[NWN] Will it run on a PII-400?

[elrichwizard]

A GeForce 2 can be had for about $70 I think. If you upgrade to that, you should be able to run on the PII 400Mhz.

 

[Lily Inverse]

MJEggertson

Like I said, NWN uses OpenGL, only OpenGL, and nothing but OpenGL. As ATi's support for the standard is really terrible out of the box, you're never going to get a decent framerate out of it.

I think there are specialized drivers on their web site that will enhance the card's support, but you'll never get the same results you would from a comparable NVidia-based card. That's why the TNT2 will run NWN, while the ATI Rage Pro will not.

If I'm wrong about this, someone please tell me now.

 

[Zorn of Torm]

My advice, change your video card!!!!he TNT2 video card is the problem. I had it on my celeron 800 with 256 megs and it was terrible!!! Frame rate was the worst even at 800*600. I got meself a Geforce4 MX 440 with 64mbs (for $80 at a small shop and not OEM) and what a difffernce . I play it at 1024 and no problems.

 

[trancejeremy]

Yes, but I can't afford a new video card. I could barely afford NWN.

Anyway, I bought it, and it actually runs well enough. Gets a bit choppy in large places when the view is zoomed out, but it's definitely playable.

The only really sluggish thing are the conversation windows. They take forever to change/disappear. I guess that could be processor speed related.

 

[elrichwizard]

Conversation window speed is deffinitely related to your video card. When I updated my card, I noticed a significant change in how fast I go through the conversations.

 

[MJEggertson]

Actually, ATI has been OpenGL compliant since before the NVidia days if I recall. Regardless, current drivers are OpenGL 1.3, so scratch that.

<speculation>I think the issue is the engine was built with several GeForce extensions to optimize on those cards. Fine and dandy, but I think some of those optimizations may be crippling non GeForce boards.</speculation>

That said, the game is said to be OpenGL, which means that even without the extensions (read: non GeForce card), the game should be fine.

The end result is though, the problems are very system specific. People out there with the same card are getting screaming fast performance. I (nor the developpers, I suppose) just don't understand what gives.

Last night I finished chapter 1. The finale battle slowed the system to 1.3 frames per second at 800x600, the minimum allowable resolution. The game has developped a tendency to freeze up, last time taskmgr.exe was toasted when the forced power-down left an error on my hard drive.

1.3 GHz @ 266 MHz FSB
512 MB DDR RAM
64 MB DDR ATI VIVO
XP Home

Unacceptable. I play other games at 1280x1024 and pull off exceptional frame rates and rock-solid stability, on both D3D and OpenGL. Something is wrong somewhere.

 

[Lily Inverse]

Actually, ATI has been OpenGL compliant since before the NVidia days if I recall. Regardless, current drivers are OpenGL 1.3, so scratch that.

Actually, this has very little bearing on how GOOD the support is, just that it exists. Also, there was ZERO on-board support for OpenGL before the first Radeon processors hit the street. While there were OpenGL compliant drivers, they relied entirely on the CPU to function, and were thus incredibly slow. However, given that OpenGL is much more of a standard now, I'll assume the situation has been at least partially corrected.

<speculation>I think the issue is the engine was built with several GeForce extensions to optimize on those cards. Fine and dandy, but I think some of those optimizations may be crippling non GeForce boards.</speculation>

Interesting idea, but it possibly goes both ways. After all, I have just found out that ATi has their own custom extensions on OpenGL. Perhaps it is poor support for these extensions, rather than optimizing for NVidia, that is the problem?

Last night I finished chapter 1. The finale battle slowed the system to 1.3 frames per second at 800x600, the minimum allowable resolution. The game has developped a tendency to freeze up, last time taskmgr.exe was toasted when the forced power-down left an error on my hard drive.

This indicates the problem goes far deeper than just a video card issue.

1.3 GHz @ 266 MHz FSB
512 MB DDR RAM
64 MB DDR ATI VIVO
XP Home

I'd like to try and help you, but this is nowhere near enough information. I have a few questions

1) What type of processor are you using? Is it overclocked?

2) Exactly which ATi video card are you using? A model number on the chip might give more clues than just the amount of RAM and that it's got VIVO.

