Potentially useful info for crashes / low fps (xp, hd6850, quad core)

[Legacy_Tapkoh]

               I honestly don't know if this will be helpful, but on the off chance that it might, I'm sharing.

I have the same issues many have with NWN: crash at start up and low fps. I have solved the former by either setting my hardware acceleration to none or next to none or I can leave it as is and put an old atioglxx.dll in the NWN folder. Either way, when in-game, I have a whopping 3.9 fps at best (according to ~fps). I tried everything I could find written here or the GOG forum or wherever google pointed me. At best I got no change and at worst I got "wtf? change it back, change it back!" I don't expect to fix this until I have a different software/hardware combination, tbh.

System specs: windows xp sp3, core2 quad q6600 2.4ghz, 3gb ram, amd hd 6850 with latest non-beta drivers. (note that the game worked perfectly fine with my old 4670, but I'm not going back to that for one game)

This was all with v1.69 whether from GOG or installed from discs. However, I noticed that when I installed from the discs at first (game version 1.10), everything ran fine. I could start it without crashing and I got 157 fps in the prelude with all the settings turned up as high as possible. Then I installed the SoU expansion, which updated the game to v1.30, and the problems appeared. I installed HotU and updated to 1.69 and of course the problems persisted. I uninstalled and reinstalled to v1.10, then picked up the v1.69 patch for without the expansions. The problems appeared again.

So whatever the problem is between NWN and my system, it lies between version 1.10 and 1.30. Like I said, I don't know if that is even remotely helpful, but some more knowledgeable might be able to do something with it or just say it's useless info.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Tapkoh, 06 octobre 2012 - 09:36 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_HipMaestro]

               It's the OpenGL support (or non-support may be more accurate) of the newer drivers.  Not just OpenGL as an API but a version that is compatible with your card's driver choice.  Different versions of the Catalyst can be adjusted to adapt to the demands of NWN's rendering method, though I've never had any luck myself.  Not necessarily a matter of capacity or speed but the way the system responds or "digests" function calls from the game engine.  It's likely that the added graphic demands of the newer versions of NWN pushed the ability of your existing driver beyonds its limits.  It could have easily worked just the reverse for someone else... not working properly until v1.69 had been applied.

So it's not the old card working fine and the new one having issues so much as the driver support for the same rendering method that is the key.  Have you attempted to revert to the driver version that worked well with your older card?  Even if that resolves the NWN problem, it may render other apps poorly, which ends up becoming the Catch-22 reality.  It just depends how long the card/driver engineers feel they should support older rendering methods while still providing leading edge performance for the newer products.

Different card manufacturers have provided different degrees of this legacy adaptability.  There are loads of threads in the tech forum dedicated to investigating how the performance can be optimized for different manufacturers and card versions thereof.

Even something as basic as to how security and virus protection programs treat the game file writing can affect performance.  .

That's about all the advice I can suggest.  As the technology continues to depart from what was practical in the previous generations, it will become harder and harder to get NWN to work reliably, and it shares this characteristic with other ancient games (BG crashes all the time for me on this slightly newer machine while NWN is smooth as silk '> ).

So the bottom line is:  Whatever you find that works, post it.  Publish as detailed an account of your system and hardware specs as possible and precisely what you did to rectify the issues so that others can identify your contribution as a viable option for their own situation. .If you have time, edit your topic title to reflect the general characteristics (like including
"XP", "AMD HD6850" & "quad core" wouldn't hurt) so that it is easier to spot by
others in the community or first timers looking for answers.  Trust me.  It really helps.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tapkoh]

               

So it's not the old card working fine and the new one having issues so much as the driver support for the same rendering method that is the key.  Have you attempted to revert to the driver version that worked well with your older card?  

That's what I was referring to with "wtf? change it back!" in my original post (I didn't specify that so no reason anyone would know that). It did not respond well to that for some reason and I wasn't eager to try again with that particular version.

