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 Home  Forum Index Neverwinter Nights 2 NWN2: Technical Support (Self-Help) NWN2 Running Slow? Obsidian's Guide to Better Framerates
NWN2: Technical Support (Self-Help)
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Nathaniel Chapman
Assistant Producer
Joined: 13 Dec 2004 |
 Posted: Monday, 20 November 2006 09:17PM |
INTRODUCTION
What follows is a guide to some of the things you can do to increase the graphical performance of Neverwinter Nights 2. Keep in mind that these are just suggestions for various things you can do and settings you can alter in order to increase the framerate. It is important to note that changing graphical settings to increase the performance can have a negative effect on the quality of the graphics. It is encouraged that you play around with the various settings in order to settle on a balance between performance and visual quality that you find agreeable.
WHAT ELSE CAN BE GOING ON?
The following are some things you can do outside of Neverwinter Nights 2 to improve its performance.
Applications running in the background: While playing Neverwinter Nights 2, having some non-critical applications also running can seriously reduce the amount of system resources available to run the game. This could be especially important to lower-end systems. A few examples could be downloading music, running other games, having a spreadsheet open, etc.
Miscellaneous Hardware: Unplugging non-critical hardware such as cell phones, bluetooth devices, controllers and external video devices can also free up resources that would otherwise be unavailable to the game.
Dual core CPUS and dual video cards: Sometimes, turning off the extra CPU or video card (SLI or Crossfire modes) can lead to an increase in performance.
SYSTEM SPECS USED
The machine used for most of this guide contains the following hardware:
Intel Pentium D 2.8GHz CPU
1GB RAM
nVidia 7800GT 256MB Video Card
THE BIG 5
The following five settings have been found to have the greatest impact on the framerate. Of course, depending on the makeup of the area that you are in, some could yield little results, or even none at all.
Resolution: Adjusts width and height of the screen. As a general rule of thumb, the smaller the resolution, the greater the framerate given the same graphical settings. However, in most cases, going below 1024x768 will not significantly increase the framerate, if at all.
Shadow Options: This setting alters the amount and type of shadows drawn. On some systems, this can have a very significant effect on the performance of the game. Changing this setting to either Low or None can double your framerate, maybe more.
Point Light Shadows: Allows shadows to be cast from point lights (torches, fires, etc.). This options only affects areas that have a significant amount of light sources. Indoors areas usually have the greatest negative impact on performance as they are more likely to be lit by torches, fires, etc. By turning this option off, it is possible to have a significant increase in your framerate.
Water Reflections and Water Refraction: Enables reflectivity and detailed refraction of water, respectively. As with the Point Light Shadows setting, these two options have varying effects depending on the area you are in. Only areas that have water in them will affect the framerate. Also, the more water you have visible on-screen will mean a greater performance drop in the framerate. Turning either or both of these off can yield a significant increase in framerate.
Normal Mapped Terrain: Enables normal mapping on terrain textures, increasing the lighting detail on terrain. Only outdoor areas are affected by this setting. Turning off this setting and can have a very noticeable effect on the framerate.
AND THE REST...
Below is a quick rundown of the possible effects the settings not listed above can have on your experience with Neverwinter Nights 2. It is important to note that depending upon the type of hardware in your system and also the design of the area you are in, some effects will be more or less noticeable than what is stated.
Texture Resolutions: Dictates which size texture set to use. There is usually a negligible difference between Low and Medium. There is, however, a small decrease in performance on High.
Draw Distance: Allows you to bring the far clip pane in closer for better performance. There isn't any remarkable difference in performance between 100 and 300. Once you start dropping below 100, that's when you can start seeing a noticeable improvement. The dramatic difference comes in around 65 and below.
Full Screen: Whether or not to play the game in Full Screen mode. Playing the game in Full Screen mode should yield a slight increase in framerate over playing in Windowed mode.
Softer Shadows: Softens the edges of shadows. No discernible difference when Shadow Options set to None or Low (as expected). Very slight drop in fps on Medium and High.
