Neverwinter Nights 2!!!

[ThirdWizard]

Question: I'm upgrading to a Duo from my old AMD 1800. That means I have to get a whole new mobo and drop my AGP video card. DirectX 10 is just around the corner, I hear, so I want to get the cheapest PCI Express card I can that will run the game and upgrade it later. I just can't figure out what that is, as I've been out of the hardware loop for too long. Anyone have recommendations?

 

[Thanee]

Tom has...

Bye
Thanee

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Does this run on Linux like the first game? I'm in the process of moving to Ubuntu Linux from XP Pro and would like to get that XP partition deleted before too long.

 

[Matchstick]

Seems a lot of people will turn off the various shadow options but keep evrything else on high for decent frame rates.

The water reflection/refraction stuff is another pretty big one. I turn that off in almost all the games I play, it doesn't effect my enjoyment of the game one whit to have reflective water, and yet a lot of times that useless reflective water will bog down a machine.

Turning off water reflection/refraction and turning off shadows would be the two things I would recommend first for anyone with performance issues. I run at about 30fps outside now, it's smooth.

I still see lag inside to some extent, and I think the multiple light sources are the problem there. You can set the number of light sources down and that helps indoors.

 

[Kaodi]

I guess I'm funny in that I like to have the effects like shadows and reflective water and generally prefer to have everything at a lower graphical level than have most things at a high level and some not at all.

 

[trancejeremy]

<sigh> Finally get it today, spend a half hour installing it (should really have gotten the DVD version - 7 cds, yikes) and it won't start.

"The application failed to initialize properly (0xc000135). Click on OK to terminate the application"

edit:

Even better, when you go to click on Bioware's site for "Support", it takes you to Atari's site. Which has no listing for NWN2.

<double sigh>

I hate how these days game buyers are basically left to fend for themselves with getting games to work.

 

[Shag]

Haha the updater is up to version 1.04 now and I still can't get the patch to work.

 

[trancejeremy]

A-ha, after searching the self-help forum, apparently the game uses .net 2.0, and they only included the 32 bit version on the disc, not the 64 bit version for people like me running XP x64. So I have to download the 64 bit version for it to work.

I guess that also explains the lousy performance. All the .net programs I've used before (admittedly for 1.0) all ran like a pig. (And not one of those fancy racing pigs, one of those big fat lazy ones)

 

[takyris]

Even better, when you go to click on Bioware's site for "Support", it takes you to Atari's site. Which has no listing for NWN2.

Going to BioWare's site was likely not going to work well, anyway, since Obisidian, not BioWare, made the game.

 

[Mycanid]

Question: I'm upgrading to a Duo from my old AMD 1800. That means I have to get a whole new mobo and drop my AGP video card. DirectX 10 is just around the corner, I hear, so I want to get the cheapest PCI Express card I can that will run the game and upgrade it later. I just can't figure out what that is, as I've been out of the hardware loop for too long. Anyone have recommendations?

I'd recommend the nVidia 7600 maself. I have one in an older agp board and it does fine running things like Oblivion. (I have not tried NWN 2 yet.) I have heard many good things from others about this card in pci express performance too. Supposedly nVidia just released a driver patch optimized for NWN 2 as well....