Video Card Question

[smass]

Guys - the game looks and plays great at 1024x768 with medium detail on my ATI 9600XT.

No - you probably can't play at maximum resolution and detail - but my subjective opinion (based on my setup and experience with the game) is that the game will look and play great.

If you want to run this game (or any other current generation game) at the highest resolution and detail levels you will need a serious gaming rig. But - I am going to repeat for emphasis - the game will look and play just fine with a 7600GS or a ATI 1600 or 1650.

[DesR85]

Then again, none of those low-to-mid range cards meet the magical 32 fps that will result in a "smooth" game, meaning that 1280 is probably too high a resolution (I assume they had AA turned off for the tests).

I am also quite suspicious of the performance part of the hardware performance guide as well. Normally, 1024x768 should be the optimum resolution instead of 1280x1024 (Don't know why they chose that option). They also didn't bother to test out the lower resolution such as 800x600, which is necessary for those whose computer isn't that high end. If they did, I think the performance would be a lot better.

I think it is better to trust their advice regarding the performance optimisation such as what features to disable to get better performance. I also agree with smass that if you want to play this game with the highest detail and the highest resolution, it is best to get a gaming computer to do this.

[Mordraken]

Well here's the answer to this:

System in both cases was an AMD 3.2+Duron, 1 GB DDR LL ram

With a GeForce FX5900 128 MB card NWN2 ran well with these settings:
800X600, low shadows, medium detail, 0 AA, no reflections, 2 light sources per character. It would run at 1024X768, but it was so slow that it was frustrating to play.

With a GeForce 7600GS 512 MB card, it ran equally as well using these settings:
1280X1024, high shadows, high detail, 2X AA, reflections on, 4 light sources, and a number of other (advanced) settings turned up to "medium".

Overall, it was a HUGE improvement, and the game looks fantastic and runs smoothly. I get the feeling even the Camera works better as it now zooms in and pans out smoothly when I would normally be "outside" of something (like blocked by a wall or something like that). I haven't yet faced a huge battle, but I did take on about a dozen enemies at the same time including about 3 spellcasters, and there was no slow down (except for me pushing the pause button .

I don't know if a 7600GS is the minimum level of card, but since you can generally find it for under $200, I would say it is well worth the investment.

[smass]

Good to hear. I am quite happy with frame rates with my older 9600XT at 1024x768. A 7600GS or ATI equivalent is a great solution for this game. The game plays very well with a 2.0Ghz processor or higher, 1 gig of ram or higher, and at least an ATI 9600 or Nvidia 6600 or better card. And quite frankly, if you don't have at least those requirements, you aren't going to be playing very many other newer games either.

NWN is no more (or less) of a resource hog than most newer games.