3) Is your XP installation on a clean HD or an upgrade, and which version of XP Home was used (The Upgrade or the Full Install version?)

 

[MJEggertson]

Well, thanks for your interest.

It was a full install of XP Home over a two month old W98 OS. This was about six months ago, mind you. That is, I had an old OS, but I never did the upgrade option, I just installed the full version over top.

The chip is an Athlon 1.3 GHz (Genuine clock speed, I believe they were labelled T-Birds at the time).

My bad on the video card, I forgot to mention it's a Radeon 64 MB DDR VIVO. ATI manufactured, it has no model name or number, since back then, there were no third party cards. It was one of the first generation Radeons.

Oh yeah, and I mean't nothing bad by mentioning the GeForce ogl extensions. You're right, ATI has ones too. Just happens that NWN uses the GeForce ones, no biggie. Other games may very well use the ATI ones. Of course, neither are cross compatible. It was just a theory on why so many ATI users are seeing problems. Afterall, ATI has made leaps and bounds with their drivers, and if you ask me, they're on par with NVidia now.

Do you have any sources regarding ATI not having hardware OpenGL support. I've heard it before, but it's always been in flame wars where no one is interested in having a real discussion. I'd be curious to find out, because if true, ATI has lost a long-time die hard customer.

This weekend, I'm going to do a defrag. It could be that the 2GB is so scattered that the game is slowing to a crawl. Unlikely, but worth a try.

What are some common 3D engines or titles that are open GL? I can't think of anything else I own that gave me problems.

 

[Lily Inverse]

It was a full install of XP Home over a two month old W98 OS. This was about six months ago, mind you. That is, I had an old OS, but I never did the upgrade option, I just installed the full version over top.

Did you just run the installer, or did you completely wipe the HD first? If the former, it's still effectively an "upgrade" from Windows 98, and still has old junk from that laying around cluttering things up.

My bad on the video card, I forgot to mention it's a Radeon 64 MB DDR VIVO. ATI manufactured, it has no model name or number, since back then, there were no third party cards. It was one of the first generation Radeons.

This thing must have come out right around the time I stopped paying ATi any attention. I'm really not sure what you've got here.

Oh yeah, and I mean't nothing bad by mentioning the GeForce ogl extensions. You're right, ATI has ones too. Just happens that NWN uses the GeForce ones, no biggie. Other games may very well use the ATI ones. Of course, neither are cross compatible. It was just a theory on why so many ATI users are seeing problems. Afterall, ATI has made leaps and bounds with their drivers, and if you ask me, they're on par with NVidia now.

It's interesting that most games that I've seen that support OpenGL DO use both sets, and are supposed to just turn on the proper ones depending on the card I suspect what may be happening with NWN is that it's got some sort of flaw in the support for the ATi extension. It can't be applying the GeForce ones, because that would cause bigger headaches than you seem to be experiencing.

Or, another possibility, is that your card doesn't have the extensions implemented, but NWN is trying to use them anyway?

Do you have any sources regarding ATI not having hardware OpenGL support. I've heard it before, but it's always been in flame wars where no one is interested in having a real discussion. I'd be curious to find out, because if true, ATI has lost a long-time die hard customer.

About the only things I have to support my claims are the fact that ATi actually said as much, labelling their OpenGL specific drivers "Experimental software implementation." Looking back, they only did this through the very earliest RADEONs, before OpenGL was picked up by the Quake people as THE standard. So it can be forgiven, but it explains why the RAGE 128, the TNT2's contemporary, isn't even a contender for running NWN. It's certainly not a problem you should be experiencing.

Personally, I found myself discarding ATi after having several cards in a row from them fail just outside the warranty period. This is as much me being rough on the cards as anything else, but I needed something that could stand up to a hot environment better. The GeForce cards fit the bill in this case, while the ATi Radeons don't.

All in all, it might be time to just wipe the hard drive down and start from scratch. It's a solution for the desperate, but it usually fixes any problem.

 

[JRR_Talking]

ATI Rage 32Mb, 256 Ram, and P2-400 on my second machine. It sort of ran ok with all pretty bits turned off, but the voices seemed real slow on my aureal vortex A3D soundcard

John