play it at any resolution or detail - the gaming has been fantastic at all resolutions!