What are the limits of nwn?

[Legacy_Tarot Redhand]

               I was just wondering what are the limits of nwn? Are there any? For example the number of lines in a 2da. The number of polygons in a model. The number of pixels in a texture. If there are limits, is there a list that I can download?

Any answers gratefully received.

TR
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               Afaik there are no limits, but the more lines (of certain 2da which are server side like spells/feats) the longer the game takes upon entering module to send it to the player (black screen problem - PRC has this). Also the more polygons the longer it takes to load - if its creature, client get often lag when the creature is spawned (if you spawn group of them its even worse) - the DLA illithids from CEP1 has this issue. If its tileset, game loading every area slower - Worms tilesets has this issue, even Caste/Rural loads quite long.



While those are not limits, its verry annoying and Im avoiding such stuff because not everyone plays everytime at high HW computer (and some people still dont have one).
               
               

               
            

[Legacy__six]

               In fact there are limits to 2da lengths, but as of 1.69 most of these have been pushed up to 16 bits of lines which is... I don't remember, but it's millions (my computing teacher would have my head for not knowing). Originally some of the 2das had much lower limits - wings and tails were notoriously 256 lines each (including line zero).
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tarot Redhand]

               Actually 16 bits = 0 to 65535 unsigned. Also weren't generic doors limited to 255 also - I seem to remeber something about this in the readme for the ctp generic doors.

TR
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Tarot Redhand, 19 août 2010 - 12:45 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Khuzadrepa]

               While it might not limit you, there are some rollover effects that can happen if you go above a certain line number in a 2da.  Two that I have noticed are skills.2da (32 lines) and baseitems.2da (256 lines).

For polygons, the number 1000 is bumping around in my head as the recommended max for a model, but hopefully someone else can confirm that...
               
               

               
            

[Legacy__six]

               

Khuzadrepa wrote...

For polygons, the number 1000 is bumping around in my head as the recommended max for a model, but hopefully someone else can confirm that...

Goodness, I hope not! It kinda depends on what you're making, and how many of it will be placed. For creatures for instance, a range of 1000-1500 is about right for mob type creatures, but on larger ones polycounts can probably go up to 4-5000 or so without experiencing more than a little lag on older systems. 750 is about right for tiles or particularly complex and large placeables, but I'd interpret it as a guideline for averages. My woods tileset for instance has a bunch of 3-500 faced tiles, and a bunch of 1000-1500 tiles.

Really, though, as with all modelling, it's about what you polys can remove without anyone noticing the difference. The lower the better, as long as nobody sees the difference. The visible difference between a 3000 poly creature and a 6000 one for instance I'd say would probably be quite negligible. As long as you aren't in the five figures or spamming super-detailed models all over the screen NWN won't have too much trouble.

Regarding textures, I am led to believe that the current max is 4096x4096 pixels, but many older video cards may only render up to 2048x2048 correctly. The highest I've ever used in any project was a 512x2048 on the project Q shields textures, which didn't create any issues, but for most purposes good old 512x512 suits. If you know what you're doing with UVW mapping you can fit an awful lot in that space, and often hide tiling for flatly mapped objects without too much trouble.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par _six, 19 août 2010 - 06:15 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Eradrain]

               In terms of 3d resources, you can get away with more depending on how good your/your users' systems are.  Modern computers will obviously have less trouble with high poly models than computers that were modern in 2002.

That said, there seems to be a point where NWN just keels over from the strain - a friend with a fairly decent computer tried importing a model with something like 13,000 faces as a placeable and the game just crashed instantly, if I remember his story right, when he tried to load the area.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Jez_fr]

               Tarot has a very good point. Now that NWN will not be updated officially anymore, it would be nice to have a handy list of known and tested limitations, like per 2da for exemple, but other ressources too. Maybe even a updated custom content Bible since Eligio's CCG has a number of outdated informations (like a lot of tutorials on the vault btw).



