The World of Avlis

I'm building a new pc and reading here and there in the interwebs it seems the ATI video cards are all the rage these days. However, I've been reading that ATI drivers can cause problems with NWN. So I'd like to hear (read? ) people's thoughts.

Firstly, is there an issue with ATI drivers and NWN? if so, is it a big hurdle or more of an annoyance?

Secondly, is there any major hurdles I should be aware of with Windows 7 and NWN? I know there was a minor issue with Vista that was easily overcome, but I like to know these things beforehand instead of being surprised later on.

Thirdly, is it strange that I'm building a brand spanking new pc with the latest or next to latest technology and hardware and my major concern is whether it runs an 8 year old game properly?

I'm running ATI and I have run both. Given the choice, I tend to prefer ATI these days, but mostly for "I like the colour better" reasons than anything technical. The only thing I've ever had to do with ATI is shut off the shiny water... But I can't recall if you still have to... or if I have... *shrugs*

I'm also running NWN with a Sapphire 3850 (relatively new) on a Windows 7 Ultimate box.


Good luck!

For the record, I'm running with an Nvidia GTX260 and get fairly frequent NWN crashes due to graphics driver problems, even with shiny water turned off.

Not had an ATI card at any point, so can't comment on their reliability.

Eklektikos wrote:For the record, I'm running with an Nvidia GTX260 and get fairly frequent NWN crashes due to graphics driver problems, even with shiny water turned off.

Not had an ATI card at any point, so can't comment on their reliability.

ATI used to crash the shit out of me whenever someone came out of stealth, and other such things. nVidia, the later drivers would crash me often, but now I only get the occasional one with uhh 1/11/2010 version of drivers from Windows Update (6.14.11.9621) ...don't know if that'll help you at all, but hey.

Happy NVidia user here. GTX 280, NWN only crashes at dwarftrade.

ATI had issue with some textures up in Kuras/kurathene fiefs IIRC. I'm not sure if those tilesets have been used elsewhere on Avlis at all.

I have only ever used ATI and never had any issues with any of the cards I use.

thanks guys, good to know.

I've never been one to stick to a particular brand for anything, I've just always had nvidia cards because they were the best at the time i was building/upgrading that particular pc.

It seems like ATI is all the rage these days so I guess I'm leaning that way.

Keep in mind ATI is the rage these days because the latest greatest fastest card happens to be made by ATI. Find a card that does what you need to do, different cards do different things better/worse.

Good thing to do is look up benchmarks and comparisons of cards.


http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

(one example)

Look around for specific reviews for the types of games you want to play, etc.

I've always been a geforce fan myself on a personal level though, but it's just a preference. In the end, like Pathos said, get what you need. Both brands are good and won't disappoint you so long as you aim in the general performance area you want/need. (Unless you want absolute top of the line, e-peen material does it actually matter in my opinion.)

thanks again.

I used to be on top of all this hardware stuff, you take a few years away and you get hit with all these acronyms

Grunt wrote:ATI used to crash the shit out of me whenever someone came out of stealth, and other such things.

Bug fixed in Bioware 1.69 update, but if you use the old walk/run animations from ages ago (with flowing cloaks for 1.68 http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Ha ... il&id=6953), the models used were from before that fix. Ironic since the files for that same thing before flowing cloaks were the fix for the stealth crash bug (http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Ha ... ail&id=251), but the update to it for flowing cloaks brought the bug back after 1.69. I still keep the original in a "No Crash" version of my override folder, and it never fails. I can live with the stiffy cloaks. One of these years I'll redo the models using the new ones, and add the extra animations for horsies and long coats .

*Hates the walk/run animations added in HotU*

KinX wrote: Thirdly, is it strange that I'm building a brand spanking new pc with the latest or next to latest technology and hardware and my major concern is whether it runs an 8 year old game properly?

Not really. I have a couple of older games that don't work quite right on my computer (minor video issues) and they aren't as old as NWN. My last computer was too slow though. Go figure. Seems to me like new stuff messes up old stuff fairly often.

Myself I have a Nvidia something or other and the only place I've crashed in neverwinter (for video issues) was in the Drotid swamps. Whatever i have (if i reached to my PC behind my desk) could run FF-XI, Neverwinter, and something else on top of the two of those... although it started getting pretty slow around then. So needless to say i'm pretty happy with it.

whirlin_merlin wrote:

KinX wrote: Thirdly, is it strange that I'm building a brand spanking new pc with the latest or next to latest technology and hardware and my major concern is whether it runs an 8 year old game properly?

Not really. I have a couple of older games that don't work quite right on my computer (minor video issues) and they aren't as old as NWN. My last computer was too slow though. :/ Go figure. Seems to me like new stuff messes up old stuff fairly often.

