Hardware usage

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Tue Oct 24, 2000 6:42 am

I was just wondering what most peoples computer power is when playing BG2.

Mine is a Celeron 466 GeForce 256 DDR.

Does anyone find screwing around with the configs any kind of help to performance (beyond what would be expected).

[This message has been edited by Mr Sleep (edited 12-21-2000).]

Maurice · Post by **Maurice** » Tue Oct 24, 2000 7:40 am

I have a AMD-K6 2, 350 MHz. I also have 'only' 64 MB memory. I've been looking into getting it up to 128 MB.

By the way, regularly (about once every few hours of gameplay) I suddenly get dumped back to windows. No error message, no nothing, I'm just back at my desktop, and BG II is no longer running. Just to prevent another screw-up, I usually reboot before restarting the game.

There are times when I have no problems at all, sometimes it happens 2 or 3 times in a day. Luckily I save very often. I don't have this happening to me with other games. Any ideas??

(My own idea is that it is simple lack of memory. My brother has 128 MB memory, and he had it happen to him only once).

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Tue Oct 24, 2000 7:56 am

I have 128MB and the only time i have had crashes is when trying to look at items, mostly this happened in the Saughin (i think thats right) city.

Randyt · Post by **Randyt** » Tue Oct 24, 2000 7:57 am

HP Pavillion 450.

BG2 has never crashed on me. Amazing considering BG crashes on me very, very often....

Bordin_Steelaxe · Post by **Bordin_Steelaxe** » Tue Oct 24, 2000 8:10 am

I run the game with a PIII 500, TNT2 32 MB and 196 MB RAM. Though I must add that my processor is slower than a PII 450, weird aye?

Anyway, screwing with the configuration can help if you find the "vital" spots to screw with

I for one have the game running in a 1024*768 Fullscreen 32 Bit 3D Accelerated configuration. I felt that the 3D Animation option slowed the game a lot, so I turned that one off, since I don't even know what it does, so I must admit that I don't miss it in any way.

For the real performance boost you need to alter a few settings in the gameplay menu.
Having the game cache on a high value helps a little, everything over 500 MB is good (I use 700). Turn down the Path nodes to a 20k or so and turning off the advanced pathfinding is a great help indeed (which makes the chars slightly dumber though). Turning off the footstep sounds is also a good idea (since you won't miss it that much). If you have an EAX compatible soundcard but the game is running slow I would recommend to turn it off since it slows the game a lot, too.

Btw... Now I was mentioning EAX. Anyone who is running this option has encounter a blue screen under windows (yeah, the one you REALLY hate

) while entering a new area or when saving the game? I get that one once in a while, but I don't have the feeling that it does anything, it just says that there has been an error and then I won't see it again untill I restart my system and play BGII again. (I had the same "problem" when playing BG).

With your problem Maurice I really don't know. It could be the memory thing you mention and it sounds very logical. I have had that one once.

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Bordin Steelaxe
The greatest Dwarf in history!... with an axe of steel

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Tue Oct 24, 2000 8:21 am

I have an EAX soundcard and in BG1 it used to be like race against the saves. When i saved manually it was usually okay - note usually means a fair amount of time was spent crashing - whenever i autosaved it used to crash immeadiately after.

Do you know that crahing can make a game exciting, Simcity 3000 used to crash every 20 minutes or so which meant there was some kind of challenge.

Although it still ticks me off

Nighthawk · Post by **Nighthawk** » Tue Oct 24, 2000 12:43 pm

I'm running on a AMD Thunderbird 800 with 128Mb and a GEForce GTS 32MB. I have all the options maxxed although I'm only at 800x600 since I thought 1024x768 would be a bit small on a 19" monitor

I actually got it installed on my old computer, but it wouldn't run (6x86 P200+).

I have only occasional lock-ups with one exception. When I sleep outside there is about a 50% chance it'll crash.

Bordin_Steelaxe · Post by **Bordin_Steelaxe** » Tue Oct 24, 2000 1:17 pm

I have a 19" monitor, too...

1024*768 isn't too small, it's just fine, and doesn't even slow the game that much, so I would suggest you do that instead of 800*600....

