NWN2 Would it run well enough?

I'm not that thrilled by the SP aspects of NWN2, as it IMHO suffers from an overall clunky interface that detracts from the enjoyment of the game, just as the predecessor. NWN1 was however quite fun in Multiplayer with my gf, mainly because there are very few modern coop RPGs outside the MMO market. The problem is that our secondary PC is getting a bit old. The current specs are:

Athlon XP 2400+
1GB RAM
an AGP gfx card that wont run NWN2

Would this system but with a (AGP of course) 7600GS run NWN2 at an acceptable frame rate? We dont mind lowering the details.

The alternative would be something along the lines of oldblivion, but I havent heard of such a hack for NWN2...

NWN2 is a horribly optimized game - extremely pixel-shader bound, without any really fancy graphics to show for it. I played on an AMD64 3400+, 2GB ram, 7800GT (PCI-E) - and I had to turn the shadows off (I had the fake drop-shadows enabled though), play in 1280x1024... and I usually had between 18-25fps.

I found that to be playable, but I was frustrated that the game didn't perform better, given what I saw on screen and the system specs I have..

I think it would run at the lower settings/resolution okay.

KasperFauerby said:

NWN2 is a horribly optimized game - extremely pixel-shader bound, without any really fancy graphics to show for it. I played on an AMD64 3400+, 2GB ram, 7800GT (PCI-E) - and I had to turn the shadows off (I had the fake drop-shadows enabled though), play in 1280x1024... and I usually had between 18-25fps.

I found that to be playable, but I was frustrated that the game didn't perform better, given what I saw on screen and the system specs I have..

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hmmm... I'm running it on a socket 939 x2 4800+, 2G DDR-400, and a 7600GT @ 1280x1024 but was able to leave the shadows on, pretty much highest detail settings on everything and still had about the same framerate that you did, or around 16-25fps. I'd have to re-verify all of the exact settingsm but I'm fairly positive they were all at highest as I've been trying every single game I've got at highest settings and 1280x1024 since upgrading over the summer...

I did get some stuttering still in places with 1.03, but I haven't tried actually playing with 1.04 yet as I just patched it up, but otherwise am taking a break from NWN1 & 2.

The more I'm thinking of it the more I tend towards putting the game on hold until we get our next new PC. I'd probably have to upgrade the PSU and drill some holes for an extra fan in the casing if I put in a newer gfx card.

Seems like the game has very differing performance on different machines. I'm for example running it with mid-high setting on 3500+ and 6800GS.

For what its worth it runs fine on our better machine, which is roughly that spec. P4 3.0GHz, 2GB RAM, 6800GS gfx card. But I only bothered to try medium settings as I'm not very demanding when it comes to graphics and heard the game is a resource hog.

The patches have also significantly improved frame rate compared to 1.0...

I have a similar machine but a 7800gt, runs fine. Almost everything at near max settings. Shadows down a little, and lights.

Zaleukos said:

The patches have also significantly improved frame rate compared to 1.0...

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Yes, that's true. It's really hard to compare performance of the fully patched version and the first version. The fully patched version reportadly runs significantly faster.

I am rather surprised at the comparatively limited message traffic about NWN2 at just about any RPG forum away from BioWare's own; this thread, for example, would run to 10 pages, be locked, go into versions 1 through 6 (with ten page locks per each), and still be going.

Two of the comments that are here in this thread do ring very true. For all of its insistence on the SM 2 functions and dependence upon that aspect in video hardware, the visuals are not really that amazing. Second, it's so hard to try and make usable comparisons on performance, when it seems that few systems that meet the same descriptions will actually see similar results.

I will say this, however, it runs better, with less strangeness, on Win2K than on XP, and it runs faster as well on the older OS.

Performance for NWN2 is dodgy, at best, and a tough nut to crack. For example, my wife and I originally tried to play on nearly identical machines. In fact, I think the only difference was a different mo-board (mine an MSI, hers an ASUS) and a different hard drive (Seagate vs. Western Digital). Otherwise, we had pretty close to the same systems: P4 3.0Ghz, 1 GB RAM, 7600 GT vid cards. Mine ran the game at a fairly acceptable 25 to 30fps on medium detail with some fancy stuff turned off. Hers ran like a pig. And, yes, both PCs were optimized with latest bios patches, driver updates, defrag, etc....

Recently, I upgraded to a high mid-level Core 2 Duo machine with an 8800 GTS (non-SLi), and the game STILL doesn't run as well as it should. I AM finally able to push everything up to Max detail, but frame rates are still not much better than the 25 to 30 I was getting before.

I compare this to basically every other 3D game on my hard drive, including Supreme Commander, and it just doesn't make sense. The game has very poor optimization, even with the latest patches.

To the original poster: I recommend waiting on an upgrade before playing this game. You'll enjoy it a LOT more if you play it the way it was meant to be played (and meant to look). My second time through with the game has been a lot more enjoyable overall.

My 6800 gt didn't do very well with this game. Turning off shadows on that generation of cards seemed to help me get it running at a decent framerate, but it didn't look that great and I gave up, uninstalled and put it back on the shelf for the time being.

Try getting the latest patch - the game runs so much smoother than it did at launch or even 3 months ago.

Also, the game seems to run really poorly at the intro of the game (after the tutorial), even after the patching - but when the chapter begins and you leave town performance improves tremendously. Before that it's a slideshow.

So don't judge the game performance by that first 1/2 hour or so of gameplay.