Extreme performance problems

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Hi, I'm new to the forums as you probably all can guess. I'm hoping that someone here has experience with running IWD, (no expansions, version 1.06), on a contemporary pc running windows XP.

My install went fine, (I think), but from the very begining of the game it's clear that there are huge performance issues.

The mouse scrolling is choppy, (though it got a little better when I adjusted the scroll speed), the opening videos are a little choppy, and, more importantly, the game engine stuff is **really** laggy/choppy or whatever you'd like to call it. I don't see any graphical anomalies, and the audio from hrothgar was fine at the begining, but my performance otherwise is quite poor. (opening game windows/issuing commands/actualy character movement).

I've also had some problems altering the graphics options, (I tried varying all of the settings, and switching fullscreen on and off caused my pc to lock up each time).


I've never played IWD before, but I'm used to running somewhat older games on windows XP and I've never had a problem quite like this.

I don't know if tech support is this groups' thing necessarily, but I've done some googling on IWD and not come up with any better resources for tech support,

I'm running XP proffessional, sp1. (a dell)
p4 1.8ghz
512mb ram
80gb hd, (~75% empty)
Geforce3 ti200 gfx card (driver version: 6.1.77, detonators or whatever they're called)
And I did the max installation.

I've used the software comptability program in XP to try running IWD under win 95 and 98, and under 640x480... and I've varied most everything else in the IWD options and config stuff.
I'm fairly certain that I meet or exceed all of the reccomended system requirements ;D, however, so I can't figure out how performance could be such an issue unless it's compatibilty problem with xp or some such.

Anyway, sorry for being long winded and no doubt a little redundant, but I like to be thorough.

Thank you for any help you can offer

 

Ugh, I can't imagine playing IWD without the expansion. The incrreased resolution helps a lot. However, there may be a quick fix for you:

Go to the config file in your IWD installation and bump it up to 60 AI updates per second, that will make things a lot smoother. If you have already done that and still experience problems, make sure to tinker with the config file and see if you can turn off 3d Accel. Increasing the cache size to 250MB might help as well.

 

@Sykiron

mister, that's strange. when i played iwd 'twas on my win98 - p2 - 300mhz - 64ram - don't know about graphics ....... and everything went super-duper-smooth

you shouldn't have any problems getting this game a running.

1.) is iwd the only game where this perfomance problem occurs ?
2.) definitely increase cache size. you have enough space for 500mb
3.) in the iwd-config-program set the stats to "minimum-pc" and see what happens
4.) check for lovely virusses, worms etc.

and afaik there's no compatibility problem with xp

 

Well my system isn't up to specs for current games, so I do have performance problems with stuff like kotor if I crank up the visuals...

But no, nothing like this. And I don't think it could be a virus, because I'm not having any general performance issues with windows, (and I've been playing some other more system intensive games recently).

Also, I will bump up my cache size, thank you, but I was under the impression that the cache was only used for loading areas, so I didn't think it could solve this problem. And I don't have a "minimum-pc" option, or any default options for that matter, in my config window. (either that or I blindly looked right over them)

Maybe you only have that option with the config system for the expansion version? Anyway, I did however try reducing the graphics settings to their absolute minimum via the in game graphics options, and it barely had any effect, if at all.

Thanks for the help though, I'll see if upping the ai speed and increasing the cache size make a dent in it tommorow, I'm too tired now to bother with it.

thanks

 

Have you downloaded the newest driver for your video card yet? Or tried the older drivers? Because some of the new driver may not work with this game.

Btw, how well does Baldurs Gate run on your computer?

 

I have the same problem on my computer. This is actually a fairly well known issue with the Infinity Engine... seems its doesnt like newer rigs (the exception being BG2). I remember coming across an article back a few months ago in the Bioware forums that discussed it. Seems Bioware Forums is the place to go for troubleshooting now that Black Isle's toast. Though just imagine that BG is IWD
Anyway, i found this

http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=284804&forum=11&highlight=slowdown

that may help you. if it doesnt, search the Bioware BG forums for things such as 'slowdown'. its a rather popular subjuct so their should be a lot of 'get-fixed-quick schemes for you to try.