Character Shadow Map Size: Size of the shadow map used for detailed character shadows. Used for characters within a certain proximity of the camera. Also used for point light shadows. When Shadow Options is set to None or Low, there will be no difference in the framerate. When Shadow Options is set to Medium and High, a negligible difference exists between 512 and 1024. Changing this setting to 2048 can have a small impact in the framerate. Having the Point Light Shadows set to ON can greatly increase the impact of this setting, depending upon the number of point lights near the camera.
High Res. Env. Shadow Map: Size of the shadow map used for environmental objects further off in the distance. Only affects framerate when Shadow Options set to High. 2048 has a small drop in framerate. 4096, on the other hand, can drop the framerate considerably.
Low Res. Env. Shadow Map: Size of the shadow map used for environmental objects closer to the camera. Only affects framerate when Shadow Options set to High. 2048 has a negligible difference in fps. 4096 drops the framerate a little bit.
Bloom Effects: Enables "Bloom" effect which softens lighting and edges. Can have a negligible to a very slight drop in fps with most video cards.
Enable Light Sources From Party Members: When enabled, any light sources that are active on a party member will be displayed even when you aren't actively controlling that party member. When Shadow Options is set to off, this will have a negligible difference in framerate. The higher the Shadow Options setting, the greater the drop in framerate. Also, it depends on how many characters you have in your party, as well as the equipment they are wearing.
Texture Minification Filtering: Minification filtering controls how a texture is interpolated when a scene pixel maps to multiple texture pixels (i.e. the texture has less than a one-to-one correspondence with the screen). Very small difference in framerate, even when set to Anisotropic and the Maximum Texture Anisotropy (see below) is set to High.
Texture Magnification Filtering: Magnification filtering controls how a texture is interpolated when a scene pixel maps to less than one texture pixel (i.e. the texture has greater than a one-to-one correspondence with the screen). Negligible difference between Point and Linear. Anisotropic can have a very small impact on the framerate when Maximum Texture Anisotropy (see below) is set to High.
Mip-map Filtering: Mip-map filtering governs how the video card blends between two different mip-maps. Negligible difference in framerate between None, Point and Linear.
Maximum Texture Anisotropy: No difference in framerate unless either Texture Minification Filtering or Texture Magnification filtering is set to Anisotropic, at which point the difference is usually very small.
Number of Lights per Object: This setting determines the maximum number of light sources that will influence each object in the game. The difference between the available options is negligible.
EAX Settings: Sometimes, disabling EAX can improve game performance.
SUGGESTED SETTINGS
Below you will find settings that have been suggested by our testing staff for various video cards. Keep in mind that these are only suggestions for settings and that different system configurations will yield results that deviate from those indicated for a specific video card. The number shown in parentheses after the video card is the average framerate (measured in frames per second) experienced across various areas in the Neverwinter Nights 2 Campaign.
ATI 9800 256MB (20-30fps):
Shadow Options - OFF
Texture Resolutions - LOW
Normal Mapped Terrain - OFF
Point Light Shadows - OFF
Softer Shadows - OFF
Character Shadow Map Size - 512
High Res. Env. Shadow Map - 1024
Low Res. Env. Shadow Map - 1024
Bloom Effects - OFF
Enable Light Sources From Part Members - OFF
Texture Minification Filtering - POINT
Texture Magnification Filtering - POINT
Mip-map Filtering - NONE
Maximum Texture Anisotropy - LOW
Water Reflections - OFF
Water Refraction - OFF
ATI X1300 256MB (20-30fps):
Shadow Options - OFF
Texture Resolutions - LOW
Normal Mapped Terrain - OFF
Point Light Shadows - OFF
Softer Shadows - OFF
Character Shadow Map Size - 512
High Res. Env. Shadow Map - 1024
