Thinking about starting this game again - questions about new PC specs

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I purchased NWN2 shortly after it came out, but gave up on it before I was even half way through. The main reason I quit playing? Painful system performance.

At the time I was using an Alienware mobile desktop with a Pentium IV 3.0GHz, 2GB RAM and an Nvidia GeForce 6800 Go w/256MB. Performance was decent in certain parts of the game, painful in others, downright unplayable in yet others. I ended up spending more time dinking with graphics settings, watching FPS, etc than I did enjoying the game. Sometimes, in order to get the game to run at a decent FPS rating, I had to lower the graphics to look like a slightly improved version of Doom 2. No thanks. And as good as the game is, it wasn't quite the masterpiece I was hoping for to be. It just never drew me in the way the original NWN or Baldur's Gate did. So between the performance issues, and a certain level of disappointment with the game itself, I decided it wasn't worth it to keep going.

Fast forward a year or so later, and I just ordered a new desktop “for the family” yesterday evening. I’m wondering whether this machine can run NWN2 at full graphics settings, using a decent resolution. Here’s what I’m getting:

--Dell XPS 420, Intel Core2 proc (2.40Ghz,1066FSB) w/QuadCore Technology and 8MB cache
--4GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
--768MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX
--500GB SATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM) w/ 16MB DataBurst Cache

So that’s the machine, and I’m hoping that I can go back to NWN2 and have a completely different experience—fluid gaming with maxed out (or close to it) graphics. Did I get a machine capable of that kind of performance, or am I still going to be disappointed?

Also, I’ve heard the mask of the betrayer expansion further refines system performance. I’m pretty sure I read that in a published review (so I need to take it with a grain of salt). Does the expansion actually give a noticeable boost to performance?

 

Thanks BTA. I hope you're right. I bet this game is pretty immersive at high graphics settings coupled with good FPS. Perhaps I can actually get sucked into the game this time around.

Any opinions from folks on whether the expansion is worthwhile?

 

Cool. The reality is, I really do **want** to enjoy this game. With the distinct lack of worthwhile CRPGs on the market these days, and game publishers seeming to trend toward inciting their fans to make impulse buys on buggy, undersupported games... rather than investing in their fans and building strong franchises, my inability to enjoy NWN2 is really a downer.

Now I just have to endure the next couple of weeks of waiting for my new machine....

 

what's the point of this topic? you're buying practically the best computer available at the moment

although i'm pretty sure you're wasting money on quad core, since this game doesn't use multiple cores

as far as MOTB is concerned, it's worth buying that's for sure

also, you may want to buy "The Witcher", one of the best RPG's this year no doubt, and it's also based on Aurora engine (same as NWN 2), only better in all aspects

 

The point of the post is exactly what I stated in the original post. There's no hidden motive, rest assured.

To be frank, I was pretty digusted with what a dog NWN2 was last time I played it, compared to how similar games of the time performed on my machine. So I don't feel that it's just a given that I'm going to get stellar performance from a significantly more powerful system. Perhaps the game doesn't perform great on any system with the graphics fully cranked up. /shrug

I'm just trying to set the appropriate expectations, so I'm not let down by this game again.

You know, if you had wanted to say essentially the same thing, but "rolled" a little better on diplomacy, you might have stated, "don't worry, your system can handle this game fully cranked, no problem," or something. I would have much preferred that sort of post (which is essentially what I *think* you're saying... without the diplomacy, of course).

If I had bought the PC specifically for this game, I'm sure you'd be right. But the point of this machine was to get something that I can use for while. NWN2 may not have multi core support, but I expect that several applications that do will grace this system before it's life ends. So what you call a waste of money, I call... "an investment." (I had to use that one with my wife, too)

 

Your PC will work well enough to not lag if you have 20 mages casting meteor swarms at the same time on a map with lots of trees and water even assuming max graphics and full shadows, me thinks .

 

Now my life is complete. Thank you Omnigodly

I'd be happy with much less than that, but I wouldn't cry if you're right. Okay, maybe a few tears of joy... when no one was around to see, of course.

...still have at least another week to wait...

 

Lol, I'm basing it off a comparison with my PC, Core 2, 2.4ghz, 7950GT Video (8800 is the only card of the 8series that's better than my card) and 2GB RAM. 8800 also supports DX10 and 7950 doesn't ! DARN!

Also keep in mind that having multiple cores is more efficient for actually running programs whether or not they "utilize" all the cores. It's a misconception to think that having a quad-core is a waste just because programs aren't written to use the 4 cores separately, when they're intended to perform 4 separate functions that's traditionally run by a single core.

and FYI to anyone that's curious since this is almost sorta on-topic... the gameplan for Intel (and the reason AMD had to buy ATI), is to design their chips so that eventually they'll having something with 32 cores many of which are devoted to video processing in order to make video cards obsolete. This should happen within the next 10 years. AMD found this out and got into panic mode because they woke up the sleeping giant that is Intel and realized they didn't have the experienced video programmers that Intel does.

I hope this clears things up a bit. It's definately only waste to get the first released quad-cores because they had some glitches, the current ones are really nice to have. Personally my dual-core will handle any game I choose to play as my own gaming won't be up-to-date anymore (BG2 is still my favorite game of all time...).

