NWN2: The (New) 1 Up Review

[Deraldin]

Strangely enough I don't seem to get any performance hit when I bump myself up to high textures. It's odd. I also get the text box thing. Just fought some guys in the Gem Mine area. Big fight that ended with the text box not updating fast enough to keep up with what was on the screen. It was still updating 20 seconds after the battle. Made me wonder how the hell I was fighting a dead enemy...

Edited November 14, 2006 by Deraldin

[Volourn]

I don't think NWN2 cna 'hate' anyone. It's just software. Computers are just strnage that way. Half the time; it just seems like blind luck when a certain game works for one person and doens't for the bothers. Of course, some bugs ar ejust plain old fashion bugs - these are usually the types of bugs that tend to be easily fixable by the devs since they are much easier to pinpoint and squash.

[Tel Aviv]

How does it compare to TSL in terms of lack of sheen? And I'm not talking about Martin Sheen or his loser son Charlie... or Emilio for that matter. I'm talking shiny sheen.

[Volourn]

NWN2 is 1 million times better than either KOTOR. Game over.

[roshan]

How does it compare to TSL in terms of lack of sheen? And I'm not talking about Martin Sheen or his loser son Charlie... or Emilio for that matter. I'm talking shiny sheen.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

NWN2 certainly does look a lot better than KOTOR. The textures are particularly good, the level of detail is great even when fully zoomed in.

[Tel Aviv]

Its like Volo said in the picture thread though, sometimes it looks great, other times I can't help thinking it looks pretty rough.

 

EDIT: Purely from screenshots that is. I've yet to play the game.

Edited November 14, 2006 by Tel Aviv

[Tigranes]

The game really shines when you play it, especially the lighting and stuff. Character faces in some lighting can look really bad in screenshots, but they're actually beautiful. I'm playing on medium textures and generally medium settings with a Radeon 9600 Pro, and I love it. It definitely looks better than KOTOR virtually everywhere.

[Jorian Drake]

NWN2 is 1 million times better than either KOTOR. Game over.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

thats your own personal opinion

 

 

 

 

PS:

*sigh* game over? did you play Mario Bros or what? :crazy:

[metadigital]

I mostly use click+move, with some driving when I feel like it. I adjust the camera on avarage every 3 seconds (about once every spell cast in combat). I also zoom in and out with the mouse. This is exactly how I handled the camera in NWN 1 with the exception that I moved the camera a bit more in NWN 1 because I used WSAD movement a bit more in that game.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

That's what I do, and I don't understand the endless complaints about the camera: isn't it identical to the original NwN camera?

 

There is a dramatic difference in performance between high and medium though. I can also play it fine with everything on medium, but cranking stuff up to high will impact performance.

 

People with a GeForce 7800 or higher or people with an Radeon X1950 will expect to be able to run everything on high in most games. More so when the graphics of the game aren't more stellar than they are in NWN2. And those are the people who complain about performance issues (and since most reviewers test on such systems, they tend to complain about perfrmance).

 

Don't get me wrong, I personally like the graphics of NWN2 and think they are just fine for this type of game. But other people have dfferent standards.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The Problem is that those people usually have huge LCDs and are forced to run the game at ludicrous resolutions (1600x1200 and above) if they want it to look good. If they were playing the game on a 19" CRT at, say 1280x960, they wouldn't be complaining about performance.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yeah, there isn't a card available that can power a huge LCD monitor at the required widescreen resolution. It's a logarithmic demand curve.

[Dark_Raven]

Ok. I think the review is not the best ever. It seems they rushed it out which is why it's only a page. I would rate the game an 8; because while I am enjoying it there's a lot of things wrong with it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I rate it it an 8- 8.5 so far. Only because I don't like random crashes and slow load times.

[taks]

Yeah, there isn't a card available that can power a huge LCD monitor at the required widescreen resolution. It's a logarithmic demand curve.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

bummer, too, because i have a beautiful samsung 213T sitting at home unused. another on my desk at work though it is only used for development and, i even have a 20" dell on my desk at work. you won't see me run games other than solitaire on any of these. maybe the new 8800s will suffice?

 

taks

[taks]

Strangely enough I don't seem to get any performance hit when I bump myself up to high textures. It's odd.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

i don't think this game is GPU limited per se (textures are just a fill rate issue, right?). i think the load on the CPU is the culprit. just a hunch based on the complaint trend.