Low Res. Env. Shadow Map - 1024
Bloom Effects - OFF
Enable Light Sources From Part Members - OFF
Texture Minification Filtering - LINEAR
Texture Magnification Filtering - LINEAR
Mip-map Filtering - POINT
Maximum Texture Anisotropy - LOW
Water Reflections - OFF
Water Refraction - OFF
ATI X1600 512MB (30-40fps):
Shadow Options - LOW
Texture Resolutions - HIGH
Normal Mapped Terrain - ON
Point Light Shadows - ON
Softer Shadows - ON
Character Shadow Map Size - 1024
High Res. Env. Shadow Map - 2048
Low Res. Env. Shadow Map - 2048
Bloom Effects - ON
Enable Light Sources From Part Members - ON
Texture Minification Filtering - ANISOTROPIC
Texture Magnification Filtering - ANISOTROPIC
Mip-map Filtering - LINEAR
Maximum Texture Anisotropy - HIGH
Water Reflections - OFF
Water Refraction - ON
ATI X1900 512MB (30-40fps):
Shadow Options - LOW
Texture Resolutions - MEDIUM
Normal Mapped Terrain - ON
Point Light Shadows - ON
Softer Shadows - ON
Character Shadow Map Size - 512
High Res. Env. Shadow Map - 1024
Low Res. Env. Shadow Map - 1024
Bloom Effects - ON
Enable Light Sources From Part Members - ON
Texture Minification Filtering - LINEAR
Texture Magnification Filtering - LINEAR
Mip-map Filtering - POINT
Maximum Texture Anisotropy - LOW
Water Reflections - ON
Water Refraction - ON
nVidia 6800GT 256MB (30-40fps):
Shadow Options - LOW
Texture Resolutions - MEDIUM
Normal Mapped Terrain - OFF
Point Light Shadows - OFF
Softer Shadows - OFF
Character Shadow Map Size - 1024
High Res. Env. Shadow Map - 2048
Low Res. Env. Shadow Map - 2048
Bloom Effects - ON
Enable Light Sources From Part Members - ON
Texture Minification Filtering - ANISOTROPIC
Texture Magnification Filtering - POINT
Mip-map Filtering - POINT
Maximum Texture Anisotropy - LOW
Water Reflections - OFF
Water Refraction - OFF
nVidia 7800GT 256MB (30-50fps):
Shadow Options - LOW
Texture Resolutions - HIGH
Normal Mapped Terrain - OFF
Point Light Shadows - OFF
Softer Shadows - OFF
Character Shadow Map Size - 1024
High Res. Env. Shadow Map - 2048
Low Res. Env. Shadow Map - 2048
Bloom Effects - OFF
Enable Light Sources From Part Members - ON
Texture Minification Filtering - ANISOTROPIC
Texture Magnification Filtering - LINEAR
Mip-map Filtering - LINEAR
Maximum Texture Anisotropy - HIGH
Water Reflections - OFF
Water Refraction - OFF
CONCLUSION
Please remember that this guide you've just read is merely a starting point to better the performance of Neverwinter Nights 2 for you. As visual quality varies greatly from person to person, there will undoubtedly be settings that you may not wish to lower or turn off in order to maintain graphics that appeal to you. If you're still having trouble with performance, check out the section in the readme file entitled, "11. Contact Information and Technical Support."
We hope you enjoy playing Neverwinter Nights 2 as much as we have enjoyed making it. | 
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asrealda
Game Owner
 NWN
NWN: SoU
NWN: HotU
NWN 2
Joined: 01 Jul 2002
From: Cleveland, OH |
Posted: Monday, 20 November 2006 11:48PM |
Ok, why am I seeing as low as 8fps with an Athlon 64 x2 4200+, Geforce 7600GS (both running overclocked and stock), and 2GB of ram? nwn.ini is as follows:
As you can see I'm running with everything turned off and my resolution is just above your cutoff of 1024*768. A system that far above minimum, and quite a bit above recommended shouldn't be seeing 8fps, period. All drivers are up to date and all windows XP SP2 patches applied.Edited By asrealda on 11/21/06 00:03 | |
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Visceral
Game Owner
 NWN
NWN: SoU
NWN 2
NWN 2: MotB
NWN 2: SoZ
Joined: 17 May 2002
From: Austin, TEXAS |
Posted: Monday, 20 November 2006 11:52PM | |
Awesome, thanks for the explanation on those. I've added this thread to my tweak guide listed in my sig. | |
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eping
Game Owner
 NWN
NWN: SoU
NWN: HotU
NWN 2
Joined: 22 Aug 2002 |
Posted: Tuesday, 21 November 2006 12:23AM |
I'm getting the same problem as asrealda with pretty much the exact same system. I have tried basically all possible combinations of settings and shadows is the only thing that makes ANY differce (FPS drops by 2 between Low and High).
