Best graphics card for NWN?

[Legacy_Nick The Noodle]

               

Recommendations please?

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WiredWraith]

               

I'm thinking the bigger the better, or the best you can afford.  I use a Geforce GTX 660Ti and NWN runs very well with it at 1920 x1080 with all eye details maxed, usually at constant 60 FPS (the sweet spot for gamers everywhere) but there still could be some improvement.  Will soon be getting a GTX 1070 when it actually starts to retail for the MSRP instead of $425+ (!) and hope to someday play Crimmor for NWN2 with all details maxed at a constant 120 FPS but I think I'll need a Wellesian time machine so I can travel forward to the year 8589 when they should have the technology to run this at those framerates.  Just kidding '>

 

I actually used to play NWN online back in 2005-2008 or so on an old Radeon x1950 128MB .  Seemed okay to me in those rose-colored glasses daze '>

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Gruftlord]

               Either AMD or NVidia is fine, Intel seems to have some issues with flickering menus.
Drivers these days work ok, but don't expect any NWN specific optimizations any more. which means, as said above: the more the merrier. Though keep in mind, performance issues nowadays come from bogging the NWN engine down with too many polygons in modern tilesets on PWs. No computer in the world will change that, so don't expect any miracles, even when you invest in something crazy like a GTX 1080. There will be dips in FPS no matter what. A medium range GPU will thus usually suffice.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tarot Redhand]

               

Why go for the best if its main function will be playing NwN? I use a GTX 750 ti. A mid range card that is more powerful than the graphics hardware in any of the current consoles and it doesn't need an extra flying lead for extra power. NwN works just fine with it.

 

TR

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WiredWraith]

               

Though keep in mind, performance issues nowadays come from bogging the NWN engine down with too many polygons in modern tilesets on PWs. No computer in the world will change that, so don't expect any miracles, even when you invest in something crazy like a GTX 1080.

 

Yeah, even the two Eye of the Beholder modules for NWN caused my video card to dip a bit in framerates in a few areas but nothing major.  I'd personally recommend Nvidia over AMD because their cards have better legacy support for older DirectX games (I heard AMD actually removed optimizations for legacy support in all newer drivers), and tend to run many older games faster.  I also don't like the driver support for AMD vs. Nvidia.  I remember I had to try several different Catalyst driver versions to get rid of artifacts when The Witcher Enhanced Edition (modified aurora engine) came out.  I almost never have issues with Nvidia drivers now.  One thing I do like about AMD/Radeon is that they're much cheaper for the same performance in modern games in many cases.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_werelynx]

               

had problems with new (now few years old) Radeon cards and NWN1, I recommend Nvidias.

               
               

               
            

[Baaleos]

               

I actually think for a game as old as NWN, the newer graphic cards don't do as well as some of the budget ones that I used to get years ago.

Eg: I remember being on a NVidia GT 240 years ago, only had about 256-512 mb of memory on it, but it ran perfectly.

 

Then years later, after getting a GTX 850+ (Currently on GTX Titan) - I started getting NVidia driver crashes and it looked like the newer graphic cards were having trouble with Open GL 3d graphics. I know it wasn't just me who had this issue, as there was numerous posts about it on NVidia forums about how graphic cards were unable to play the game with reasonable fps on their newish cards.

In the end, NVidia eventually incorporated some sort of fix into the driver to mitigate/resolve the issue for NWN players. 

 

The fact remains however, that the people on older cards were unaffected by the issue and could play the game with no fps loss or mishap.

 

I guess it depends on what you really want to do with your graphics on nwn,

If you are wanting to get a huge resolution for nwn, that can fill a 4k screen - then yes, you will need a big graphics card (Several hundred $$$)

If however you just want stable fps and good game play -  you could make do with a budget graphics card  ($40-$60).

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WiredWraith]

               

You know, ultimately I have to agree that my newer, more powerful video cards have given me more problems than the days of yore.  My last (current) card is an Nvidia Geforce GTX 660 Ti overclocked by the manufacturer itself - MSI.  I noticed a year or two after buying it that I started getting TONS of crashes playing the latest DirectX 10 and 11 games, like Far Cry 4.  The remedy was to underclock the card by 15% using MSI's Afterburner app.  Problems went away almost entirely.  My theory is that since the card was already overclocked by the manufacturer, the newest games stressed the GPU in ways that MSI did not anticipate.  I never overclock anymore - either CPUs or GPUs - because I hated chasing my tail when things got wonky and the main culprit was probably overclocking. 

