Creatures freeze-framing NWN

[Legacy_Jedijax]

               So, I have played the game for a long time, with several different cards, configurations and personalized content. About three years ago, I got me an ATI 3870, which was supposed to be one of the best cards around, and my NWN ran quite smoothly; the Catalyst overrides for image quality did bring the graphics to a new level, back when the NVidia Forceware was just coming of age.

Nevertheless, at some point, things started to go... weird. Suddenly, I noticed the game started framing about a tenth of a second. I thought it had something to do with the custom content used by fan modules, but soon it started happening even in the original campaign and expansions.

I did troubleshooting tests, emptying my override folder, playing bare modules, without no haks attached, lowering all visual effects in-game and through ATI Catalyst, separately and joined, but there has been no luck.

No other application seems to suffer such a deterioration in performance, but just now I noticed the game runs smoothly, no matter how high the visual options are, how customized the textures and models, AS LONG AS THERE ARE NO CREATURES PRESENT. Everytime a creature comes into view, wether hostile or friendly, animal or character, the game freeze-frames for about a tenth of a second per creature; this means, the more creatures coming into view, the longer it freezes.

I have no idea why such a thing is happening, seeing as it never did before, so I come to you, wise gurus of technical NWN, hoping you may share any tip or insight on the subject.

I have an intel Quad Core Duo running at 2.8, with the aforementioned 512 megs ATI 3870, and 2 gigs of RAM, under Windows 7 32-bit edition.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Jedijax]

               Update: I tried some tweaking with the properties of nwn.exe, you know, the compatibility options, but it had no effect on the matter. Another weird thing is the game runs on my pc without further properties customization; it runs all the same even if the XP Service Pack 3 option isn't checked!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_HipMaestro]

               Out of curiosity, does the game play differently (better/worse) just after boot-up of the cold PC?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Jedijax]

               Err... nope. It is a very consistent performance, I mean, the whole "creature appearing framing a bit the game" thing. Last week, thinking it may be a physical problem, I made a thorough cleaning of all my pc, and also changed the thermal paste of both CPU and GPU. However, I only got a quieter machine.



Is this reaaly that strange and unique? I mean, I have been researching the issue, and found no mention of it, or almost anything related to the 3870 ati cards and NWN1...
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Jedijax]

               Well, I guess it is just me! Thought I could find a fix here, but it looks like this is a very rare situation. Anyway, if anyone ever faces the same thing, feel free to contact me with any insight on the subject!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Calvinthesneak]

               Try disabling the Catalyst AI.



Disable Shiny Water

Disable Environmental Mapping.



Basic troubleshooting says go to the path of least resistance and build up.



Also consider editing your nwnplayer.ini in the

[Game Options] add this line.

Max Memory Usage=64
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Inayity]

               AFAIK, there isn't any way NWN itself could degrade over time like that.  If it's exactly as you describe it, I'd start looking for things outside of NWN which could have changed over time.  The only thing I can think of right now which would cause those exact symptoms would be anything which monitored file IO.  If you're going as far as to re-thermal your GPU & CPU in attempt to remedy the issue, my hat is off to you: You are truly a fan of the game!

Does this really happen not just when a creature is being created but any time you see a creature coming into view?  Say you put down a beggar in the toolset, launch the game and walk by the beggar then walk far away (and a little more) that he disappears completely.  Does it really studder when you walk towards him and he appears again?

Might try these:

• Up your "Max Memory Usage" under [Game Options] in the nwnplayer.ini file to 64 megs and see if that improves your experience.  This feature was added in the 1.64 patch.
•  When you're in a module, bring up the command prompt in-game and type timegraph 7 and hit enter.  You should see a bunch of bars.  Can you correlate the slight lag you're seeing to an increase in the length of any of those bars- like the green one?  To turn off the bars, BTW, go back to the prompt and type timegraph 0 and hit enter.  It wouldn't be just a microsecond jump, it'd be a pretty big increase.

BTW, if you are looking for the most freakishly smooth NWN experience possible, give it a try it under linux.  I never realized how accustomed I'd become to the little hiccups and lags, however tiny, in gameplay on a Windows box until I got to play it under linux.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Inayity]

               (looks at the fact that Calvin's reply was almost 40 minutes before mine) LOL, man I take a long time to compose a post!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Jedijax]

               Calvin: Actually, I have already tweaked every in-game visual options, as well as everything I could think of regarding the ATI Catalyst, including going back to previous versions (as far as the system would allow, both in XP and Windows 7). I have deactivated not only the ati center, but even tried everything posted in the forums regarding other issues, like disabling sound, the whole multi-core issue, etc. This is mainly why I have been surfing and posting in other threads. '>

I tried the nwnplayer.ini you suggested, but the issue wasn't corrected. Does it have to be placed before or after a particular value? I followed your instructions and copy pasted the text you provided, in the Game Options part, right after "Memory Access=1"...