I still get 9-11 FPS only.
I've tried everything listed in this guide, nothing has helped. | |
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Rrats17
Game Owner
 NWN 2
Joined: 02 Nov 2006 |
Posted: Tuesday, 21 November 2006 12:28AM |
I have an almost identical system, the only difference is my vid card is an evga 7800GS 256MB AGP card, and I have tried all those recommendations and more and still I am stuck at 11-15 FPS. In the City of Neverwinter I bog down to 7-11 FPS and in the country side I can actually get to around 25FPS. At 25FPS the game runs fine but 7-11 in Neverwinter has made game tough to play.
Thank you for the guide but I fear that for a lot of us there is something else at play here.
Here is my system:
Dell Dimension 8300
Pentium 4 CPU 2.8GHZ (2CPU's) HyperThreading
2GB RAM
eVGA GEFORCE 7800GS 256MB AGP
As you can see it is very similar to your test system and I do not get any where near 30-50 FPS with the same exact settings as you.
What would you advise?Edited By Rrats17 on 11/21/06 00:41 | |
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Chanjari
Game Owner
 NWN
NWN: SoU
NWN: HotU
NWN 2
Joined: 02 Nov 2006 |
Posted: Tuesday, 21 November 2006 12:47AM |
"nVidia 6800GT 256MB (30-40fps):
(yada yada yada)
Character Shadow Map Size - 1024
High Res. Env. Shadow Map - 2048
Low Res. Env. Shadow Map - 2048
(yada yada yada)"
Thats not the options I get, mine are
Character Shadow Map Size - 512 or 1024
High Res. Env. Shadow Map - 1024 only option
Low Res. Env. Shadow Map - 1024 only option
Now, in the INI files I found some lines that have been ;REM'd out that have 2048 in them, removing the ; did nothing.
_________________
"When you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
SYSTEM SPECS
============
Gigabyte 7AVXP, AMD Athlon XP 2700+, 1.5 GB RAM (PC3200)
Vista 32 bit/XP SP2
Geforce 6800 128MB (DXDIAG says 519 M | |
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Zandes
Game Owner
NWN
NWN: SoU
NWN: HotU
NWN 2
NWN 2: MotB
NWN 2: SoZ
Mass Effect PC
Joined: 11 Mar 2006 |
Posted: Tuesday, 21 November 2006 01:11AM |
AMD Athlon64 X2 4200
Sapphire Radeon x1900xt (overclocked at 648 core 774 mem, i think those are the frequences of the xtx?)
1gig corsair xms2 twinx pc6400 (800mhz)
Warcats 6.10 drivers with optimized nwn2 game profile
the game runs great (20-30fps in city, 40-60 fps outdoor/dungeons) with:
1280x1024, Medium shadows, textures set on high, character shadows set on 1024 and everything on except water reflections/refractions...
i think those unofficial drivers helped a lot, with standard catalyst 6.10 i had horrible framerate with shadows on...give it a try! | |
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eping
Game Owner
NWN
NWN: SoU
NWN: HotU
NWN 2
Joined: 22 Aug 2002 |
Posted: Tuesday, 21 November 2006 01:38AM | |
You guys with dual-core... when nwn2 is running, Alt+Tab out of the game and check your processes. See how much CPU nwn2 is using. Mine never ever goes above 50% of the CPU. Maybe here is the culprit for me? | |
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asrealda
Game Owner
NWN
NWN: SoU
NWN: HotU
NWN 2
Joined: 01 Jul 2002
From: Cleveland, OH |
Posted: Tuesday, 21 November 2006 02:19AM |
Quote: Posted 11/21/06 01:38 (GMT) by eping
You guys with dual-core... when nwn2 is running, Alt+Tab out of the game and check your processes. See how much CPU nwn2 is using. Mine never ever goes above 50% of the CPU. Maybe here is the culprit for me?
