taks

not installing a lot (and conversely, uninstalling) has always been the key to good winders health. that plus defrag are the best remedies to a slow system. of course, it is winders, so it will choke on itself eventually. taks

this sounds like the issue with not enough space on your drive. you absolutely NEED 7 (that's SEVEN) Giga Bytes of room, else the updater will crash (well, it just quits). it will not tell you it didn't have enough space, instead, it will say "file not found" and quit. the file was not found because it was a zip file that did not have enough room to unzip, so it didn't unzip. taks

i disagree. i do this every time w/out a hitch. taks

if you're referring to my comments, that's not really what i said. anyway, to both of you, what is your draw distance set to? given the nature of this game, there's no reason to have it at 300. i've cranked mine back to 150 and could probably go to 100 w/out any noticeable difference. taks

overclocking reduces lifespan, period. no matter how cool you keep it. simple matter of device physics. it also decreases stability, though it may not be completely obvious (believe it or not, even when you're slamming the processor, it spends a very large amount of time stalled). failures happen sooner and stresses are more apparent in the long run. taks

a) those are different games. comparing one game to another is naive and/or short sighted. WoW ain't an rpg, and oblivion has much different style graphics (actually, so does WoW for that matter). b) i didn't say the LCD was the problem per se. i said the fact that you have to run in native (resolution) mode in order for it to look good is the problem with an LCD. i.e. LCDs generally look crappy in any situation if you do not run them in native resolution mode (that means native refresh, too, and most are only 60 Hz...) perhaps 1680x1050 is native for this particular LCD? this seems like an odd ratio... certainly not "correct" as 4:3 would be 1260, not 1050 (hence 1600x1200). 1280x960 is the correct aspect ratio, but even my samsung looks like crap with that since its native is 1600x1200. taks

this really is not possible. code that is explicitly written for threads will, or should, take advantage of multi-core. otherwise, it will not, and will simply run on a single core. in other words, the instructions issued by the CPU do not know, nor care, that there is another CPU available. the issue, however, may be context switching. i do not know if winders will switch your process from one core to another, but that is a killer sometimes (linux will do that). tas

oooohhh... you have an LCD. sorry. yeah, that could be a killer. LCDs need to run in their native which is probably 1600x1200? that would be murder on most vid cards. this would be the one "catch" i failed to mention above. the high resolution requirements of most LCDs makes gaming difficult sometimes, even with uber video cards. i have a 21" samsung at work (well, one here, too, the 213T) and it looks horrible with everything, even winders, on anything less than 1600x1200. unfortunately, i don't have a vid card strong enough to power that resolution at 75 Hz refresh, 32-bit color and any nifty options. so it sits unused. 25 is playable, though it'll probably drop signficantly during battles. taks

you didn't slander the game. i agree with most of what you said. there are a few complaints i have as well... in particular: the AI "feature" where the selected character is targeted by enemies is extremely annoying. if i switch to my mage (which is me), suddenly they all target him. they'll run through fire walls and cloudkills to get to him then chase him around. right by my dwarf who subsequently gets an AOO. moronic. what other game was this a problem with, IWD2? i griped about that then, too. merchant variability sucks. i can no longer buy healing kits. with neeshka pounding CMWounds like they were water, i need healing kits. there are also no more CSWounds available for purchase so it takes the dwarf a few rounds to get healed. oh, and i bankrupted one merchant with all of my characters near the encumbrance limit. that was actually kinda funny, not really a complaint. there are a couple other things, mostly annoyances rather than real problems. as volourn pointed out, this has got to be the most stable game ever. i'm not sure i've even seen any real bugs. i'm sure some C & D gameplay bugs (probably the AI issues) have cropped up, but that's about it. taks

Ya, me too. Can't patch up. Need crit rebuild. I can't play the un-patched version either. I get a 0xc0000034 error message. I'll wait 2 months, and come back later to forum to see if game is fixed. I don't wanna push my luck, and get any "curse of Pools of Radiance 2" thing. Gatta get ready for the WOW expansion anyways. March I think. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> you need to first check to see if you have enough space on the HDD. really, it takes 7 GB JUST FOR THE PATCH! i'd put in an extra few if possible. the problem is that a file that needs to be unzipped does not have space for unzipping. it cannot open it, and craters. taks

disable v-sync. i think the default with most drivers is application controlled, which is bad for this game. it will easily double your FPS. another is to turn off shadows. i'm now running medium everything with low shadows at 1024x768 hitting 45-60 FPS on the 6800 vanilla (extra pipes turned on). taks

did i say that? all i said was that i know how to take care my system. nowhere did i say "everyone" else does not. if you're going to find issue with my statement, at least you could do is make sure i made them. now who's the troll? for the record, many do not. many buy the uberest equipment and check every setting then they DL rivatuner (or similar) and kick up all the options on the vid card, including memory and DAC frequency. they OC their CPU as well. this gives you great benchmark performance, but hurts the system in the end. the most i've ever done is turn on the pipes that were disabled. ok, have some cheddar. it is nearly identical from a user perspective. the only difference is that you use the mouse to change elevation instead of page up/page down. which happens in NWN1 as well. no difference. in fact, fading with this camera works better. taks

camera is nearly identical to NWN, with improvements allowing easy mouse control of angle. not sure how that equates to "horrid." oh, and for the 7 GB required for patching, the patcher frees that space up when done, so you could conceivably uninstall something, patch NWN2, and then reinstall whatever you uninstalled. btw, if you only have 865 MB free, you're going to have issues. this game takes nearly 500 MB of RAM alone. if i were going to recommend upgrading anything, it would be more memory. 2 GB would probably help. arkan, as for hit and miss, i think it's actually a case of "this game does not perform like quake 4 on my $5000 system!" people think this should be a FPS with "roleplaying elements." also, as i noted, i know how to take care of my system, many do not. taks