Inayity: Hey, here you are helping me again! I appreciate it!

Indeed, I have never heard of degradation in this matter, and I think it is most probably something messing WITH Neverwinter Nights, rather than IN the game, although I could be wrong. The fact remains, however, that no other app shows any problems since the issue started, about a year and a half ago. I find your idea of "I/O file monitor" to be very interesting, though I don't know much about such, or how it may be corrected.

Indeed, I love NWN, so much that I'm willing to give up the ability to play other games as long as NWN may be unleashed perfectly! The GPU/CPU re-thermalizing (so to speak), and the PC cleaning only got me a quieter, more reliable system, but, Hey, I had to try!

(For the nwnplayer.ini edit, please read the part directed to Calvin).

I checked the timegraph 7 thingy you mentioned, and lo and behold, you were right! Everytime a creature appears on screen (wether placed in the aurora toolset beforehand or spawnd by a trigger), and the lag occurs, the long, green bar grew in width, in some occasions, as big as to cover one third of the screen for a fraction of second! (This on an area with about 7 placed creatures and ten spawning enemies, under a 1280x1080 resolution; and no, the thing has nothing to do with resolution, as it happens in any available).

I don't know if this is of any relevance, but I hope you guys can make heads or tails of it. Yet again, thank you for taking the time to analyse and reply to my pleas!'>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Calvinthesneak]

               The MaxMemoryUsage can go anywhere in the [Game Options]



And I'm not sure if you can entirely disable the catalyst control center.  The Catalyst AI is an old old issue, something I ran into years ago with my x800.



I am a bit lost where else to go with checking
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Jedijax]

               Actually, you can, by using the service tab in the task manager. You may cancel every running ATI process, including the driver, but that one crashes your system! Another way is to uninstall the ati catalyst, but I guess that would be the same as stopping every related process the way I previously mentioned. Thanks for trying, though.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Inayity]

               As big as it got, the green bar would only reveal something "amiss" (maybe not the best word) if it got so big it wrapped around one or more times. FWIW.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Jedijax]

               So... back to square one?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Mudeye]

               It sort of sounds like it could be  the game engine that is lagging rather than the graphics card. 

A lot of things can lag a system down.  Here are a couple of things you might try:

1) Defragment the disk.  That is in the Accessories/System Tools folder.  When files get fragmented systems can slow down a lot. 

2) Make sure that your computer isn't running a bunch of junk processes in the background.  These days it seems like anything you install on your computer wants to put some kind of monitor or background update service on your computer.  Generally, those just slow down the computer.  They often start up automatically so if you don't look for them you might not even know they are there.

3) If you have been downloading modules made by community members you might have gotten one of the scripts messed up.  A creature script with a bunch of loops checking things could cause some lag.  Heartbeat scripts cause a lot of lag too.

A way to deal with that would be to rename the NWN folder and then do a new install (actually the installer might just tell you it is fixing stuff).  Since you changed the name of the existing installation, the installer will not see that it is there and will create a new one. You will still have all your modules and stuff in the old one with the changed name.   After you do that, try running the  new NWN that you just installed and see if the problem exists.  If the problem still occurs it is probably not something wrong in NWN.  If it goes away then it is almost certainly something wrong with your original NWN installation.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Mudeye, 08 octobre 2010 - 05:52 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Jedijax]

               Thank you for taking the time to help, Mudeye!



My disk is de-fragmented regularly, as I use Windows 7, and even then, I'm so strict I usually check disks once every week, to see if they are performing well. There aren't many background processes running on my PC; as you may deduct, I also keep a very close eye on those! I even have disabled all unnecessary  services and default apps under secure standards (this was done in Windows 7, and not under my previous XP system, when the problem originally started, so it isn't the cause for the lag). I have already done extensive tests emptying the override folder and playing hak-less modules, so it is doubtful the issue derives from a faulty custom script. HOWEVER... I haven't tried re-installing the game... mostly because of the time it would take, and because it would take even more time to get it back to how I have it right now... and THAT might just do the trick!



You see, perhaps it is something uniquely absurd that is making my Neverwinter lag, and maybe a clean install would actually make it disappear... I'm going to try that, though it may take me some time, and will report back.



Yet again, thank you guys... Wish me luck!