Windows counts CPU % as percentage of total available CPU cycles, so on dual core 50% is the same as 100% on a single core but there is cpu left over to run background processes and handle interrupt requests. I have tried setting the processor affinity mask to each core (thus simulating a single core system) and it makes no difference. | |
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Dashmin Fleetfoot
Game Owner
 NWN
NWN 2
Joined: 28 May 2002 |
Posted: Tuesday, 21 November 2006 05:28AM | |
Finally a response. A genuine thanks is in order. However, no help here. Thanks anyways. | |
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Pyrion
Game Owner
 NWN
NWN: SoU
NWN: HotU
Jade Empire:SE
NWN 2
Mass Effect PC
Joined: 11 Jun 2002
From: Poway, CA |
Posted: Tuesday, 21 November 2006 06:10AM |
Quote: Posted 11/21/06 01:38 (GMT) by eping
You guys with dual-core... when nwn2 is running, Alt+Tab out of the game and check your processes. See how much CPU nwn2 is using. Mine never ever goes above 50% of the CPU. Maybe here is the culprit for me?
I would think running the game windowed alongside an open Task Manager window would tell you more about how the game performs when it's actively rendering than, say, when the gpu no longer explicitly has to render something to the screen. | |
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theshadowcult
Game Owner
 NWN
NWN: SoU
NWN: HotU
SW: KotOR PC
Jade Empire:SE
NWN 2
Mass Effect PC
Joined: 30 Aug 2005 |
Posted: Tuesday, 21 November 2006 07:10AM | |
Obsidian is not going to answer this thread guys... its JUST a suggestion thread, its NOT a this will deffinately work thread... | |
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ArgonPryde
Game Owner
 NWN 2
Joined: 27 Sep 2006 |
Posted: Tuesday, 21 November 2006 10:40AM |
Quote: Posted 11/21/06 07:10 (GMT) by theshadowcult
Obsidian is not going to answer this thread guys... its JUST a suggestion thread, its NOT a this will deffinately work thread...
yeah it will work if you just lower things that impact the most BUT....
after seeing this....
ATI X1900 512MB (30-40fps):
Shadow Options - LOW
Texture Resolutions - MEDIUM
Normal Mapped Terrain - ON
Point Light Shadows - ON
Softer Shadows - ON
Character Shadow Map Size - 512
High Res. Env. Shadow Map - 1024
Low Res. Env. Shadow Map - 1024
Bloom Effects - ON
Enable Light Sources From Part Members - ON
Texture Minification Filtering - LINEAR
Texture Magnification Filtering - LINEAR
Mip-map Filtering - POINT
Maximum Texture Anisotropy - LOW
Water Reflections - ON
Water Refraction - ON
It's a joke...the ATi X1900 is one of the most powerfull cards to date and i have the X1800XT...and look at the settings..if you really have to turn it down to this point ...something is badly wrong with the NWN2 code.
I can run every other game with max Antistropic and AA settings with HDR switched on (if supported by a game) ..shadows at max and have 60+ fps...can't tell me that NWN2 surpasses other games this far in visual quality because of such a poor framerate on high end cards | |
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agustusx
Game Owner
 NWN
NWN: SoU
NWN: HotU
SW: KotOR Xbox
Jade Empire
NWN 2
NWN 2: MotB
Joined: 05 Jan 2002
From: Somewhere USA |
Posted: Tuesday, 21 November 2006 01:33PM | |
BTW, I found cutting of water effects helped my performance even in areas where no water was visible. The performance increase was about 10-15 FPS. | |
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nicnik
Game Owner
 NWN
NWN: SoU
NWN: HotU
NWN 2
Joined: 22 Sep 2003
From: London |
Posted: Tuesday, 21 November 2006 02:47PM |
Of Course there's a problem, according to that list the x1600 512MB is the top spec ATI card; all settings are far superior than the x1900 and same fps. Just look at it.
And believe it or not; these 30-40 fps may look nice. But wait until u go into multiplayer online. It's pretty much half itself. So 30-40 halved will be ok, but for people that typically have 20-30 in the OC, dont even bother playing multiplayer servers. coz when there's over 10 PCs on the screen doing stuff, ur screwed unless u use drive camera and avoid looking at them.Edited By nicnik on 11/21/06 14:56 | |
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