Neverwinter Nights 2 [speed issue]

[Dhavaer]

I just got NWN2 for my new computer, and while I like the game much more than the first one, there is a noticeable delay when moving the camera and opening character sheets/inventories/etc. The computer exceeds the minimum requirements (2.8GHz CPU, 6GB RAM, 256MB video card) so I'm not really sure what the problem is. Has anyone else encountered this problem?

[AlterForm]

The graphics engine on NWN2 sucks. It just...sucks. 22 versions and 2 expansions worth of patching have helped it a bit, but it's still horribly unoptimized.

I can't tell you off the top of my head the worst offenders, but anti-aliasing, shadows, water, horizon distance, and maybe texture quality are (I think) the biggest resource hogs.

[Flickerdart]

The graphics engine on NWN2 sucks. It just...sucks. 22 versions and 2 expansions worth of patching have helped it a bit, but it's still horribly unoptimized.

I can't tell you off the top of my head the worst offenders, but anti-aliasing, shadows, water, horizon distance, and maybe texture quality are (I think) the biggest resource hogs.
Shadows are the major thing, for me at least. Not only do they slow down, they also look awful.

[Johnny Blade]

First things first, do you have the newest drivers for your video card installed?

Well, I suppose you have, and if so, I think turning off shadows and bloom effects would (hopefully) help without making the graphics look like total rubbish.

[Dhavaer]

First things first, do you have the newest drivers for your video card installed?

Possibly. The computer is brand new, but it's not connected to the internet yet, so it won't have any drivers that weren't preinstalled on it.

[The Evil Thing]

It's rarely video memory that affects performance, your first port of call should be the card's processor speed.

What's your actual video card model?

That said, your problems don't strike me as something related to video cards: usually you end up with graphical corruption and/or butchered framerates rather than delays under special circumstances.

When you open up your inventory, the computer has to recall something from its RAM and so ends up "thinking". I think it's possible that it's the CPU that's the bottleneck, though obviously this is just an unprofessional observation.

[Dhavaer]

Shadows are the major thing, for me at least. Not only do they slow down, they also look awful.

For me too, it turns out. I turned off shadows and the game runs perfectly now. Thanks, everyone!