NWN Slow Performance

[Brian]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

I'm trying to run the game in 1024x768 at 75Hz (same as my desktop
settings). The game is very slow. When trying to talk with an NPC, there is
sometimes a 30 second delay between clicking a choice of response and
getting an answer back. If I look at my character close up, he just looks
like a big smear with no facial details at all.

I have a celeron 2.6G system with 256Mb of RAM. The graphics card is a
Matrox G400Max with 32Mb of RAM. I thought this might be part of the
problem, but I have the latest drivers and the game does support a 32Mb
card. I have tried changing the resolution to 800x600 and it didn't make any
difference.

Any other troubleshooting ideas?

Thanks

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

On Fri, 14 May 2004 13:18:01 -0400, "Brian" <reply2me@thenewsgroup>
wrote:

>I'm trying to run the game in 1024x768 at 75Hz (same as my desktop
>settings). The game is very slow. When trying to talk with an NPC, there is
>sometimes a 30 second delay between clicking a choice of response and
>getting an answer back. If I look at my character close up, he just looks
>like a big smear with no facial details at all.
>
>I have a celeron 2.6G system with 256Mb of RAM. The graphics card is a
>Matrox G400Max with 32Mb of RAM. I thought this might be part of the
>problem, but I have the latest drivers and the game does support a 32Mb
>card. I have tried changing the resolution to 800x600 and it didn't make any
>difference.
>
>Any other troubleshooting ideas?

With a system like that turn down everything you can.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

"Brian" <reply2me@thenewsgroup> wrote in message
news:tIidnVd6Y97WYjndRVn-sA@golden.net...
> I'm trying to run the game in 1024x768 at 75Hz (same as my desktop
> settings). The game is very slow. When trying to talk with an NPC, there
is
> sometimes a 30 second delay between clicking a choice of response and
> getting an answer back. If I look at my character close up, he just looks
> like a big smear with no facial details at all.
>
> I have a celeron 2.6G system with 256Mb of RAM. The graphics card is a
> Matrox G400Max with 32Mb of RAM. I thought this might be part of the
> problem, but I have the latest drivers and the game does support a 32Mb
> card. I have tried changing the resolution to 800x600 and it didn't make
any
> difference.
>
> Any other troubleshooting ideas?
>
> Thanks
>
>

It is my understanding that Matrox cards don't support the full set of
OpenGL routines that NWN uses. I've heard of a few people who could make
them work but no one who could make them work well. For reliable
performance you need either Radeon or nVidia cards.


Windigo

 

[lee]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

Brian wrote:
> I'm trying to run the game in 1024x768 at 75Hz (same as my desktop
> settings). The game is very slow. When trying to talk with an NPC, there is
> sometimes a 30 second delay between clicking a choice of response and
> getting an answer back. If I look at my character close up, he just looks
> like a big smear with no facial details at all.
>
> I have a celeron 2.6G system with 256Mb of RAM. The graphics card is a
> Matrox G400Max with 32Mb of RAM. I thought this might be part of the
> problem, but I have the latest drivers and the game does support a 32Mb
> card. I have tried changing the resolution to 800x600 and it didn't make any
> difference.
>
> Any other troubleshooting ideas?
>
> Thanks

I managed to play NWN at that resolution with the same card, better CPU
though.
The game was just about playable, but did slow to a crawl in places.


Have you checked you sound card drivers?
If you are using on-board sound it can steal CPU cycles and can have a
big impact, especially with the already crippled Celeron.
Also check for any background tasks/viruses/ disk fragmentation/swap
file usage etc...

Lee
--
Email address is valid, but is unlikely to be read.

 

[lee]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

Brian wrote:


>
> Any other troubleshooting ideas?
>

Try the previous drivers, even going back further until you find a set
that works.

I had real problems with the "most recent" set of drivers I used with my
G400, around 2 years ago...

Lee
--
Email address is valid, but is unlikely to be read.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

"Brian" <reply2me@thenewsgroup> wrote in message
news:tIidnVd6Y97WYjndRVn-sA@golden.net...
> I'm trying to run the game in 1024x768 at 75Hz (same as my desktop
> settings). The game is very slow. When trying to talk with an NPC, there
is
> sometimes a 30 second delay between clicking a choice of response and
> getting an answer back. If I look at my character close up, he just looks
> like a big smear with no facial details at all.
>

Does it really take 30 seconds, or is it really more like 3 but feels like
30? Not to be picky, but if the game speed truly is that slow to react, you
might consider playing it with all bells and whistles turned off and on the
lowest resolution.


