What to upgrade, out the loop for a while.

[progressweb]

Hi All,

I am unable to play my game, neverwinter nights 2, on a 22" wide-screen monitor at 1680 x 1050 with full settings. I am wondering about getting a bette graphics card, or maybe another 2 sticks of ram. anyone have any ideas?

thanks
gav

[Duke_]

I'd start with the GPU - the 8800GT is a very old card, I still have a pair of 8800GTS in SLI and while they're great they struggle with CoD Black Ops on anything but medium settings.

Are you able to check task manager to check the amount of RAM being used? If it's nearing the full 2GB then it's worth increasing to 4GB but I'd still put money on upgrading the GPU first.

[dfour]

Put your money into a second hand 460 1 gig and it will blow the 8800 into the weeds. They are coming up for sale at £90+ second hand ATM.

[j.col]

also agree, get a used gtx 460 even the 768mb model or something the same level.
also another 2 gb ram would be benificial

evrything else is good

[progressweb]

thanks for the tips lads. If I wanted to stay with new hardware, what GPU would be a good option? Would it work with the rest of my hardware ok? (detailed in my profile.)

Is it gpu first, then RAM?

thanks
g

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

You can get a GTX460 1GB for around £125:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/233611

If you want a more power efficient card I would get an HD6850 1GB for a few quid more.

[danroyle]

i would suggest trying to run the game in compatibility mode. your system far exceeds the specs required for the game your graphics card is a full generation on from the game as it needed ati x1900 or geforce 7900. The game is pretty old and not designed for windows 7 surely the issue is more compatibility than you having a naff system.


Also try disabling POINT LIGHT SHADOWS in game this should nearly double your framerate.

[scaryjim]

... your system far exceeds the specs required for the game ...

This. I played Neverwinter Nights 2 on a Q6600 with an 8800GTX installed and it was *very* smooth. Your issue is very unlikely to be the hardware you're using (unless NWN2 is heavily mutlithreaded, and as far as I know it isn't!). Given we're talking NWN2 here, I'm going to plump for software. Check you're fully patched to the latest version. Then, search google and see if anyone gives hints about the best order to patch in, as just using the auto-update tools used to cause problems. Then give up and get out your old copy of the original Neverwinter Nights, which was a much better game anyway

But more seriously, there's nothing in your spec that screams to me "hardware problem" when it comes to NWN2. I'd exhaust all other possible avenues first before I started buying new hardware (particularly if you're only buying it for NWN2....)

[MSIC]

I also agree - an 8800GT may be old, but its still a viable gaming card.
When you said

I am unable to play my game, neverwinter nights 2, on a 22" wide-screen monitor at 1680 x 1050 with full settings

does this mean that it was running ok, but a bit choppy, or more like 1 frame per second?
What about with slightly reduced settings?
I'm inclined to consider things like BIOS, firmware and driver updates (which are of course quick and free) before considering buying new hardware.

[progressweb]

-the performance has no choppiness to it at present.
-Basically, just want the machine for NWN 2 or Tiger woods 2006-7.

Disabling pin point shadows sounds like something useful to know for the future tho - ta.
I have the draw distance on maximum, which is one of the main things I needed to enjoy game.

However, havent update drivers for gpu since I got the gpu - sounds like should act on that. Think I will grab a 'fraps' distro as well and get some data.

Re: win 7 - I think I am getting exactly same frame rates as under win xp on the same hardware. I used to play it under winxp.
At present the water is on basic and there is no AA.

thanks for the tips dudes.
g

[MSIC]

There are a couple of points i'd like to check out with you. I'd also like to make it clear that this is only about helping if I can, i'm not finding fault for fun (alliteration there ).

-the performance has no choppiness to it at present.

So are you happy with your machine's performance right now?

However, havent update drivers for gpu since I got the gpu - sounds like should act on that.

Re: win 7 - I think I am getting exactly same frame rates as under win xp on the same hardware. I used to play it under winxp.

I'm not clear - are you saying that you bought the graphics card, used it with Windows XP, and then upgraded to Windows 7?
And are you also saying that you havent installed any new drivers since you originally bought the card, whilst using WinXP?