I did honestly read and try as much as I said I did. '> I changed drivers, graphics settings, sound settings, settings in ini files, whatever compatibility options xp would give me, tried different version of the games (as I detailed), workarounds and mods that worked for others, followed different installation directions, and so on and so forth. None of it worked (for v1.69), but I can rest knowing I tried everything I could find for now.

I did think that it could be a combination of card and drivers, which is why I mentioned my old card at all. Didn't mean to give the impression that I thought it was all about the hardware.

And title updated. Should have done that in the first place.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_ehye_khandee]

               Did you set the CPU affinity in the nwn ini files? NWN is never  happy with multiple cores, so let it run on just one.


Be well. Game on.
GM_ODA
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tapkoh]

               

ehye_khandee wrote...

Did you set the CPU affinity in the nwn ini files? NWN is never happy with multiple cores, so let it run on just one.


Be well. Game on.
GM_ODA

Tapkoh wrote...

I did honestly read and try as much as I said I did. '> I changed [...] settings in ini files

Don't want to be snippy, but really and truly, unless something novel comes along, I'm just unlucky and stuck with the way it is. Except for what I outlined in my first post, nothing worked. I spent upwards of 10 hours or more over the course of a few days uninstalling, reinstalling, changing things one item at a time, etc. to try to get it to work. If the answer were as simple as setting affinity, trust me, I would have found it.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Tapkoh, 10 octobre 2012 - 03:19 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Skildron]

               Which version of directX is installed on your system? If it is dx11, you will have to install dx9 alongside, because, though Microsoft  states dx11 to be downward compatible, it misses two dll files that the nwn graphics engine depends on. AMD is another culprit: The later AMD drivers don't have OpenGL support compatible to nwn. The last driver known to me to work with nwn is 11-04 version - but I am not sure if a driver that old supports your graphics board. So you might be in a fix there.

Sorry I cannot offer more help.
Greetings
Skildron

Edit: After some poking around I found out that the 11-04 driver package does in fact support the HD 68xx series.

You can download it here.

HTH
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Skildron, 10 octobre 2012 - 05:40 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_HipMaestro]

               

Skildron wrote...
Which version of directX is installed on your system? If it is dx11, you will have to install dx9 alongside, because, though Microsoft  states dx11 to be downward compatible, it misses two dll files that the nwn graphics engine depends on.

Hey, Skil, a few questions in regard to the DX issue......

I knew DX9 was recommended but never knew why, so... 

Any idea if the needed DLLs can be simply placed in the NWN folder to satisfy the library requirements? ( Never tried it myself, but may have a need in the future. )   Maybe registry may need to be editted to point to the proper one for NWN... another guess.
If that could be a viable fix,, can those DLLs be DL'd separately?   If not, perhaps these would be handy posted to the Vault (assuming it wouldn't conflict with a licensing agreemen)
Do you happen to know the names of the files? 
Or is it rather a new version of the same DLL names instead of new names?
Lastly, do you have a link to a procedure on how to implement the parallel DX install?  Always assumed one needed to be removed to use the other.  Doh! I am assuming it could be different for different OS's.  Dunno about that, though.

Just trying to get a handle on the scope of alternatives.  TIA.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par HipMaestro, 10 octobre 2012 - 06:50 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Tapkoh]

               To answer your question, dx 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904).

Now I did try installing older drivers. I tried 10-10, 10-12, 11-2, 8, and 10 and had the same problems. 11-4 however appears to be working fine thus far. I don't know if that is strange, but I think it is. Makes me wish I tried every iteration instead of just "figuring" the ones in between wouldn't work either, but in this case, I don't mind being wrong. I do mind sort of sounding like a defeatist jerk, but I'll live.

My thanks for pointing out that specific one. I'll see if it plays nice with modern games, but I at least have the information even if I have to update to the current drivers.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Pearls]

               ill check my driver version later, i have a 6990 on a clean w7 install and have no problem with nwn so i dont think its the drivers, ill try a xp vm and try to re create your problems