NWN Mini-Mini Review

Post #48,984 by altmann 8/11/02 2:46:03 AM Reply	NWN Mini-Mini Review It sucks. I can't keep it running for more than 5-10 minutes. Can't take it back to the store. Too bad. It looked promising. -- Chris Altmann
Post #48,989 by folkert 8/11/02 8:58:22 AM Reply	Did you run the update-Update? Did you... also run it in 1024x768x32bit? That is where it was "spec'd" at... Also What Video card you running? Up date the Drivers... as it NEEDS the lateest feature available in the Video Card Drivers... Also Update DirectX..... Or you can just wait for the Linux Client to come out... I know $60 is a chunk man... If you running W2K Defrag the Drive.... GRIN `greg - Grand-Master Artist in IT, curley95@attbi.com -- [link\|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry/\|REMEMBER ED CURRY!!!]`
Post #49,005 by altmann 8/11/02 4:35:51 PM Reply	Yup-Yup Updated the game first thing. After it crashed a few times I updated the sound card drivers (SBLive value). Still crashed. Updated the (Nvidia GeForce2 Ultra)video drivers (they were only a month old but new ones came out a few days ago). Lasted longer, but still crashed. I even reinstalled DirectX from the NWN CD. Resolution was 800x600x32 as recommended by the setup program. I suppose I could try other resolutions or turn off features. System is a AMD 1.2GHz with 768MB RAM running w2k with aforementioned SBLive and GeForce2 Ultra. I've had other games (Warcraft II and DungeonSiege) reboot the system, but it would only happen after extended play, and in the later case, seemed to be EAX (sound) related. The NWN problem happens very quickly into the game. The errors are of this style: Application popup: Neverwinter Nights v1.22.6729: nwmain.exe - Application Error : The instruction at "0x0d7be9f0" referenced memory at "0xffeffe4e". The memory could not be "written". Click on OK to terminate the program Click on CANCEL to debug the program I take it that is w2k's version of the "Illegal Operation", GPF, UAE errors of Windows' past? I worry it might be heat related. Its been hot here and I haven't had the AC running this weekend. Maybe the game is pushing my system hard enough to affect stability? Maybe I'll turn up the AC and see if things change. PS: Were you just kidding about the w2k defrag or ... -- Chris Altmann
Post #49,017 by folkert 8/11/02 6:46:51 PM Reply	No kidding,,,, W2K is just as bad about a fragmented drive as NT4. It causes anomalies that cannot be explained... I defrag twice a week... with Norton Speedisk at ~1AM... I have a threshold of 5% or greater fragmentation. It is amazing how much better my system runs with it. I forgot I had disabled it... and could not explain why some of my games would just STOP responding... Unreal Tournament, Quake3 Arena and Ultima Online all were bombing regualrly... Then I install NWN and Jedi Outcast... They thrashed upon install and updates... I re-enabled Speed-disk they settled down the next play... UT, Q3A, UO, NWN and JO are doing very well and playing better than ever... Also try "memtest86" a bootable Diskette... it'll test all your Memory and tell you what it any problem it has... `greg - Grand-Master Artist in IT, curley95@attbi.com -- [link\|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry/\|REMEMBER ED CURRY!!!]`
Post #49,032 by altmann 8/12/02 2:32:32 AM Reply	Memtest86 found something Hey, whaddya know. Got a whole slew of errors on Test 5. From what I've read, getting lots of errors on this test is not always just a sign of bad RAM. It can also signal an incompatibility between the RAM and the MB, especially with AMD Via chipsets. I'll have to do some musical DIMMS and see what happens. Interestingly, When I upgraded from my original 256MB, the system wouldn't boot with 2 512MB DIMMS. So I returned one and combined the other with my current RAM. Perhaps the problem was related. I might want to investigate available BIOS updates too. Also, Jay's suggestion below about SB cards and via chipsets may warrant attention. Anyways, thanks for the tip. Welcome to the future!!! -- Chris Altmann
Post #49,322 by altmann 8/14/02 5:24:36 AM Reply	Update: NWN No Longer Sucks :) The problems Memtest86 found seemed to have been the cause of my NWN problems. I'll describe what I did in Hardware and a guess at the cause when I get a chance. The short of it is that it seems that my MB can't handle all 3 DIMMS being installed. When I take one out, no errors and NWN runs fine. I can live with 640MB till I figure out a way around the problem, if I bother. Thanks for the tip. I guess I'm too used to blaming these kind of problems on the sofware. Bill has trained me well. -- Chris Altmann
Post #49,360 by folkert 8/14/02 2:25:14 PM Reply	Beware... the addiction... no really... The addiction and REPLAYABILITY factors are something come to grips with... This game is the BOMB. It is just entirely to hard sometimes... sometimes you gotta get the timing JUST right... else you DIE! or fail period... Really something... There are TONS and TONS of side jobs or quests.... I tried to get all of them done... some are mutually exclusive some can be done at the same time... other yet will not be evident until you "bump" into the char ad the "notice" something about you... These guys have TOOOOOO much time on thier hands... `greg - Grand-Master Artist in IT, curley95@attbi.com -- [link\|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry/\|REMEMBER ED CURRY!!!]`
Post #49,365 by a6l6e6x 8/14/02 3:07:37 PM Reply	Does your mobo come with monitoring software or does the.. BIOS allow you to see the power supply voltages your mobo has. Could your power supply be marginal for all the hardware you've got running? Maybe you need to beef up your power supply. Alex "Television: chewing gum for the eyes." -- Frank Lloyd Wright
Post #49,369 by inthane-chan 8/14/02 3:46:12 PM Reply	That's not it. He's probably using "unbuffered" DIMMs - IIRC, most DDR motherboards won't take memory in the third slot without errors unless all three chips are buffered - and since that kind of memory is more expensive... I could be wrong - I'm just remembering some stuff I saw some other people talking about once a couple months ago. There are 10 types of people. Those who understand binary, and those who don't.
Post #49,391 by altmann 8/14/02 6:42:05 PM Reply	No DDR here (unbuffed PC133), but I'll keep that in mind. -- Chris Altmann
Post #49,395 by a6l6e6x 8/14/02 7:21:32 PM Reply	Motherboard manual should talk to this. Alex "Television: chewing gum for the eyes." -- Frank Lloyd Wright
Post #49,392 by altmann 8/14/02 6:45:45 PM Reply	The BIOS Does. I think they were OK. I'll check them again. -- Chris Altmann
Post #49,023 by JayMehaffey 8/11/02 9:02:42 PM Reply	Re: Yup-Yup What motherboard are you running on? Some motherboards for AMD, particularly the VIA ones, have problems with Sound Blaster cards. For most of them you can just update the motherboard drivers but for a few older ones there is no correction but to replace it. With my old motherboard I often had to play around with the sound modes to get games to play smoothly. Some would only work with EAX turned off, other with it turned on, some only in basic sound mode and so on. Jay
Post #49,033 by altmann 8/12/02 2:47:58 AM Reply	Re: Yup-Yup My boards is an MSI K7T Pro2-A (MS-6330). It uses a VIA (KT133) chipset. I've read about those problems. The whole AMD+VIA+SBLive+GeForce combo seems to be a problem for alot of people, though it is a popular combo. -- Chris Altmann

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