Disable Shadows at Night in Silverymoon

indio · Post by **indio** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 11:18 pm

I'll remove half of the commoner spawns which should alleviate the burden on the server to a degree, hopefully a significant degree. Silvy needs a population.

The performance issues of the client is what I intend to address in this post, so please read.

Automated lighting systems are very difficult in NWN2. I've tried a few, but all either hit the CPU hard, or are unreliable.

Instead of a Day/Night lighting system, the best alternative I can think of is for the commoners walking the city to pull out a torch and carry it around. Too much of a burden on the CPU and they may fail to put the torch away, so the reduced spawn numbers should see an end to daytime torches.

If you've got Shadows enabled, at all, while this is happening, expect your framerate to dive. You must disable shadows at night in Silverymoon. I run an ATi Radeon 1950 Pro, and I flounder badly with shadows on. Turn them off, and it's smooth sailing.

Swift · Post by **Swift** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 5:50 am

I am hoping to jump on at some point tonight. I will be interested to see how my 8800 does with this. Shadows (via Per Pixel shading) have been the crippling feature for alot of 3d games in the last few years as developers try to make them more realistic.

Swift · Post by **Swift** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 3:15 pm

Tested it tonight walking back and forth along the waterfront by the docks since there are a few buildings lining the walkway (and the NPCs were everywhere).

I run a Core2Due E6600 (2.4GHZ) with 3 gig of RAM and an 8800GT 640meg video card. With Shadows on Full and Character/Environment shadows (in advanced graphics options) set to high, there was noticable slow down, but not unplayable slow down. Tossing the Advanced Graphics shadows down to medium got things smooth again, and the only slow down i noticed was when 6 NPCs all decided to walk past at the same time.

Basically it is this simple: If you have upgraded your PC to the (or at least very very close to the) latest and greatest money can buy in the last 6 months, you should be fine to leave shadows on. Otherwise even with the reduced NPC spawns you will be in a world of pain if you dont turn shadows off come nightfall.

indio · Post by **indio** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 10:40 pm

We've nuked the torches so this thread no longer applies.