Soft Crashes: Seeking Optimization Advice

[Chongo]

NWN seems to keep freezing up with an error message, and while I'm able to get back into the game within a few seconds... it's annoying.
 
 Can one of the smart folks tell me if there are any settings I can alter? I seem to remember something with pagefile memory or something that I'd adjusted on the old computer.
 
 And the computer I'm running is this below... so I'm wondering why NWN has been crashing so much as of late. It hasn't been nearly as bad up until just recently... and to be fair I've been travelling with larger groups that seem to have a lot of archers on the fringe for common camera roll crash... but geez. It's silliness crashing 5 times in one night with a new machine.
 
 [SIZE=10]High-Performance Liquid Cooling: Alienware® Standard System Cooling [/SIZE]
 [SIZE=10]Power Supply: Alienware® 700 Watt Multi-GPU Approved Power Supply [/SIZE]
 [SIZE=10]Graphics Processor: Single Graphics Processors - 320MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800 GTS - Superclocked! [/SIZE]
 [SIZE=10]Processor: AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 6000+ Processor w/ HyperTransport and Dual Core Technology [/SIZE]
 [SIZE=10]Memory: 2GB DDR2 Performance SDRAM at 800MHz - 2 x 1024MB [/SIZE]
 [SIZE=10]Motherboard: Alienware® Approved NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI Motherboard [/SIZE]
 [SIZE=10]Operating System (Office software not included): [/SIZE][SIZE=10]Genuine[/SIZE][SIZE=10] Windows® XP Professional [/SIZE]
 [SIZE=10]Desktop Tuners and Remotes: Media Center upgrade options are not available with Windows XP Professional. [/SIZE]
 [SIZE=10]System Drive: Single Drive Configuration - 250GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7,200 RPM w/ 16MB Cache [/SIZE]
 [SIZE=10]Optical Drives : Single Drive Configuration - 20X Dual-Layer DVD±RW w/ LightScribe [/SIZE]
 [SIZE=10]Enthusiast Essentials: Dual High Performance Gigabit Ethernet Ports [/SIZE]
 [SIZE=10]Sound Card: High-Definition 7.1 Performance Audio - Standard [/SIZE]
 [SIZE=10]Video Optimizer: AlienAdrenaline v1.0: Video Performance Optimizer - Only Compatible with Windows XP![/SIZE]
 [SIZE=10][/SIZE]
 
 Any suggestions would be appreciated. I am running high textures, I usually have shadows and grasses turned off, and I only have the first four advanced video option boxes checked.  Oh.. I also run through a D-link router.  No clue how it works but it hasn't been a problem before.

[lonnarin]

If you ever have problems with crashes do to over-processing where your character skips around the screen way too quickly, night and day cycles whizz past, enemies vanish, etc.  AMD released a dual-core optimizer driver that prevents most of those sorts of crashes.  http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/utilities/AMD_Dual-Core_Optimizer_113.zip

For the most part though, I find any system running windows starts off clean then gradually becomes horribly unstable within 6 months to the point where I have to back up my data and do a fresh reinstall.  In particular, if you find that you're crashing due to a particular spell or when you enter an area, sometimes just reinstalling the hakpacks helps, unless the corrupted file is in the base NWN engine, then it's the painstaking task of reinstalling all those disks and reentering all those CD keys.  I seriously remember most of the digits of my CD key by heart now.

If even that doesnt work, the full reinstall of windows... *gulp*.  I believe I've spent over 200 hours of my life staring at blue screens.

The router shouldn't be a problem at all unless you're getting solid server time-out boots.  If the program itself is crashing, then it's very unlikely to be the router, and more likely to be a product of hak files being corrupted on the drive, engine files for NWN being corrupted or just the sheer volume of malicious spyware Microsoft regularly sends us to monitor our thoughtcrimes.

[Blackguy]

I got the same thing. Its when you spin the camera around, and have people doing sneakattacks in the border of your screen or just outside it. If you stick close to people you fight with, you can avoid it.

[miltonyorkcastle]

Same prob here. Spinning Camera Crashes (TM).

[Weeblie]

Ironically: Vista

It looks like the prefetch ability and a huge amount of RAM is cutting down the load times of models, sometimes a contributing factor for crashings (my theory of why the horse crashes are so common).

[Chazzler]

it MIGHT also be a graphic card driver problem, I had much crashes with my Nvidia (ASUS made) 8800GTS 640MB with the drivers they supplied with the CD that comes in the package. Also with varying other driver-versions.

You could try these drivers out, and see if they help: GeForce Release 175

[s0ulz]

Under XP my NWN did all sorts of wonderful things like crashing from camera turns, crashing on area loads and then not allowing me back in for hours etc. I usually believe that there are things causing this, but with NWN, I really am starting to believe it's all a matter of luck whether it runs or not.

It's most likely a GFX glitch though, so give Chazzler's drivers a run.

[Blackguy]

Word of advice. the later drivers from Nvidia provides a bug in the toolset, that dont allow you to do anything there at all. Nothing to do except than to switch to a earlier driver, if you get this bug.

[Chongo]

We'd still be in v2 were that the case thankfully.

[Filatus]

You can try the override to revert the animations back to pre-HotU, this fixes the animation crash from sneak attacks. Which.. I think might be similar to archers on the edge of your visual range (just guessing there). I used this one until the new cloaks were added.

Animation FIX for HotU -- Neverwinter Nights 2 Vault

This one supposedly works with the cloaks, though I'm not sure if it fixes the animation crash.

Old-Style Walk/Run Animation with New Cloaks -- Neverwinter Nights 2 Vault

[Chongo]

Yeah, the animation fix was the old trick, then one of the patches completely botched it.  The animation fix was actually critical for PvP servers as you'd crash to SD's all the time.
 
 Has anyone tried the new one with success?

[Eight-Bit]

I have found that assigning NWN to run on just one core causes a lot less stress, even though the game doesn't know how to hyperthread.

Or it could be luck. Who knows for sure.