Odd NWN video issue - **FIXED**

Post by **RCon** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 4:39 pm

OK, recently (last month or more?) I've been having an intermittent issue with the video while playing NWN. For periods of time, the video becomes very choppy and both keyboard and mouse input are difficult and delayed. It is similar to when the server is extremely laggy. Not unplayable, but not much fun either, as I can't keep up with RP conversations and I certainly can't fight, gather ingredients, craft, etc. Seems to happen every so often regardless of how laggy the server is. Anyway, here's what I know...

* I'd say the choppiness occurs maybe every 10-20 minutes or so, and typically lasts a couple minutes.
* During the periods when it's not choppy, gameplay is as smooth as could be.
* It happens when the server is laggy, and when it's not. In fact, just as a test, I tried playing single player this past weekend, and the same thing happened.
* I originally thought it might be a RAM problem, but I upgraded from 512MB to 2GB of RAM. No help.
* I tried turning some of the video settings in NWN down, but no help there.
* Tried defragging the hard drive, but no dice.
* Even tried turning off all non-essential services and programs, including the virus scanner, but that didn't help either.

Anyone ever hear of anything like this?

Katroine · Post by **Katroine** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 4:43 pm

Anything running in the background at the same time?
I know when my virus scanner kicks in and does its happy little download of updates, I get slowed down.

Moredo · Post by **Moredo** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 4:47 pm

Not sure this will help, but I've had a 'simliar' problem with my laptop.

What happened to me was that I upgraded to Windows XP SP 2, and then after about 10 to 20 minutes of playing the CPU fan powered down choking the output from the processor. The video became extremely choppy, to the point of not being playable at all. I also tried everything, turning down the settings, flashing the BIOS, looking for CPU fan tools, nothing worked. In the end I had to revert to SP 1. Now everything works smoothly again.

Post by **RCon** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 4:47 pm

Katroine wrote:Anything running in the background at the same time?
I know when my virus scanner kicks in and does its happy little download of updates, I get slowed down.

Nothing I've noticed. I did turn off my virus scanner and everything else I could think of over the weekend, while I was playing single player.

Alphonse · Post by **Alphonse** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 4:50 pm

is it any areas in particular?

it may just be a currupted graphics file that is causing the problems

Post by **RCon** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 4:53 pm

Alphonse wrote:is it any areas in particular?

it may just be a currupted graphics file that is causing the problems

Seems to be any and all areas. The single player mod I ran over the weekend only had one area, yet the choppiness came and went same as on Avlis.

I may look into this SP1/SP2 that Moredo mentioned.

Alphonse · Post by **Alphonse** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 5:00 pm

might be worth a reinstall of NWN and all the avlis haks first, before you drop 'security' by going back to SP1.

that fixed Pleth's problems when Visi hated her remember

scratch · Post by **scratch** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 5:02 pm

If it happens while monsters spawn or buildings come into view then it might be a video / RAM issue. Sounds like you tried turning down all your video settings to basic (no antiallising, etc) with no help.

It still sounds like something is running in the background and either updating or checking your system.

You could do <CTRL><ALT><DEL> once, click on "task list" and click "processes" tab to see what is running.

The other way to shutdown applications that start when you boot up is to right click on the icons in the lower right corner and select "exit" or "close"... you want to free up as much of your processor as possible.

I know years ago I had a bad time with some crashes... the game would just crash and my computer sometimes rebooted. It turned out I had a bad RAM chip on my mother board... when the system needed the extra RAM the chip failed and all chaos broke loose. And that was brand new RAM that failed... never buy cheap RAM... it will cost you double in the long run.

bragir · Post by **bragir** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 5:27 pm

try using Spybod S&D in advanced mode to check what programs get's started at boot time, generaly do a check for spyware.
( i can recoment Hitman Pro, a freeware "frontend" that DL's several spyware checker and runs em automatical http://www.hitmanpro.nl )

Also check if your processor or gfx card get overheated

Nitro18 · Post by **Nitro18** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 5:55 pm

Or instead of using spybot, you could manually see what's running at startup by going:

Start Menu -> Run -> type "msconfig" -> Startup

Uncheck anything that looks suspicious. A little trial-and-error should tell you which programs are necessary at startup. For me, I've only got Motherboard Monitor and Daemon Tools running when my 'puter boots.

Li'll Divvil · Post by **Li'll Divvil** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 6:14 pm

This might also be due to a corrupted video driver. Maybe uninstalling your vid driver and reinstalling it helps.

However if it is regular as clock work every 10-20 min, try playing another game for about an hour or so which uses the same type of graphics buildup. If it happens again it might be your videocard fan.

If you play a single play game of nwn without being hooked up to the internet (detach cable) and it happens again, see above. If this fixes it you have a background service using up your bandwidth or accessing your HD.

Post by **RCon** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 11:40 pm

Li'll Divvil wrote:This might also be due to a corrupted video driver. Maybe uninstalling your vid driver and reinstalling it helps.

However if it is regular as clock work every 10-20 min, try playing another game for about an hour or so which uses the same type of graphics buildup. If it happens again it might be your videocard fan.

If you play a single play game of nwn without being hooked up to the internet (detach cable) and it happens again, see above. If this fixes it you have a background service using up your bandwidth or accessing your HD.

Point, Li'll Divvil! We have a winner. Rolling back my video driver to the previous version has fixed it. Yay, now Brant will seem like he's actually paying attention in conversations!

Darkfire · Post by **Darkfire** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 2:46 am

RCon wrote:
Li'll Divvil wrote:This might also be due to a corrupted video driver. Maybe uninstalling your vid driver and reinstalling it helps.

However if it is regular as clock work every 10-20 min, try playing another game for about an hour or so which uses the same type of graphics buildup. If it happens again it might be your videocard fan.

If you play a single play game of nwn without being hooked up to the internet (detach cable) and it happens again, see above. If this fixes it you have a background service using up your bandwidth or accessing your HD.
Point, Li'll Divvil! We have a winner. Rolling back my video driver to the previous version has fixed it. Yay, now Brant will seem like he's actually paying attention in conversations!

no, all that means now is you lost your OOC reason to why Brant ignores you

The World of Avlis

Odd NWN video issue - FIXED

Odd NWN video issue - FIXED