Neverwinter Nights' graphics query

[PsypherPunk]

i've been playing Neverwinter Nights for a while and recently upgraded my hardware. However, on anything above the lowest graphics settings the mouse stutters its way across the screen and the whole thing chugs along pretty slowly.

Any other game i have runs more than adequately and given that NWN is supposed to be able to run on a 450Mhz PC i would have thought i'd get a better performance out of it.

Have i set something obviously wrong?

System is currently: Athlon XP 3000+, 1024Mb RAM, Nvidia GeForce 440 (128Mb).

[techieMoe]

Neverwinter Nights stutters even on a Geforce 6800, but that's only at 1280x1024x32bpp resolution with shadows and high quality graphics turned on. The culprit here IMO is your display card. I'm personally amazed you can even run NWN on a Geforce MX440.

[PsypherPunk]

With everything turned off and on the lowest possible resolution it runs flawlessly. Anything other than that is just embarassing.

Oh well, time to go shopping again

[techieMoe]

Oh well, time to go shopping again

My gaming addiction has fueled many an upgrade. Happy shopping.

[Ethyriel]

I run 1600x1200 on an orignal GeForce3 and an 800Mhz P3 with 1GB PC133. I have most of the details turned off, but I have very little stuttering, and it's even playable with most details on in indoor areas. I think maybe you have something with X configured wrong, are you loading GLX properly?

Or maybe you're running a ton of daemons and large applications running back in your WM or CLI?

[PsypherPunk]

Due to the performance of other games i presume X is okay. GlxGears certainly zips along.

On another note, should there be any noteable difference between downloading the linux client from Bioware and installing via Loki from the CDs?

[techieMoe]

On another note, should there be any noteable difference between downloading the linux client from Bioware and installing via Loki from the CDs?

I was under the impression that all Loki Installers for Linux gamers did was repackage the already available Linux clients into a graphical installer... so the client should be the same regardless of how you install it. AFAIK.

[eatinglemur]

I was under the impression that all Loki Installers for Linux gamers did was repackage the already available Linux clients into a graphical installer... so the client should be the same regardless of how you install it. AFAIK.

Yeah, there should only be one game client available. I'd find it highly unusual if Bioware gave Loki license to write their own when they already have one. Since Bioware is the originator and Loki is merely repackaging it, you may run the risk of the Loki installer containing an older version of the client, but I don't know much about their release/update process.

On the side: kudos to the Loki installer. I've had the pleasure of using it a couple times, and I was quite pleased. It sure beats using an RPM or other such package.

[techieMoe]

On the side: kudos to the Loki installer. I've had the pleasure of using it a couple times, and I was quite pleased. It sure beats using an RPM or other such package.

I agree.

[Ethyriel]

Have you updated to the latest NWN client? I think it's 1.65, or maybe higher now.
When you're running it, try dropping to the console (ctrl-alt-F2) and execute 'ps aux'. I noticed last night that once in awhile mail-notification eats up about 75% CPU and slows everything to a crawl until it's killed. Obviously that's just in my case, but maybe you're having a similar problem.