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I've dragged my roommates into Neverwinter Nights. At first, they each had trouble with the whole GOG issue, but now that that's resolved, one of them is having trouble with their graphics.

No matter what he sets his in game graphics to, the textures and graphics don't seem to change to the better. He can play the game, but it looks -awful-. I've done some quick searchings of the general discussion pages in hopes for finding the answer- but I've had no luck, so apologies if this has already been discussed.

Everything else seems to be in check. Does anyone know any standard solutions to this kind of thing? We're each away on Christmas furlough, so getting his PC specifics isn't going to be entirely easy. Doable, but not easy. I don't think it's his graphics card, as he has no trouble running much higher end games. I'm hoping to have these kinds of issues resolved before Christmas Furlough ends, so we can hop right into it once we get back. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

When I had odd graphics issues it turned out to be NWN switching me back to Default resolution and in doing so turned everything to crap. So make sure his PC Resolution matches his NWN resolution. As far as editing .ini and so forth or actual -graphics- work, I'm not a good person to ask just relaying my experience >.>

Last edited by Hikriss on Tue, Dec 27 2011, 18:31 PM, edited 2 times in total.

As far as his PC details go, have him download this and send you a log (File -> Save as Text File):
http://www.piriform.com/speccy

It'll give you and others all the necessary system information needed to troubleshoot what's going on. By looking "awful", do you mean everything's just at a really low resolution, or are there missing textures or glitches and such? If it's merely a low resolution issue, you can manually set one in the nwn.ini in your game directory, should the in-game option not work for some reason.

Here's what you'll want to look for and edit:

Code:

[Display Options]
Disable Intro Movies=1
Width=1920                 // Change this to his regular desktop width, or use 800 if you want to run it windowed
Height=1080                // Change this to his regular desktop width, or use 600 if you want to run it windowed
BitsPerPixels=32
RefreshRate=60
TexturePack=3
SafeMovie=0
FullScreen=1               // Set this to 0 if you want to start the game in a window of the above resolution, instead of in fullscreen mode
AllowWindowedMode=1
UseLargeFont=0

As said his resolution may be different from my above values (1920x1080), so he'll have to edit it accordingly. Get us a Speccy log and some more details if you can, and we'll find out what's causing problems.

Alright, I'll see what I can do-- Though we've had some trouble initially editing the .ini file due to permission issues. I'm really fairly new to all of this, and all the help I've received so far is especially awesome.

I'll see about returning with those specs.

Alternatively, if you run windowed mode, you don't need to run it 800x600. You can set the resolution to anything smaller than your computer's resolution.

Mr. Hackums wrote:

Though we've had some trouble initially editing the .ini file due to permission issues

That's odd! Right-click the nwn.ini and go to Properties. Make sure that Read Only isn't checked near the bottom, and see if his user account has the necessary permissions to edit the file under the Security tab. Usually there shouldn't be a problem since nwn.ini is neither a system file nor a personal document.

Still need to know if it's just a low resolution (e.g. if the game looks "grainy") or if there's actual graphical oddities such as missing models or textures, since one's easy to fix and the other's a bit more involved.

DerkDerkistan wrote:

Alternatively, if you run windowed mode, you don't need to run it 800x600. You can set the resolution to anything smaller than your computer's resolution.

Very true! I just quoted 800x600 as the smallest supported resolution to be on the safe side, since we're not sure what exactly is causing the problem yet.

Still away from getting the specs. I'll see what I can do.

As for the actual problem, I'd say it's rather low resolution than glitches or blank spots. Everything is visible and functional, just rather "Single textured." Everything is flat-looking, not detailed. If the problem persists to the point of post-furlough, I'll see about getting screenshots.

Is it a nvidia or intel chipset?

If so, make sure mip map/textures et al, all settings for quality vs performance in the driver application are set to maximum quality.

Secondly if its an ATI machine try futzing about with the Catalyst AI.

Mr. Hackums wrote:

Alright, I'll see what I can do-- Though we've had some trouble initially editing the .ini file due to permission issues.

Sounds like permissions to me, but usually in the case of permissions issues it won't launch properly at all. If you are running win 7 you could try to make a custom shortcut to launch the game. Instructions for doing this are on my post here: http://www.amiaworld.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=60005

I haven't forgotten this! It's just been difficult to get a hold of my roommate. Heh.

Okay, so here's a gentle update. Here's what I'm seeing in greater detail, and here's what I've tried so far.

When we start up his game, everything runs smoothly until the entry screen. When there, the "Shadows of Unreventide" logo is really blurred to the point where you can't read anything. Everything else in the menu is fine. Once a game has been started, all the graphics are extremely basic, even when placed at maximum resolution/detail. The Rest menu area has blurred out blocks, the character is composed of broad pixels. The floor is extremely basic. It doesn't seem to lag, or move slowly- It's just that everything is extremely -blurry- or made with simple squares.

What we've done so far is tinkered with the resolutions - To no success. Attempts have been made to put the screen in Windowed mode, which we WERE able to get it into windowed mode, pushing past the permissions. So that was a success. but it didn't fix the graphics issue. We've also tried copying my NWN files to his computer, exchanging CD keys, and playing from my own files- Also to no success. This leads to me believe it's his own computer.

I'll have the system specs by tonight.

Sounds like the issue is with the settings on the video card, I'd say. What make/model is he using? And are his drivers up to date?

I really want to see a screenshot of this, both out of morbid curiosity and for better understanding of what's going on. Print Screen button takes screenies and saves them in your NWN/Screenshots folder as TGA. Open them in Paint.Net or other image editor of your choice and re-save them as JPG, then link 'em here via imgur or whichever you prefer to use.

Blind-guessing, it sounds like whatever graphics driver software you use (ATI's Catalyst or Nvidia's Control Panel) may be forcing settings that NWN isn't okay with, but I'll wait for the specs before going any further. Is NWN the only game that has issues like this?

I had a graphics issue similiar to this recently using Nvidia's current WHQL for my card. Had to go back a few driver versions. Turns out they left out some openGL stuff out of the driver package.

Here's a few screenshots of the disaster. I think the NPC random phrases happen to fit nicely.

And here's a picture of his specs.

It's likely that the Intel integrated graphics isn't up to the job, or the driver support for OpenGL is laughable.

Yep. I'd try a driver upgrade first (probably through Intel's website, since it looks like the graphics are integrated), followed by getting a dedicated video card if that doesn't clear things up. Pretty much any of the relatively current ATI/NVidia cards should run NWN without a hitch.

Hah! We fixed it!

So we had to tinker with the permissions that it kept changing back. Also, we editted the nwnplayer file changing Client CPU Affinity=1 instead of 0, then on the nwconfig file, changing NumCPUs= 1 and Speed=3000.

All done.

Glad you were able to get it fixed I've been trolling this post for some time waiting for an all good.

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