 

I'm not totally sure I followed all of that. The way I understand it, an application that is coded to be multi-threaded is going to see the greatest benefit from a multi core processor, since those various threads will be handled by separate physical cores. If an application is not programmed to be multi-threaded, then its functions will execute in a single core, regardless of how many are available. Since writing multi threaded programs is significantly more complex than single threaded, there needs to be a great benefit to do so for most developers to consider it.

Where I can still benefit from a multi core proc, even when I'm using a single threaded application, is that other processes running on the machine -- operating system level processes, for example -- can run in their own cores while the app I'm focused on has it's own dedicated core. So yeah, from that perspective I'd say it would be going too far to say one is "wasting" their money. But they still are probably not getting the full benefit of their processesing power when running a single threaded application on a multi core processor.

With NWN2, I'm honestly not sure if it's multi threaded (perhaps I'll check into this). Multi core processors were probably still coming into their own for home PCs when this game was released. So I'm going to guess that the added complexity of multi threaded programming was probably deemed not worth it.

This is new to me, and quite interesting. With power requirements being something of a deterent to increase clock speeds much higher than they currently are, a 32 core processor isn't surprising. Integrating your video processesing into that... well that's quite revolutionary. Looks like I'll need to spend some time researching this as well. Do you happen to have a link to this information handy?

 

Just FYI, most of the FPS problems with the initial game were probably not as much due to your system as with the software itself. It's well known the unpatched / early patches were atrocious for FPS and it was a problem Obsidian battled with constantly until the 1.1 patch and MotB were released. Now though, the game is considerably smoother to play, regardless of your spec. My system doesn't even match up to your *old* spec (except my video card) and it runs beautifully now. Since I bought MotB I've hardly even had a judder

 

Clearly there were significant coding/polish issues playing into the crappy performance of NWN2. I mean, when I can play Medieval 2: Total War on max settings and have 4 – 5 thousand soldiers on screen, and siege equipment hurling realistic flaming projectiles into fully detailed cities while running at acceptable performance levels—then clearly there’s a finger to be pointed at the NWN game itself, if not an entire arm. Okay, how about a legion of fingers and arms.

This is a big reason I abandoned the game. I knew I could have more enjoyable experiences elsewhere. That’s also why I made the earlier comment about not taking for granted that this game runs well on any machine. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how much hardware you throw at a problem… “if the software don’t work, it don’t work.”

I’ve heard that MotB significantly optimizes the performance of this game, but wasn’t sure how much validity there was to that. Sounds like there is quite a bit. With this in mind, if I take advantage of the optimizations provided by Obsidian AND the significant boost in hardware power, I’m thinking NWN2 ought to be an entirely new, and positive, experience for me this time around. Cool!

 

I suggest less RAM but higher speeds. Even 2GB but, let's say, 1066 Mhz. You can buy two 1GB chips now and further two in a while, rather than four 1GB or 2 2GB 667 MHz sticks. Also, pay attention to latencies. While 5 isn't bad, some sticks have 4. The price doesn't always differ between the two.

And is the disk SATA1 or SATA2? Maybe get SATA2?

 

Okay, so question. Is the 1.1 patch you reference exclusive to MotB? I received my new machine and installed NWN2 and all of the pre MotB patches available for it. I launched the game, and cranked the graphics settings as high as they would go, including choosing the highest possible resolution. As soon as I stepped outside my house with Bevil and Amie, ready to defend my town, the game became utterly unplayable due to FPS being practically in negative numbers.

So, on the one hand, I'm hoping that this performance isn't representative of the performance boost referenced above. On the other hand, if the devs have fine tuned game performance so much, why wouldn't they make those improvements available to non MotB fans? That seems a bit wrong.

 

not sure but i think the game has poor shadow implementation
try turning them to a lower setting

 

Yeah, the game became playable by setting distant shadows to "low" and near shadows to high (down from very high). All other settings were still maxed. I was getting between 20 - 30 fps outside and 50 - 60 fps inside during the battles that occur in the starter town.

My question is, does performance improve in the original game with a patch that is only available from the expansion? Urithrand references the 1.1 patch. As far as I can tell, I'm still running 1.0 with all available patches installed on the pre expansion game.

So master leo... do you realize the point of this thread yet?

 

Oh, by the way, I'm getting >80 fps with a PIV 2.6, 1 GB RAM (and I'm talking DDR1 here), Radeon 2600XT. Seriously, your desired setup should rock the game.

 

Chev, actually, this isn't a "desired" set up; it's now an actual. I've been talking about a machine that I ordered a couple of weeks ago, and received earlier this week (that's why I didn't have much to say in response to your recommended changes earlier in the post... it was too late for that).

With that in mind, the FPS I mention above is occuring on the new machine. The resolution is maxed, as are all settings except distant shadows (low) and near shadows (high). I'm sure I could lower some settings a bit more and get better FPS.

What I'm trying to figure out at this point, is whether a reported performance boost in the "1.1 patch" (which I believe is MotB specific) was similarly included in the latest NWN2 patch (the latest pre expansion patch, to be precise). If it isn't, then perhaps I should think about getting the expansion to have a more enjoyable time playing the original campaign. Or, on the other hand, if what I'm experiencing currently IS the "streamlined performance" experience, then it would be premature to pick up the expansion, as there is no guarantee I'll even finish the original campaign.