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Bordin Steelaxe
The greatest Dwarf in history!... with an axe of steel

Hannwaas · Post by **Hannwaas** » Tue Oct 24, 2000 1:41 pm

I'm using a PII 266 Mhz (embarrassing) 64 MB RAM.
I also get that stupid bug where the game just stops without an error msg or anything, just back to windows, though it's not often at all, I can live with it.

King In Yellow · Post by **King In Yellow** » Tue Oct 24, 2000 2:04 pm

Running a PIII 700 with 256 megs of ram and whatever 16MB 3d card was in the machine when I bought it. I have only had it crash once and I think I was in the keep fighting the Troll lord guy. It was fine with me when it crashed cause I was about to die anyway. I turned off the 3-d acceleration and am running it at 800-640 or whatever that is....seems to run much smoother than BG1 which crashed all the time even on this PC.....

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Wed Oct 25, 2000 5:18 am

Does performence differ largely between super fast machines and there lame - eg my celeron - counterparts?

If so has anyone noticed improvments with AMD machines.

Godfather · Post by **Godfather** » Wed Oct 25, 2000 7:40 am

I'm using a PII 233 MHz with 128 MB Ram and a Elsa Erazor III. Runs pretty well (except for 3D animations).

tigergutt · Post by **tigergutt** » Wed Oct 25, 2000 8:54 am

I think there is a problem with the AMD K6-2 processors( not with the processors , but with bg2)

Maurice, the second poster on this topic, have the same problem as me, the game just exciting to windows without any obvious reason.

I have also had this problem with other games based on the "bioware infinity engine" (planescape, Icewind-dale)

Anyone have a clue as how to prevernt these "crashes"?

Maurice · Post by **Maurice** » Thu Oct 26, 2000 5:44 am

I never played Planescape: Torment, but I did play Icewind Dale (can't wait for the expansion). I do recall having had the same crashes with IWD, but not nearly as much as with BG2. Perhaps also because I finished IWD in about a week, and BG2 in about two weeks.

It also did happen last year, with BG1, but back then I had either a Cyrix 150+ processor, with 48 MB, or a real Pentium 166, with 48 MB, don't recall exactly which one anymore. I can only assume it has to do with memory size, and cache size (mine is currently about 300 - the standard setup anyway - IIRC).

Tigergutt, what's you memory- and cache size?

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Thu Oct 26, 2000 5:48 am

He might br right about the Cache size i currently have mine set at 600 and i haven't had a crash in a while.

Cyphus · Post by **Cyphus** » Fri Oct 27, 2000 2:22 pm

CPU: p3 650cu fcpga
H/S: Golden Orb
Motherboard: Asus p3v4x
RAM: 128mb pc100
GFX: Geforce 2 mx 32mb
HDD: udma66 maxtor 17gb
Yamaha CDWR 8 8 24 E scsi on an adaptec ava2904cd card

800x600 all graphics options on (to make it look good that is not the ones that make it look worse) and I get some jerkiness with a lot of people present, e.g. the mithrest inn jerks a fair bit, no problem with most combats though

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well, i screwed up, missed a head off the flail of ages, missed some other items, and started again. WAAAAAAAAAAAAHWAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[This message has been edited by Cyphus (edited 10-28-2000).]

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Mon Oct 30, 2000 8:26 am

That is one hell of a system and even that struggles at times strange that.

PS i am very Jealous

Yuusuke · Post by **Yuusuke** » Mon Oct 30, 2000 9:00 am

I'm running a dual pII-400 on a SuperMicro board,
with 256 megs of ram,
30 gig harddrive WD, tho only 400 megs freespace left

.
Voodoo5500 AGP
Win 98/NT4, run bg2 in Win98

and the game still runs like crap! Anyone have any idea why? I used hardware 3d acceleration and all that but during certain spells or cities, there's a total decrease in framerate. Cities like the Underdark and Sahuagin City of Caverns were complete nightmares to explore because of the framrate I was getting. I don't even have most of the other goodies turned on like advanced pathing and all that other stuffies.

Bordin_Steelaxe · Post by **Bordin_Steelaxe** » Mon Oct 30, 2000 10:37 am

I think there is one simple answer to your question, but I'm unsure...

I don't think that BGII supports dual processors, so it takes your machine as a PII 400 => crappy performance. The only games that support dual processors that I'm aware of right now are Q3 and UT, or am I totally wrong there?

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Bordin Steelaxe
The greatest Dwarf in history!... with an axe of steel