neverwinter and radeon 9800 pro 128

[Guest]

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

I just got an ATI 9800 Pro 128 MB and was a little underwhelmed when I ran
Neverwinter Nights. Used the 64 MB textures, graphics options were set to
'best', and the resolution was 1024X768. AA and AF were turned off. The
performance is not terrible, but I expected it might be a little better with
the 9800 Pro, even though it isn't the latest and greatest. The frame rate
is relatively smooth a good amount of the time, but I'm surprised at how
often it dips into lower numbers. Using FRAPS, I estimate 40 - 50 FPS
(average), though at times it is in the hundreds. Battles, however, can
bring it down to the mid-to-high 20s. I'm just curious, is this normal for
this card? Some people say that the game engine is not optimized
(specifically the shadow rendering system) for ATI hardware, but I haven't
seen an official statement from ATI or Bioware regarding this claim. If that
is the case, is there a patch available I don't know about? For the other
9800 owners out there, what settings do you use to get the best balance
between speed and quality?

The rest of my system is as follows:
Asus K8V SE DX
Athlon 64 3000+
512 MB PC3200 OCZ EL (2-3-2-6)
SB Audigy
Windows XP Home

I have audio quality also set to high with EAX 3.0 enabled, but I find that
this doesn't affect performance much at all in other games.
Thanks to any who can help me out,

A

 

[Guest]

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

"AWU" <alnonymous79@yahoo.ca> wrote in message
news:uq%Gc.30771$WM5.1326327@news20.bellglobal.com...
> I just got an ATI 9800 Pro 128 MB and was a little underwhelmed when I ran
> Neverwinter Nights. Used the 64 MB textures, graphics options were set to
> 'best', and the resolution was 1024X768. AA and AF were turned off. The
> performance is not terrible, but I expected it might be a little better
with
> the 9800 Pro, even though it isn't the latest and greatest. The frame rate
> is relatively smooth a good amount of the time, but I'm surprised at how
> often it dips into lower numbers. Using FRAPS, I estimate 40 - 50 FPS
> (average), though at times it is in the hundreds. Battles, however, can
> bring it down to the mid-to-high 20s. I'm just curious, is this normal for
> this card? Some people say that the game engine is not optimized
> (specifically the shadow rendering system) for ATI hardware, but I haven't
> seen an official statement from ATI or Bioware regarding this claim. If
that
> is the case, is there a patch available I don't know about? For the other
> 9800 owners out there, what settings do you use to get the best balance
> between speed and quality?
>
> The rest of my system is as follows:
> Asus K8V SE DX
> Athlon 64 3000+
> 512 MB PC3200 OCZ EL (2-3-2-6)
> SB Audigy
> Windows XP Home
>
> I have audio quality also set to high with EAX 3.0 enabled, but I find
that
> this doesn't affect performance much at all in other games.
> Thanks to any who can help me out,
>
> A
>
>

Obvious first questions: Have you updated your drivers? Have you updated to
the latest game patch?

I know from experience that sound settings and cards can have a serious
effect on NWN. I obtained the following information from Atari support. It
cleared up most of my problems.


If disabling sound (edit the nwn.ini file and change DisableSound=0 to
DisableSound=1) allows your game to run, then search your system for the
files a3d.dll and a3dapi.dll

If these files are present, then:

1. Boot into safe mode

2. Rename *all* occurrences of the files to a3d.old and a3dapi.old (except
for any that are in a CAB file. You don't need to do anything with those).

3. Reboot normally, re-enable sound and you should now have a fully
functioning game.

If you aren't sure how to boot into safe mode, this is generally
accomplished by pressing the F8 key during system bootup. If you do a search
of your windows help for safe it will provide you the exact sequence.

For WinXP users, you will have a menu with two different safe mode choices.
You do *not* want the safe restore option.

 

[Guest]

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

I don't have detailed benchmarks at hand. But I can't remember anyone
claiming better performance than you're getting in NWN, with all the
bells and whistles turned on. Fortunately, this isn't a twitch game, so
it doesn't really hurt anything when the framerate dips into the teens
and twenties in a complex battle.

In general, for a quick gain in performance, select the Miles 2D sound
system on the sound options panel, and turn down the creature shadows.
That's probably the best trade off for a performance gain.