Go get some of the moldy oldies that paced time off your CPU... it's a race to the you lost screen!

Tel wrote:Go get some of the moldy oldies that paced time off your CPU... it's a race to the you lost screen!

hehe, every now and then I dust off the old gold box games, pool of radiance, curse of the azure bonds, secret of the silver blades and pools of darkness and play through the entire series with the one party.

There's nothing like making a party of six characters out of the original four character classes (only applies to radiance though).

For some reason I have this attachment to PoR, I love that game. The story and plot is just epic. I think I'll be re-playing that one til I've got grey hairs and beyond.

loaded Nwn last weekened on a Win 7 machine with Crossfired 4870's, not a glitch or a hitch.. currently he's put in 20 some hours and hasn't had a crash, we didn't even run it in compatiablity mode or admin mode nothing ... Straight up loaded the game in...updated the game..installed hak packs and tlk's. So no worries
...unless vista still has issues? my Nvidia vista machine has no issues, but i don't know about ati and vista with NWN..

Grunt wrote:

Eklektikos wrote:For the record, I'm running with an Nvidia GTX260 and get fairly frequent NWN crashes due to graphics driver problems, even with shiny water turned off.

Not had an ATI card at any point, so can't comment on their reliability.

ATI used to crash the shit out of me whenever someone came out of stealth, and other such things. nVidia, the later drivers would crash me often, but now I only get the occasional one with uhh 1/11/2010 version of drivers from Windows Update (6.14.11.9621) ...don't know if that'll help you at all, but hey.

We're ( the crossfired machine) and my nvidia machine are running the latest released drivers..( nvidia just had a new set released last week of april) not sure when ATI'ss were last released. in early april i think.... anyhow I haven't had a crash with the newest Nvidia ones..197.45's off of the Nvidia site...... I have noticed My 9800 gtx+oc dosen't have the video anomolies it had for the longest time due to driver issues so they worked for me...give um a shot..

Oh if you don't have Riva tuner or the nvidia eqivalent installed on your machine, your Nvidia card will overheat...they royally screwed the pooch for thier "auto fan setting" it dosen't work your fans will not speed up when you start taxing your card..you need to manually set it through your programing.. mine are set at 80% from start up using riva tuner..
The ATI users i know just set thiers through the catalyst control center ATI provides, All 5 of them set thiers at 75-85% when they game but they do sound like jet engines ( especially the crossfired machines)..

Trole wrote: We're ( the crossfired machine) and my nvidia machine are running the latest released drivers..( nvidia just had a new set released last week of april) not sure when ATI'ss were last released. in early april i think.... anyhow I haven't had a crash with the newest Nvidia ones..197.45's off of the Nvidia site...... I have noticed My 9800 gtx+oc dosen't have the video anomolies it had for the longest time due to driver issues so they worked for me...give um a shot..

Oh if you don't have Riva tuner or the nvidia eqivalent installed on your machine, your Nvidia card will overheat...they royally screwed the pooch for thier "auto fan setting" it dosen't work your fans will not speed up when you start taxing your card..you need to manually set it through your programing.. mine are set at 80% from start up using riva tuner..
The ATI users i know just set thiers through the catalyst control center ATI provides, All 5 of them set thiers at 75-85% when they game but they do sound like jet engines ( especially the crossfired machines)..

This is great info, thanks.

I had riva tuna before, but i had to format and completely forgot to put it back on. That kinda explains some of the issues I'm having right now and why i don't remember having them before.

Trole wrote:fans...set at 80%

Trole wrote: set thiers at 75-85% when they game but they do sound like jet engines

I <3 my passive-cooled ATI 3850!

NayalaGelbert wrote:
I <3 my passive-cooled ATI 3850!

The 9800's not nearly as bad at the 4870's.. I seriously thought they were full of shit when i heard them complain, told the one to bring it over "your old ladys probably complaining cause it's that time of the month".. When he turned up the first jeesh... then he turned up the second. , at least a 20 db jump on noise.. they'd irratate anyone who would be trying to watch a movie near them with thier whirrrr..I appologized to him, He smiled and told me not to worry about it.. because of the noise he got permission to build a computer room!

NWN works fine with Windows 7 64-bit, that's what I run at the moment

I do have an issue, but no idea if it is the ATI card, the ATI card I have, Win 7 64-bit, or a combination of all of them. The game will randomly drop on occasion, which rather annoying, and then start up again and run for hours. I can always tell it's about to drop when one item in the game goes completely blank, like a cloak. I think I fixed this error at one time or another before I upgraded.

I have always preferred nVidia, but my iMac has an ATI card and that seems fine.