Demo questions.
 

Hi there. I'm new so first I'd like to say hello to everyone.

I'm playing the demo and so far I like the game. It's quite charming with the parchment and pencil drawings on the inventory and character screens. And the world graphics are nice. And single player RPGs (I'm not interested in MMOs) are so rare that it's a shame to let any slip by. I really hope the game is a success.

Anyway I have a couple of questions if you'll indulge me, and forgive me if any have already been covered.

I almost didn't bother trying the game because looking at the screen shots I didn't think it would run well enough. I haven't upgraded my system since Oblivion came out and I've given up on buying new games. But I was pleased to see it runs fairly smoothly, at least in the beginning. So my first question is can I expect the level of performance to stay consistent throughout the game, or does it get more demanding as you go on? Also I'm concerned v-sync is on, it would help the frame rate with it off, is there a way I can check that?

Is it possible to increase the camera rotation speed? The camera rotates quite slowly, and the Camera Sensitivity slider in the settings doesn't seem to have any effect.

Can you adjust the zoom rate for zooming in and out with the mouse wheel? The increments are too great and I'm either zoomed too far in or too far out.

I'll probably have more questions as I go on. Thanks very much.

Leadtek WinFast PX 7800 GTX TDH (182.08 driver)
Windows XP
Athlon dual core 4600+
2 gigs RAM

The game runs pretty consistent for me. No area is really any different performance wise.

I don' think there's an option for v-sync in game, but if you're using an nVidia card (or any type of card for that matter) you should have a control panel of some sort where you can force v-sync off.

I believe there's an article somewhere about tweaking settings of the game, but I can't seem to find it. It was kinda involved though and I don't know if it also applies to the demo. Sorry, I can't find it or maybe I'm just imagining it :(

G'Day and welcome. Your biggest hassle will be getting a copy of the actual game as it's not planned for release in Aus or NZ. Baa I say. :) Changing mouse sensitivity I find makes a HUGE difference; I have mine at about 4.5. I'd suggest trying to download the game from one of the reputable sites; Shagnak did that and he lives in NZ. The game itself is far better than the demo, but requires no extra resources. If the demo runs well, so will the full game. Enjoy.

Actually a local webstore, Mighty Ape has imported some.

I'm not sure I understand about changing mouse sensitivity. I want to change the sensitivity of the mouse wheel so you can zoom in and out in smaller increments. I tried changing the setting in windows control panel but it didn't have any effect in the game. Is that what you meant?

Ta very much.

You can set the mouse sensitivity IN GAME. Look under options or whatever.

Mouse sensitivity (somewhere in Drakensang's options menu) should change the smoothness of the mouse motion.
The zoom levels are hardcoded, they cannot be changed.
You can select the character you want to zoom to. The RMB is used for adjusting the vertical camera position.


The performance is constant ca 95% of the time. The full version has better graphics though (high res textures), so it's a little bit slower. Not much though, maybe 3%.

For me the low res texture didn't show better performance than the high res and I found the low res quite good. So if the high res textures cause a problem I would suggest to try the low res textures, both are possible with the full version.

Thanks very much for the input. I decided to buy the game, and while I await it's arrival I've been pondering the character I'd like to play. I usually go for a rogue/thief type because if I see a locked chest I've just GOT to get into it. But I kinda like the elf warrior. So I was wondering if it's possible to put points into any skill you choose or must you stick to your class? For instance if I'm playing an elf warrior can I give him lock pick?

I admit I didn't spend much time playing around with the skills or talents and things, not having the manual to refer to.

Thanks very much.

The manual can be downloaded. Link in another thread.

A right-click on spells etc. gives some information.

You can right-click on almost everything in the game, I think.

Remember this is a multi-character game. You don't need your 'character' to be everything, as you will have companions who can do it for you. There are two companions that are natural 'lock-pickers', and you can buy the skill for any other companion or yourself. So, in summary, just play the character archetype you like the best, and whatever he/she can't do, the companions will.
Having said that, I recommend your character to be a caster, as the pure caster companions show up later than the others (and actually, I think there's only 1 pure caster companion), but again, you can be whatever you want, it's just more convenient for the first 25% or so of the game imho.

I'd agree; it's best to play a caster char like a battlemage for early versatility. 2 of your first three possible NPC companions are rogue type chars while 2 of your first 4 are tanks.

I tried running the game demo on a computer

AMD Athlon 3700+
2 GB of ram
geforce 7800 GTX

which is acctually well above min. requirements, and most of them is same as or surpass recommended one except for the processor.

But it ran unplayably slow even on the lowest possible graphics setting and low resoultion. It also looked very bad.

I have read about this behaviour. Some computers just seem to have this, but I don't remember any solution. Please ask in the official forums or at least look around there.

Maybe your graphics card is too slow or so ?

I do not think so the minimum system requirements is a Geforce 6600 GT which is much slower than a 7800 GTX…….

Okay, I didn't have the minimum requirements in my memory … I was rather thinking of the number of shaders available, or the version number of them, so to say.

The recommended card is a 8800GT.

Here it says 8600 but maybe this info is wrong…. anyway I guess the recommended ones are more like the minimum ones to make it playable.

It's not. I've read of people who say the game is perfectly playable with old video cards. I don't remember the settings, but have you tried running it windowed vs. full screen? Try disabling sound in the game's settings just in case the problem is coming from that, etc.

8600 is correct. Seems dtp changed the text on the box. Before that a 8800GT was communicated as sufficient for full details. My experience with the slightly slower 9600GT hints that this is right.