Speaking of poly limits, while doing a lot of model conversions testing these last years, I found that NWN is very forgiving. I found a limit at around 10.000 poly per mesh in a model, with a total limit at around 45-50.000 for the whole model (but it depends). Additionnally NWN doesn't like vertices closer than 0.3 cm, and shadows really hates that (ie crash), at 0.4 most crashes are avoided (so I often weld at 0.4 minimum if I want to keep smallest details). The shadow being a sucker anyway, its better to have a special mesh for that as they did in The Witcher.

I'd really like to see a project going for NWN High Def, pushing it to the limits graphically, and not artificially limited by this old computers considerations for once. This game still has such a huge potential, its a shame to not push it to the max. I have such a project for modern setting, but not sure it'll see the light of the day as its so much work for 1 person, but I digress...

(@Eradrain: its 95% probable that if you deactivate shadow on that model, it'll work fine, trust me)







               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Eradrain]

               Thanks Jez, I'll pass along that tip!
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Eradrain, 20 août 2010 - 09:56 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_DarkStormInc]

               Bigger question is, who wants to get DragonAge graphics for NWN?



Graphics wise I don't think there is an upper limit that can't be tricked or broken in some way. The real limitation is going to be in other areas such as scripting or the database.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_B_Harrison]

               The real limitation is finding artists willing and able to create new content (or re-create BioWare content) to a consistent level of quality. As a community we could make peachykeen's NWShader a standard, and re-make every single art resource with higher poly counts, normal mapping, etc. And make NWNX another standard and get on board ShaDoOoW's 1.70 patch project...

But we'd have to get all the PW communities on board, and nine of every ten players/admins seem to be happy hacking & slashing with their friends using CEP content.

All that said -- and considering how often the game's age and limitations are discussed -- I haven't really seen any project or individual push NWN to its limit in any direction. World design, ruleset modifications, tileset use; the vast majority stay within boundaries that are still very recognisable as a 2002 Dungeons & Dragons action RPG.

/rant

And thanks for that info, Jez. I tend to play without shadows turned on, so I forget to take them into consideration when testing stuff.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par B_Harrison, 22 août 2010 - 11:22 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Rubies]

               

As a community we could make peachykeen's NWShader a standard, and re-make every single art resource with higher poly counts, normal mapping, etc.

I think it would be better to wait until it's a bit more globally stable - I know there's a LOT of people who can't use it currently and it wouldn't be too great to bring new graphics to the minority. That said, if it all ends up resolved I see no reason why I wouldn't start converting models for it.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Guest_invisig0th_*]

               

Graphics wise I don't think there is an upper limit that can't be tricked or broken in some way.

With the default game, there definitely is an upper limit to many things. Some things right out of the box were hard coded. Other things do scale geometrically with better hardware (castle rural exterior, anyone?) Other things can scale a bit, but hit a practical limit fairly soon. It varies.

Knowing what a reasonable upper limit is for those things which can be scaled within the game engine is extremely useful to people creating new custom content and builders making new modules. There aren't many hard and fast rules, but most knowledgeable people will agree that there are plenty of things that can be done today with the NWN engine that simply weren't practical with the minimum specification hardware as listed on the NWN game box. Leveraging those differences so that people can install the game on a typical modern machine and see something impressive is a the holy grail for those of us who are more focused on squeezing all we can from a stable, well patched platform.

As for fundamentally changing the game files themselves (as NWShader does) that of course is a completely different discussion. It's one thing to ask how fast your factory standard car can go if you tune it up, and it's another thing to ask how fast your car can go if you replace the engine and transmission. If you rewrite the  game executable or DLLs, all bets are off.  That discussion is probably  more suitable for the third party tools and plug-ins forum.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par invisig0th, 22 août 2010 - 02:02 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Drewskie]

               

But we'd have to get all the PW communities on board, and nine of every ten players/admins seem to be happy hacking & slashing with their friends using CEP content.

I'd say more play without any hak at all than with cep at this point.



               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Eradrain]

               

Drewskie wrote...

But we'd have to get all the PW communities on board, and nine of every ten players/admins seem to be happy hacking & slashing with their friends using CEP content.

I'd say more play without any hak at all than with cep at this point.

That's disgusting, if it's true.

The beauty of this game is that the user-generated content.