 

taks

[Tigranes]

Just upgraded from 1gb ram to 1.5gb ram, and there is pretty much no difference either. Normal Mapping, bloom, high textures also have no effect. Whether I have those or have absolute low, as long as resolution is 1024x (lower hurts my eyes with those jaggy texts and all), the fps remains exactly the same - 15-25 outdoors and 5-15 indoors.

 

I suppose it really is a CPU limitation, not ram or GPU. Pity.

[Riftworm]

NWN2 is 1 million times better than either KOTOR. Game over.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

thats your own personal opinion

 

PS:

*sigh* game over? did you play Mario Bros or what? :crazy:

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

He always says game over when he's giving up. It's his fundamental inability to debate an issue.

[Tigranes]

That's because when you are wanting to debate, Magical Volo has already won the argument.

[Dark_Raven]

R00fles!

[Volourn]

R00fles DeluXe!

[Tel Aviv]

That's because when you are wanting  to debate, Magical Volo has already won the argument.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[Oerwinde]

That's what I do, and I don't understand the endless complaints about the camera: isn't it identical to the original NwN camera?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I was using Free Camera for the first few hours and found it much harder to use than any other game I've played with free camera. This was where I complained that it needed an invert axis option. Eventually I got fed up with how hard it was to control the camera in that mode that I switched back to the top down camera. Which is pretty much identical to the NWN1 camera. No problems since.

[Tigranes]

If you mean the horizontal axis, you can tweak the .ini in about 5 seconds to make it right. I use Top Down Camera though, since in Freecam I found the up/down arrow keys actually zoom in ando ut, so theres no way to move the view forwards and backwards with your keyboard.

 

What I really wanted to do was play like BG; just use my arrow keys to scroll left, right, forward, back. Even left-right working as rotation would work. I should look into it again, has anybody managed to make it work like that?

[Darque]

Funny that my fairly mediocre system isn't showing any of thsoe problems. Loading times are excellent and frame rates are stable (although they do slow down a bit when it's foggy outside).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Same here, based on teh requirements, I expected the game to be unplayable on my comp. But so far it's been pretty stable and with only a few slowdowns (lots of people on screen, or lots of enviromental effects)

[Tigranes]

Yeah, the thing that makes it playable indoors for me is the fact that the frame rate, even when low, is stable.

 

It is a testament to my having played games on minimum req computers for so long that I realised as long as my fps were double digits, I see the game as running smoothly! In 800x600 I was surprised to see that where I got 5fps indoors with 1024x768 (which is pretty bothersome), everything worked wonderfully. Realised 'wonderfully' for me meant 11fps.

 

I would play 800x600 and sacrifice some grahpics, but the font gets really jaggy and stretched and it hurts my eyes. No fix for that I've found, yet?

[Noceur]

That's what I do, and I don't understand the endless complaints about the camera: isn't it identical to the original NwN camera?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I was using Free Camera for the first few hours and found it much harder to use than any other game I've played with free camera. This was where I complained that it needed an invert axis option. Eventually I got fed up with how hard it was to control the camera in that mode that I switched back to the top down camera. Which is pretty much identical to the NWN1 camera. No problems since.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

But... isn't there an invert axis for camera in the game settings? O.o

 

Also, I just found the Target Closest Enemy, Target next/previous enemy buttons... targetting is easier now. Might be cool with a Target highest CR rating enemy or something though, I suppose.

Anyway, targeting is rendered much faster by these buttons, although less selective.

 

I still pause a lot, but that's because I like to sit back and sip my coffee before watching my Warlock lass Eldritch blast whomever back to the future, then back in time again, then back to Faer

Edited November 15, 2006 by Noceur

[Jorian Drake]

That's because when you are wanting  to debate, Magical Volo has already won the argument.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

In his dreams maybe.

[metadigital]

Jorian, the point Tigranes was making is that, when you agree to ague with Volo, you have dignified his illogical ramblings, and therefore he has won. Hence his magical qualities.

Yeah, there isn't a card available that can power a huge LCD monitor at the required widescreen resolution. It's a logarithmic demand curve.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

bummer, too, because i have a beautiful samsung 213T sitting at home unused. another on my desk at work though it is only used for development and, i even have a 20" dell on my desk at work. you won't see me run games other than solitaire on any of these. maybe the new 8800s will suffice?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I dunno ... I think the next iteration of ATi (R600) and nVidia (after the 8800) might do it, but there is a big gap to broach.

 

It is certainly giving me pause for thought before I take the plunge on a new PC ... I don't want to amputate a limb for a system that can't wipe it's own bottom.