> I have a celeron 2.6G system with 256Mb of RAM. The graphics card is a
> Matrox G400Max with 32Mb of RAM. I thought this might be part of the
> problem, but I have the latest drivers and the game does support a 32Mb
> card. I have tried changing the resolution to 800x600 and it didn't make
any
> difference.
>
> Any other troubleshooting ideas?
>
> Thanks
>

For very little money you could double or even quadruple your RAM. More RAM
means better performance. If that's not an issue, look at your sound. If
it's onboard then it's turning your Celeron into a stick of Celery. Putting
in a sound card should help there if that is an issue.

Other than the above, I have run the game very well with a 1.7 P4 chip, 512
RAM, a SB Live card and a TNT Riva. Only times I had slowdown was when some
battles included several mages/clerics and were outdoors.

Jorath Lightfingers Rasthavin

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

On Fri, 14 May 2004 21:36:40 GMT, "Tom Mantek"
<mgaglio1@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

>For very little money you could double or even quadruple your RAM. More RAM
>means better performance. If that's not an issue, look at your sound. If
>it's onboard then it's turning your Celeron into a stick of Celery. Putting
>in a sound card should help there if that is an issue.
>
>Other than the above, I have run the game very well with a 1.7 P4 chip, 512
>RAM, a SB Live card and a TNT Riva. Only times I had slowdown was when some
>battles included several mages/clerics and were outdoors.

I think he's describing a laptop.

 

[Vellu]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

True, the G400 doesn't support all OGL features (not really a problem since
it won't try to use them anyway, only what it can do) that NWN offers not to
mention no T&L support. I used to have a G400 with my 2400XP computer and it
didn't perform well at all, though the game was playable. It just simply
doesn't have enough power.

I never experienced 30 sec delays though, nor do I remember having smeared
faces. Maybe there is something else wrong aswell. What's the texture pack
you're using (16,32 or 64 MB?)

"Windigo" <windigonotat@paganplanet.comnot> wrote in message
news:30cpc.25310$5a.19352@okepread03...
>
> "Brian" <reply2me@thenewsgroup> wrote in message
> news:tIidnVd6Y97WYjndRVn-sA@golden.net...
> > I'm trying to run the game in 1024x768 at 75Hz (same as my desktop
> > settings). The game is very slow. When trying to talk with an NPC, there
> is
> > sometimes a 30 second delay between clicking a choice of response and
> > getting an answer back. If I look at my character close up, he just
looks
> > like a big smear with no facial details at all.
> >
> > I have a celeron 2.6G system with 256Mb of RAM. The graphics card is a
> > Matrox G400Max with 32Mb of RAM. I thought this might be part of the
> > problem, but I have the latest drivers and the game does support a 32Mb
> > card. I have tried changing the resolution to 800x600 and it didn't make
> any
> > difference.
> >
> > Any other troubleshooting ideas?
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> >
>
> It is my understanding that Matrox cards don't support the full set of
> OpenGL routines that NWN uses. I've heard of a few people who could make
> them work but no one who could make them work well. For reliable
> performance you need either Radeon or nVidia cards.
>
>
> Windigo
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

More RAM

I was very slow with 256 till I added 512 more - then it whizzed along.

Best wishes
Maxon


"Brian" <reply2me@thenewsgroup> wrote in message
news:tIidnVd6Y97WYjndRVn-sA@golden.net...
> I'm trying to run the game in 1024x768 at 75Hz (same as my desktop
> settings). The game is very slow. When trying to talk with an NPC, there
is
> sometimes a 30 second delay between clicking a choice of response and
> getting an answer back. If I look at my character close up, he just looks
> like a big smear with no facial details at all.
>
> I have a celeron 2.6G system with 256Mb of RAM. The graphics card is a
> Matrox G400Max with 32Mb of RAM. I thought this might be part of the
> problem, but I have the latest drivers and the game does support a 32Mb
> card. I have tried changing the resolution to 800x600 and it didn't make
any
> difference.
>
> Any other troubleshooting ideas?
>
> Thanks
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

"Brian" <reply2me@thenewsgroup> wrote:

> I'm trying to run the game in 1024x768 at 75Hz (same as my desktop
> settings). The game is very slow. When trying to talk with an NPC, there is
> sometimes a 30 second delay between clicking a choice of response and
> getting an answer back. If I look at my character close up, he just looks
> like a big smear with no facial details at all.
>
> I have a celeron 2.6G system with 256Mb of RAM. The graphics card is a
> Matrox G400Max with 32Mb of RAM. I thought this might be part of the
> problem, but I have the latest drivers and the game does support a 32Mb
> card. I have tried changing the resolution to 800x600 and it didn't make any
> difference.
>
> Any other troubleshooting ideas?
>
> Thanks