 

@Celesialraven: the slowdown on newer machines isn't always true. I run IWD on a AMD Athlon XP 2400+, 512 mb RAM, Ati Radeon 9500 Pro and Windows XP, but I never had performance problems. Except in 2 distinct areas, but there is a fix for this.

 

@greystar: I have the latest drivers, (or ones well beyond IWD's era anyway), but no I haven't tried older drivers. And I've not tried to run BG, (actually I've never played BG, IWD is my first foray into that generation of d&d rpgs).

And thanks for the tip Celesialraven, I'll scan those forums on it and see what I can find. Out of curiosity though, did you ever resolve the problem on your computer?

Thanks again for the help

 

Wait a minute. I have an Nforce2 board, with an XP 2600 and a Radeon 9800pro. Not but a few months ago, I had version 1.06 running just fine. Granted I didn't go all that far with it (I only played to Kuldahar), but it was running perfectly.

I wouldn't think it would be that Geforce3, or the drivers. I think you either have a bad copy, or you have a fundamental issue with your Windows install. Load up DirectX 9.0c and see if that helps any. After that, I'd tell you to do a clean install of Windows.

There is no good reason why the game should not play absolutely outstanding on that machine. The problem is likely with Windows, and you can spend hours trying to "fix" the issue, or spend a couple hours doing a clean install.

 

Unfortunatly my computer still clugs down. Note that the only time i have problems is when an area effect spell gets on the screen. I tinkered with some of the tips on that page and things didnt slowdown as much, making the game at least playable. The problem doesnt happen to everyone, but its common enough for me to say that your windows\whatever have nothing wrong with them. Everyone i know locally has the same problem(some have the original release, some have the box set), so i'm possitive it isnt a case of bad discs.

 

I had the same sort of problem with slowdown on spells and "gore" effects, but once I enabled OpenGL support with the configuration program, it went away.

I also got the "choppiness" effect indicated in that Bioware forum post, but increasing the cache file size seemed to help with that.

Do you have the expansions HoW and/or TotL installed?

[ December 14, 2004, 01:05: Message edited by: Otis ]

 

Neither expansion is installed. Can I install the free download one without HoW? I had gotten the impression that TotL was just an expansion for HoW...

Anyway, as an update I just installed a different virus scanning program and I found a couple of trojans, but nothing else so I don't think they're related to my problem. (haven't had a chance to check yet, I'm midway through finals atm) But I've spent alot of time updating software, new drivers, Direct X c, (from b)... So it wont be a nice controlled experiment but hopefully the sum of all of these changes will have an effect.

Thanks for all of the help, it's much appreciated.

Sykiron

[edit: oh and a clean install of windows is tempting for all of the advantages that fresh installs convey... but I've been working with this copy of windows for years and the thought of trying to track down all that I'd lose isn't pleasant. So I think I'd probably opt not to play this 1 single fiesty game rather than reinstall windows. Thanks for the tip though.]

 

Well I didn't get IWD to work, and I uninstalled it some time ago. I've been meaning to come back and update everyone, since you were all so generously helpful.

Unfortunately I put it off for too long and now I've forgotten the specifics of my final conclusion... Except that it was partially sound related, (cutting out all of the sound fx helped considerably), but it was also clearly dependent on something else as well.

A very recent driver update for my turtle beach santa cruz card did help with some other games, (added sound functionality), but didn't seem to affect the perfomance of IWD at all. My updated my nvidia drivers to the newest update, (which didn't include anything for my card anyway, I think), and that didn't make a difference.

So.. not the most helpful information, I know, but I just thought that I should let all of you know out of courtesy, seeing as how you're the only resource on IWD I could find, it seems best that these forums hold the complete summary of my tribulations.

Thanks again for all of your help.

Good day.

 

For anyone similarly afflicted... I managed to get a BIG improvement in smoothness by adjusting the priority of the IDMain.exe executable to "High" using the task manager in Windows XP. Choppiness thing hasn't bugged me since.

[ January 30, 2007, 04:43: Message edited by: Otis ]