Screen lag

Cromagnon · Post by **Cromagnon** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 7:40 pm

I'm trying to figure out if this happens to everyone or just me.

Most often, when walking/running through an area, if I come across more than 7-8 characters/monsters clustered together, the screen 'lags' for part of a second, then loads images of all the characters. This happens on single player as well as on Avlis, which makes me think there's something going on with my processor or graphics card. Considering that both are very new and high-end, is it possible that something is wrong with my settings?

Or does everyone have this happen and it's inevitable?

Thanks.

Alphonse · Post by **Alphonse** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 7:42 pm

happens to me too

Garumn · Post by **Garumn** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 7:58 pm

for me as well

Snow · Post by **Snow** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 9:32 pm

Happens some times especialy with some custom races like wemics. But I sometimes get it with just one normal character. No idea why that happens.

Post by **Nighthawk4** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 10:06 pm

Me too - especially with Wemics, but also with several creatures in the area. Can be any creatures, not just PCs.

The wonders of 56k

Ntropy · Post by **Ntropy** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 10:42 pm

Pretty sure it has nothing to do with connection, but to do with accessing the HD to cache the models and textures of complex, large or multiple creatures.

Post by **Nighthawk4** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 10:52 pm

Ntropy wrote:Pretty sure it has nothing to do with connection, but to do with accessing the HD to cache the models and textures of complex, large or multiple creatures.

So we need more RAM in the servers?

*Rushes off to PayPal*

Or did you mean on the local PC perhaps?

Serineth Swiftpaw · Post by **Serineth Swiftpaw** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 11:25 pm

Nighthawk4 wrote:
Ntropy wrote:Pretty sure it has nothing to do with connection, but to do with accessing the HD to cache the models and textures of complex, large or multiple creatures.
So we need more RAM in the servers?

*Rushes off to PayPal*

Or did you mean on the local PC perhaps?

Client

Post by **Nighthawk4** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 11:46 pm

Serineth Swiftpaw wrote:
Nighthawk4 wrote:
Ntropy wrote:Pretty sure it has nothing to do with connection, but to do with accessing the HD to cache the models and textures of complex, large or multiple creatures.
So we need more RAM in the servers?

*Rushes off to PayPal*

Or did you mean on the local PC perhaps?
Client

Damn

Beary666 · Post by **Beary666** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 11:49 pm

Well I have a gig of RAM and I still get that laggyness

Chemical-Burn · Post by **Chemical-Burn** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 11:54 pm

I have noticed since the newest update that areas with lots of water (example west of dracon gate in elysia, or road to ferrell) lags my fps where as before it never used to do it.

Significant Owl · Post by **Significant Owl** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 11:55 pm

Usually, if there are a lot of people at Elf gate, it takes me a few seconds to load them all, screen freezes, then I jump ahead to where I should have been.

Serineth Swiftpaw · Post by **Serineth Swiftpaw** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 11:56 pm

It's reading the CEP HAK packs that cause the game to stall.

Ntropy · Post by **Ntropy** » Sun Feb 27, 2005 12:46 am

I believe it's not a question of how much RAM you have, it's how fast the engine can pull the data from the resource files on disk and put it in RAM. I have a P4 2.8GHz with 512MB RAM and it still hitches almost imperceptibly the first time I see a particular model, any model. I think it is worse with external resources in .haks, but it happens on stock creatures for me as well.

Nitro18 · Post by **Nitro18** » Sun Feb 27, 2005 2:57 am

Yep, comes with the territory. My PC can run HL2 at high graphics, 4xAA 8xAF without a hitch, but look out when I walk into the Mikona marketplace and all those NPCs appear for the first time.

NWDuneAuron · Post by **NWDuneAuron** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 9:51 am

As Seri said, it's lag caused by the game looking up the CEP resources.

Cromagnon · Post by **Cromagnon** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 10:32 am

NWDuneAuron wrote:As Seri said, it's lag caused by the game looking up the CEP resources.

Then why does it happen in single-player as well?

Significant Owl · Post by **Significant Owl** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 10:40 am

Because your computer sucks?

Ntropy · Post by **Ntropy** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 10:42 am

Cromagnon wrote:
NWDuneAuron wrote:As Seri said, it's lag caused by the game looking up the CEP resources.
Then why does it happen in single-player as well?

It happens for all resources, externals like .haks are just worse.

Garumn · Post by **Garumn** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 10:47 am

my comp is a water cooled overclocked beast, which runs DOOM3 at all max, but it still stutters in NWN Avlis

NWDuneAuron · Post by **NWDuneAuron** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 11:26 am

Because your computer sucks?

This is a valid answer for why it happens in the original campaigns.

For loading large hak files, like the CEP, the lag in loading is due to limitations of the program, not the computer.

Tristan_Durst · Post by **Tristan_Durst** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 11:43 am

NWN does lag on me whenever I run into other NPCs or PCs, and when ever a new spawn happens in the same area in which I am in. I also noticed that when there is heavy traffic, CEP laggs the heck out of my system as well.

- Tristan

Dirk Cutlass · Post by **Dirk Cutlass** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 12:06 pm

Well, I've got a really old PC, and I don't seem to get any of these problems (apart from when Druids of Verossa cast multiple entangles - and even that seems better than it used to be). But I have got my graphics settings on FAST. Maybe you just need accept a little lower graphics setting?

Some things that can help...

* Buy more RAM (more chance of things staying cached in RAM rather than getting pulled of hard-disk each time)
* Defrag hard-disk so that when you do have to pull it off HD, it is quicker
* Downgrade some of your graphics settings... not entirely sure which ones, just have a play (I usually put mine to FAST, and then upgrade a few things, like fast-grass, environment shadows, and ... oh something else that I've forgotten).
* Close any unwanted applications that might be competing for resources (i.e. some of the stuff that's on your PC's status bar, bottom right)
* Don't hang around Elf Gate

Lastly, since 1.65 or was it 1.64 ... not sure, IIRC, there was a Bioware option to allow you to "tune" cache usage. You could try and fiddle with this. *shrugs* may help.

PlasmaJohn · Post by **PlasmaJohn** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 7:10 pm

CEP opted for DDS textures exclusively. It's a highly compressed texture format which ... uses a high amount of CPU and GPU resources to decode.