I'm running it on a 500 MHz G4 PowerBook at 800x600, and it's definitely
not that bad.
--
Harry Erwin <http://www.theworld.com/~herwin/>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

Amazingly, everyone is nailing yer 256mb of system memory as the problem.
while from another perspective your CPU paired with a debilitatingly slow
video card would be bottleneck. A Celery by any means, at best is a maybe a
tad to glorified for Microsoft Office, or similiar applications. If u want
to play a game, meeting the *required* specifications at the minimum, would
get u the right to complain. A celery is not a gaming cpu, u want to game,
get a gaming cpu. 256mb of memory is great if u plan on running simply
Win9x, with Nt based operating systems the more is merrier. if spending any
funds to play a game, is too much, then yer not a gamer. playin a game on
yer pc would denote being a gamer, u don't bring a knife to a gunfight, in
effect...u brought a knife and sling to fullblown modern-day gunfight.
Celery at any speed, with an ancient video card, and insufficient memory.
point blank... upgrade or go play a game made in '98....it might run better

....syn...

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

> > I have a celeron 2.6G system with 256Mb of RAM. The graphics card is a
> > Matrox G400Max with 32Mb of RAM. I thought this might be part of the
> > problem, but I have the latest drivers and the game does support a 32Mb
> > card. I have tried changing the resolution to 800x600 and it didn't make
any
> > difference.
> >
> > Any other troubleshooting ideas?

The problem is not completely in the card. It's probably your system RAM -
way too little. Recommend increasing it to 1Gb.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

KC Wong <my@privacy.net> wrote:

> > > I have a celeron 2.6G system with 256Mb of RAM. The graphics card is a
> > > Matrox G400Max with 32Mb of RAM. I thought this might be part of the
> > > problem, but I have the latest drivers and the game does support a 32Mb
> > > card. I have tried changing the resolution to 800x600 and it didn't make
> any
> > > difference.
> > >
> > > Any other troubleshooting ideas?
>
> The problem is not completely in the card. It's probably your system RAM -
> way too little. Recommend increasing it to 1Gb.

Well, I do have 1Gb of RAM, so that suggests this is a valid point.
--
Harry Erwin <http://www.theworld.com/~herwin/>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

On Mon, 17 May 2004 11:57:27 -0500, "Visceral_Syn" <someone@somewhere.com>
wrote:

>Amazingly, everyone is nailing yer 256mb of system memory as the problem.
>while from another perspective your CPU paired with a debilitatingly slow
>video card would be bottleneck. A Celery by any means, at best is a maybe a
>tad to glorified for Microsoft Office, or similiar applications. If u want
>to play a game, meeting the *required* specifications at the minimum, would
>get u the right to complain. A celery is not a gaming cpu, u want to game,
>get a gaming cpu. 256mb of memory is great if u plan on running simply
>Win9x, with Nt based operating systems the more is merrier. if spending any
>funds to play a game, is too much, then yer not a gamer. playin a game on
>yer pc would denote being a gamer, u don't bring a knife to a gunfight, in
>effect...u brought a knife and sling to fullblown modern-day gunfight.
>Celery at any speed, with an ancient video card, and insufficient memory.
>point blank... upgrade or go play a game made in '98....it might run better
>
>...syn...
>

remember when overclocked celerons were *the* gaming setup?
heh.

eudas
Inside of every silver lining, there's a big, dark cloud.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

many, many moons ago...

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

No one's mentioned this, yet, so...

Sounds like you are running a Celeron-based laptop (please confirm)?

If so, you probably have a couple of gaming bottlenecks. I think your
processor is adequate (I have no problems with NWN OC or SoU on a
Celeron -overclocked to 1.73GHz- in my desktop, but it's a Tualatin
with 256k L2 rather than 128k - which the Coppermines and P4 based
Celerons have).

Your video card is marginal.

Since this sounds like a "budget" laptop, you may want to check the
specs for your hard drive. With the limited RAM you have, you may be
hitting the swap file frequently. If you have a slower (4200) RPM
drive, you are transferring a lot of data and it is taking your HD a
long time to write data, then seek it back to write to memory.

I would bump the RAM to at least 512mb, then consider a 7200 rpm drive
and a better vid card. Costly, but gaming laptops tend to be.