i think the latter is true. plus, you can set the response in the options menu (i.e. you can incresae the sensitivity of controls). taks

i have a system that is not much better than the minimum. however, i do know how to take care of it. in particular: winXP professional on AMD 3200+ with no OC ASUS 8KV mobo (er, K8V?) 1 GB DDR333 40 GB WD HDD, 7200 rpm ATA100 (i have a SATA 3.0, but it is dedicated to Linux) 6800 vanilla 128 MB vid card with extra pipes turned on. no other modifications. audigy 2 gamer sound card and logitech speakers. oh, and a dell 19" monitor. got it from a friend. i'm about to take over a dell 20" LCD that i'm scarfing from work (they're dumping a bunch of stuff). nothing fancy, just simple. fairly recent drivers for everything, btw. taks

btw, this is the game i've been waiting to see ever since i finished BG2. i'm having a blast. probably 10-12 hours already, i'm 6th level, working out of highcliff at the moment. i'm a weezard, got the fighter, rogue and druid tagging along. to anyone whining about the camera controls... do you need some cheddar with that whine? easier than NWN. better, IMO. top-down is perfect and i can control the angle with ease. to anyone whining about graphics, are you sure you have the same game as i have? i think they look great. exactly as a crpg should look. this ain't quake. the detail in the interiors is breathtaking, not empty feeling like ToEE (which had potential, but apparently movers got to all the interiors before the players did). exteriors are nice as well. i personally think the characters look fine as well, not anything like the stale, bland characters someone else whinged about. also, i have everything set on medium, with 1152x864 and it is smooth as glass. it actually outperforms NWN1 in many ways (i still get stutters with NWN1). if you have a $5000 system and you're having issues with this game, you need to take computer lessons. step one, plug it in... i was really impressed with the amount of story telling that occurs. surprised, actually. it's great. particularly when your party members start arguing (and argue they do). pause during a cut-scene to take a quick break... wow. TONS of scripted sequences acted out based on who is in your party. very slick. if this game continues the rest of the way as it has begun, it will likely be one of my all-time favorites. i'm totally impressed. good job obsidian. very good job. taks

YES! you need that much space. the patcher will release it after you're finished. total pain. taks

well, there's a point where it can be overkill, that's for sure. finding an artifact level magic item in a barrel, or decent magic on a rat certainly qualifies as such. i'm referring more to an overall high loot level, but matching it to the challenge. even the DM guide for the amount of loot you get per level is relatively high. the BGs were, in general, loot-heavy, but that was also a function of how you played the game. i scoured everything once i figured out there was much more than just the main story, and certainly it turned into monte-haul. also, you can always dump stuff if you want to play low-level magic. taks

yeah, seems good so far. common complaints are seen as minor inconveniences by most, though some see them as major. well, a few see them as major. the AI problem is expected, and i think camera controls are an issue with just about any game, so no surprises here. also, the graphical issues seem to be more system related, and user perspective, which i'm willing to overlook in exchange for an immersive game, which most seem to agree on. it isn't hard to improve on the NWN OC, and it seems they have succeeded in this respect. also, i'm not getting the impression that it is "run here, run there, solve 4 major quests for area i, then move on to area i+1, rinse, repeat" as it was in the OC (which was, IMO, the primary flaw with that story). i.e. it doesn't seem to be a bunch of identical stories with changes in the window dressing for each chapter. too early to tell on this point, however. in the end, i'm playing it in the morning, maybe install tonight. glory. taks

while i don't totally fully buy that XP can go 18-24 months as mkreku states, i agree XP is more stable/less corrupting than other winders versions (i've only had it installed for about 6-8 months with not many program changes so i have to reserve judgement on this till i have more experience). two things are particularly maddening - 1) fragmentation and 2) inability to fully remove all keys associated with a program during uninstall (for whatever reason, fragments always seem to remain in the registry, at least with other versions of winders). if you're constantly adding and removing various programs, which is often the case for gamers, both will crop up. the more you do this, the worse off you'll be. another potential issue, i'm not sure has been mentioned, is the drive controller. normally hardware acts as noted, i.e. either it works or it doesn't, however, i had a VIA 8237 chip go bad and, at least at first, i experienced massive slow downs due to retransmits from the hard drive. essentially, the error rate went up so it had to recopy data repeatedly, which slows things down. eventually, the channel went down completely and i got irrecoverable read errors (system crash). i switched the drive to another controller and all was well. my mobo is in need of replacement, i think. taks

oh, apologies... Gfted1 said that. thanks for catching that, meta. taks

i like loot. high magic == cool in my book. of course, i expect challenges to be based on that as well. i was the same in PnP land back in the day when i actually played it... i'm off work tomorrow. i was going to hit opening day at copper mountain (yay, ski season is OPEN), but i don't think my ski-buddy is ready to hit the slopes yet. may just have to hole up and play NWN2. so far, everything is sounding like a game i'll like. taks

looks like the AI suffers from the same problems as NWN. taks

plenty. winders is known to become bloated with itself and slow down. i'd recommend re-install every 3-4 months, actually. i've heard XP is better in this regard, but i don't know for sure. also, a hard drive defrag is in order if you choose not to rebuild. taks

ours is mostly gone, though it is still over a foot in the drift areas. more is on the way apparently. taks