At my wits end, last chance

[AliasDeltaX]

2.4Ghz p4

1024 mb ddr 400 ram

radeon 9550 256 mb vid card

 

ok... here is my problem.

 

in many, many areas of the game, when I look in certain directions I take a MASSIVE FPS hit. like dropping from 65-80 fps to 8-15. I don't have any problems loading or any other issues, this is the only one keeping me from enjoying this game. I have tried everything i could find, the disable vertex buffer fix, using radeon 4.11 atiogxx_dl in the K2 directory, using the catalyst 4.11 drivers themselves, turning off everything, LOWEST possible settings and what i end up with is framerates in the low hundreds... untill I turn in a direction and it drops back down to 8-15.

 

I'm at my wits end, is there anything else I could possibly do to fix this? I know that there will be no more patches for this game as LA has abandoned it. so I'm stuck asking anyone for help that may know of a fix for this particular issue.

 

If there is no way for me to fix this, then... well... i have some nice coasters for my coffe table I guess

[metadigital]

You didn't mention your OS.

 

Always use the latest drivers, 5.7 has just been released.

 

Not sure what you mean when you describe your problem. How can I duplicate your issues, if I don't know what triggers them. "When I look in certain directions," doesn't give me much to go on.

[AliasDeltaX]

but that's exactly the problem. hmm... ok I'll give some examples. the terminal that opens the pth to get to the Ebon hawk on peragus... if I look at the terminal I get maybe 20 fps at best, if I look in any other direction I nab 50-70 no probs. On telos I can get great fps in the cantina and shuttle bays etc but on the promenade I get again 20 fps at best. it happens in a lot of places where the camera faces one direction and everything is fine, but if the camera moves to face another direction bam, big loss in performance.

 

btw its win XP

 

and I am using 5.7 I just tested the 4.11 is all

[BattleCookiee]

You have 1.0B installed?

 

If so, after installing that patch I had frame-rate reductions (to the impossible of moving, causing my char to "Fly") on the weirdest places, which were 50FPS before...

 

If you have, try a clean fresh install with 1.0 (no-patches) only

[AliasDeltaX]

I'll try that wookie. let ya know how it goes

 

well leaving it unpatched has seemed to steady the fps, at about a constant 30 in most areas, but still some difficulties. anyway... this is curious. I ran the scan system in the start up for K2 and Ithink something may be wrong here....

 

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/6273/somethingwrong0ov.jpg

 

as you can see, I meet the recommended specs... and yet I don't...

 

the weird thing is in some of these "trouble areas" it doesn't matter what I do.. If I lower the resolution I still get the same fps. I'm not sure of the name of the place but when you first control T3 you need to go to an area to retreive a data pad. from the starting postion when i look towards the dead miner I get 10 fps... at all times... if i swivel the camera it instantly jumps up to 30-40... its nuts I tells ya

[votemarvel]

Oddly I have found that in many of the areas that you take a framerate hit, if you run toward the camera the game will run fine. Its a little awkward to do but it does let you get out of the areas.

 

Another oddity was that I no longer get a massive framerate drop since I have installed a nvidia card (GeForce 5200 128mb), it ca get a little laggy at times but nothing like it was when I had my Radeon 9250 installed.

[JamieKirby]

Well, i used to get the performance hit at certain points in the game.

 

Peragus Mining Tunnels

 

Peragus Mining Tunnels (Controlling droid)

 

Dantooine (fixed with the Vertex thing)

 

Malacor V (the first area of the planet, where you land, the rest is smooth)

 

I Have:

 

AMD AthlonXP 2600+ (2Ghz)

1024MB DDR PC2700

ATI Radeon 9800Pro 128MB DDR (Catalyst 5.7, since it gives me my glowys back)

WinXP Pro (Service Pack 2)

 

I ain't really bothered now, since i have shelved the game after finishing it once.

[Judge Hades]

So the patch is causing performance hits. Not surprising. This does not bode well for NWN 2.

[JamieKirby]

So the patch is causing performance hits.  Not surprising.  This does not bode well for NWN 2.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Well, i always got the performance hit, i guess it was the inadequte time the game was in development that caused it. (Lucasarts fault for rushing the game out)

[Master Dahvernas]

The reason for the performance hit is because this game does not cull objects you don't see and is "overloading" your GPU.

 

If you look toward a map your video card is being forced to "render" everything on the map even if you don't physically see it. If you turn toward a wall at the edge of a map the frame rate goes up because this is the boundry of the map and there is nothing beyond that wall except virtual space.

 

The reason the game runs better on an Nvidia card is because it is an OpenGL game and Nvidia has always done better with OGL games than ATI. This is not fanboy talk. This is fact and proved by ATI's very poor OGL performance compared to Nvidia in other OGL titles like Quake III engine games (Jedi Knight series) and Half-Life mods like Counter-Strike and countless others..

[JamieKirby]

The reason for the performance hit is because this game does not cull objects you don't see and is "overloading" your GPU.

 

If you look toward a map your video card is being forced to "render" everything on the map even if you don't physically see it. If you turn toward a wall at the edge of a map the frame rate goes up because this is the boundry of the map and there is nothing beyond that wall except virtual space.

 

The reason the game runs better on an Nvidia card is because it is an OpenGL game and Nvidia has always done better with OGL games than ATI. This is not fanboy talk. This is fact and proved by ATI's very poor OGL performance compared to Nvidia in other OGL titles like Quake III engine games (Jedi Knight series) and Half-Life mods like Counter-Strike and countless others..

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Accually the slowdown also accurs on my moms 6800Ultra Nvidia card and her computer is significantly more faster then mine.

 

ATI and Nvidia Cards have different Bonuses and Penalties for usage.

 

ATI: These cards don't overheat so much, but as was pointed out, OpenGL Performance is well, rather crap, but i can still play all these games that require the OpenGL stuff.

 

Nvidia: Overheats like crazy compared to ATI, which led to the demise of my previous computer.

[Master Dahvernas]

I've never had a problem with an Nvidia card overheating.

 

That was probably due to other things like bad ventilation, drivers -- there was a temperature bug that caused Nvidia cards to run hot a while back -- Or just that particular card having a bad heatsink.

 

I go back and forth between Nvidia and ATI and have no loyalty to either brand. I want what is best at the current moment and ATI was when I bought my 9800 Pro. Now, Nvidia is back on top with the 6800 and 7800. Hopefully, ATI will come out with something soon that will equal these two in both D3D and OGL.

[EnderAndrew]

The KOTOR engine has had issues with ATI. The very latest ATI drivers are supposed to improve this.

 

Omega has been authorized by ATI to take their drivers and tweak them for gaming performance. Check out the Omega drivers and see if that helps.

 

Your video card by the way is basically a crippled 9600, with disabled pipelines. Sadly, it is not always going to be able to deliver the performance you may be looking for.

[neriana]

Omega has been authorized by ATI to take their drivers and tweak them for gaming performance.  Check out the Omega drivers and see if that helps.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Thank you so much for this. I was having the same problem as Alias, and the Omega driver I installed for my 9600 seems to have corrected the problem. I can actually run around a smokey room without ending up frozen halfway across the station now.