 

[lee]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

eudas wrote:



> remember when overclocked celerons were *the* gaming setup?
> heh.

There's a big difference between P3 and P4 based Celerons, the pipeline
in the newer Celeron is simply too long to cope with the small cache.
Although the mobile versions have more cache and consequently have
better performance...

Lee
--
Email address is valid, but is unlikely to be read.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

Lee <cyberwitch@ukonline.co.uk> wrote in message news:<2gus2sF6uhlpU1@uni-berlin.de>...
> eudas wrote:
> > remember when overclocked celerons were *the* gaming setup?
> > heh.
>
> There's a big difference between P3 and P4 based Celerons, the pipeline
> in the newer Celeron is simply too long to cope with the small cache.

And there's a big difference between Coppermine P3 Celerons (128k L2
cache) and Tualatin P3 Celerons (256k L2). Personally, I would not
buy any desktop based on the P4-based Celerons, unless it was cheap
enough that I could put a real P4 in there and still come out ahead.

> Although the mobile versions have more cache and consequently have
> better performance...

Is this the P3 based mobile Celerons or P4 based? My understanding
was that the mobile Celerons had varying cache amounts corresponding
to their desktop counterparts (i.e., Coppermine-based mobile Celerons
would have 128k, Tualatin-based mobile Celerons would 256k).

I'm pretty sure the P4 based mobile Celerons have 128k, which makes
them relative dogs for performance. I think I read somewhere that
Intel will be bringing out a Pentium M based Celeron; should be a
decent performer - L2 was going to be either 256k or 512k.

I'm curious, because I may be in the market soon - my Pentium I
Thinkpad is rock solid, but showing its age

 

[lee]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

Anonymous Jack wrote:
> Lee <cyberwitch@ukonline.co.uk> wrote in message news:<2gus2sF6uhlpU1@uni-berlin.de>...
>
>>eudas wrote:
>>
>>>remember when overclocked celerons were *the* gaming setup?
>>>heh.
>>
>>There's a big difference between P3 and P4 based Celerons, the pipeline
>>in the newer Celeron is simply too long to cope with the small cache.
>
>
> And there's a big difference between Coppermine P3 Celerons (128k L2
> cache) and Tualatin P3 Celerons (256k L2). Personally, I would not
> buy any desktop based on the P4-based Celerons, unless it was cheap
> enough that I could put a real P4 in there and still come out ahead.
>
>
>>Although the mobile versions have more cache and consequently have
>>better performance...
>
>
> Is this the P3 based mobile Celerons or P4 based? My understanding
> was that the mobile Celerons had varying cache amounts corresponding
> to their desktop counterparts (i.e., Coppermine-based mobile Celerons
> would have 128k, Tualatin-based mobile Celerons would 256k).
>
> I'm pretty sure the P4 based mobile Celerons have 128k, which makes
> them relative dogs for performance. I think I read somewhere that
> Intel will be bringing out a Pentium M based Celeron; should be a
> decent performer - L2 was going to be either 256k or 512k.
>
> I'm curious, because I may be in the market soon - my Pentium I
> Thinkpad is rock solid, but showing its age

http://processorfinder.intel.com/scripts/list.asp?procfam=58

Looks like all the p4 based mobile Celerons of 1Ghz and above have
256k cache.

Then there are Pentium-M Celereons to consider...
http://www.intel.com/products/notebook/processors/celeron_m/index.htm?iid=ipp_note_proc+prod_celeron_m&

Which have 512k cache...

Lee



--
Email address is valid, but is unlikely to be read.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (More info?)

Lee <cyberwitch@ukonline.co.uk> wrote in message news:<2h171nF7h61cU1@uni-berlin.de>...
>
> http://processorfinder.intel.com/scripts/list.asp?procfam=58
>
> Looks like all the p4 based mobile Celerons of 1Ghz and above have
> 256k cache.
>
> Then there are Pentium-M Celereons to consider...
> http://www.intel.com/products/notebook/processors/celeron_m/index.htm?iid=ipp_note_proc+prod_celeron_m&
>
> Which have 512k cache...
>
> Lee

Thanks! I learned something today, so coming in to work wasn't a
total waste


Have you seen any performance testing of the mobile Celeron vs mobile
Pent M Celeron vs mobile Pentium M vs P4 (various versions)? Y'know,
kind of a round-up shoot out thing like they occassionally do for
cars.

Hmmm... have to check out Tom's Hardware tomorrow...

I figured the Celeron M based laptop would be a serious contender for
when I round up some laptop cash.