 

I think the trend in technology of making everything bigger, faster, better can have a cost.  I hope I won't have any serious problems with the new GTX 1070 I'm waiting to jump on when it hits my target price of under $400 USD.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Lilura]

               

My experience is the same as werelynx's... NWN has generally not performed well with my Radeon chipsets.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Grymlorde]

               

The AMD Catalyst Video Driver newer than 9.2 has known problems for NWN. See this. Consequently, I keep my laptop on this old driver. As far as I know, the newer AMD cards require a newer driver and thus will have problems.

 

For my new desktop, I went with an EVGA NVIDIA GeForce 610 2GB DDR based on advice on these forums that  low-end NVIDIA card would be fine.

 

It is not. I can run The Witcher 1 nicely with medium setting but NWN sputters when moving through areas. Standing still I get framerates of 70fps but when running it can drop to 3-7 fps. So I do NOT recommend getting a 610.

 

I bought a GTX 750 ti at TR's suggestion but it doesn't fit in my HP EliteDesk 800 G1 Tower. Turns out that all of NVIDIA's cards from 730 (EVGA 740 & up) and higher take up two full slots which my "tower" doesn't have. I've ordered an EVGA NVIDIA 730 low profile which may or may not fit. Somehow EVGA has taken the 730 and made it fit on 1, 1 1/4, or 1 1/2 slots -- can't tell yet. I'll update this post after I receive the new card which should be next week.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WiredWraith]

               

My all-time favorite PC game is NWN1, the two expansion packs, and the user-made modules from the community.  I must have logged in excess of 2000 hours total over the years.  So I want the smoothest, most visually pleasing experience possible coming back to NWN1 after a long hiatus of several years.  The very first time I played NWN1 was the week it came out, on an old old Geforce GTS 2 video card with 8MB (not gigs, megs!) of v-ram, and it ran like 15 FPS.  I was used to at least 25 FPS on Quake 2 at the time so it was pretty much intolerable so I shelved NWN1 for a year or two.  Today I'm fortunate enough to have an i5-based system with 660 Ti video.  It plays NWN1 fine but I was surprised how smooth it was when I had the Radeon x1950 card too.  I don't think I could ever play it on a laptop though unless it was a fairly decent one and got the absolute minimum I'm able to tolerate these days - 30 FPS. Bottom line: GTX 1080 may indeed be overkill, but this game - my favorite of all-time - deserves the best your rig can be.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WiredWraith]

               

One more thing: when I first came back to NWN1 after many years, expecting it to run like a dream because my hardware was so much more powerful, I had a rude awakening because it absolutely chugged, choked & sputtered on my new quad-core rig.  It turns out, of course, that NWN1 not only can't use those extra cores of your cpu, but they actually DEGRADE performance dramatically if you have them all enabled.  If you're using the latest patched versions of NWN1 from GOG this serious issue is fixed, of course, or you could manually patch the exe to use only a single core.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_werelynx]

               

Also do confront technical (self-help) forums here - there are reviews of many GFX cards there so when you buy you can scratch those rigs that don't work.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Gruftlord]

               Iirc the huge dip in performance on nvidia cards when they dropped nwn optimizations was aleviated again years ago when they reintroduced a single optimization related to visible cloaks. Nobody knows how long they will keep that in the driver, or if it's actually something specific to nwn at all (or was just a side product).

Short dips into the single digit fps region are common when models are loaded, one of the shortcomings of the engine, nothing a titan could do against that.
And as suggested: consult the the tech help subsection of the forum for setting nwn up on modern hardware. It's worth it.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tarot Redhand]

               

Just to be clear on a couple of things. I was asked how my 750ti worked with NwN. I was not asked about the card's size or footprint. As far as I know my msi geforce gtx 750ti twin frozr (to give its full name) is one of the narrower cards these days. I would say that single slot cards, except for those that are designed for low end use, are thin on the ground. Anyway here's a couple pics of my card. make up your own minds.

 

 

 

TR