Author Topic: NWN Keeps crashing!  (Read 7814 times)

Budly

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NWN Keeps crashing!
« on: August 18, 2012, 06:04:29 PM »
Reformated computer and NWN just today started to crash a lot.

Whats the options I should not have active to get an stable experience? I have fully forgotten which they are! The water one I know but the rest! :(

Bato

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Re: NWN Keeps crashing!
« Reply #1 on: August 18, 2012, 06:26:14 PM »
The only way I can keep myself from crashing when it gets crashy for me is to turn my textures down to 16-bit and turn off environment mapping.
I'm trill trying to not crash every five seconds when I craft though.

Vissitude

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Re: NWN Keeps crashing!
« Reply #2 on: August 18, 2012, 07:11:02 PM »
I got the Timed Out/ Disconnected


I see it in the list, but FML it won't let me get back in. I don't know what the heck the issue is, I haven't changed anything game wise..and my internet connection is fine.

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Budly

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Re: NWN Keeps crashing!
« Reply #3 on: August 18, 2012, 07:18:41 PM »
Cause now I seem to crash every now and then! I Try that out Bato!

Vissitude, try to unplug your cable if you have a router for a few seconds, helps me! Since I get booted suddenly over nothing.

Bluebomber4evr

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Re: NWN Keeps crashing!
« Reply #4 on: August 19, 2012, 02:40:24 AM »
I recommend turning off shiny water. If your video card has threaded optimization, turn it off for NWN. If your PC has Realtek audio, turn the sound off and then re-enable it in game. Make sure you're only using the basic sound options if you have Realtek, the EAX/environmental audio is buggy with that sound driver.

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Budly

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Re: NWN Keeps crashing!
« Reply #5 on: August 19, 2012, 05:10:13 AM »
I recommend turning off shiny water. If your video card has threaded optimization, turn it off for NWN. If your PC has Realtek audio, turn the sound off and then re-enable it in game. Make sure you're only using the basic sound options if you have Realtek, the EAX/environmental audio is buggy with that sound driver.

My sound provider is this one, Miles Fast 2D Positional Audio....Whatever that is :S

And Threaded Optimization? Never seen that one! Whats that?

Bluebomber4evr

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Re: NWN Keeps crashing!
« Reply #6 on: August 19, 2012, 05:38:45 AM »
Threaded Optimization is a setting on some video cards. You don't necessarily want to turn it off globally for all programs, just for NWN. Your computer should have a program for managing your video card's settings. It looks like this for nVidia cards:



If you have an nVidia card, open up this program and click on "Manage 3D Settings" like it shows int he picture above, then select "Program Settings." You'll probably have to add NWN manually to the list of programs before you can tweak your card's settings for it.

I have no idea what it looks like for ATI cards, though I imagine it's somewhat similar.

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Budly

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Re: NWN Keeps crashing!
« Reply #7 on: August 19, 2012, 07:41:13 AM »
Ah! Thank you, I give that a look if it continues. As of yet, NWN seems a bit more stable.

Talek

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Re: NWN Keeps crashing!
« Reply #8 on: August 19, 2012, 09:39:49 AM »
aren't u supposed to be on vacation in bulgaria? noob :P

Bluebomber4evr

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Re: NWN Keeps crashing!
« Reply #9 on: August 22, 2012, 12:08:03 PM »
I get a lot of crashes too, where it makes my whole computer shut down. After doing a lot of investigating, the most likely culprit is a program that nVidia uses called "Powermizer," which tries to throttle the amount of power your video card uses based on the usage of your PC. The problem is that it's really buggy and is especially buggy with OpenGL, which NWN uses. I just found the below fix on YouTube. I haven't tried it yet, but I will and I'll let you know if it solves my issues.

The author's notes before starting:

Quote
- Have set the Power Management from 'Adaptive' to 'Maximum Performance'
- Have Clean Installed Drivers (removed all previous Nvidia Display Drivers and Installed Fresh ones)
- That your graphics card is NOT damaged or overclocked too high

This requires you to mess with your registry, so before to make a back up prior to attempting what is seen in this video.

[youtube=560,315]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt00C-HXFbA[/youtube]

The link the guy is talking about to the software is broken, unfortunately :(
« Last Edit: August 22, 2012, 12:15:58 PM by Bluebomber4evr »

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Dobian

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Re: NWN Keeps crashing!
« Reply #10 on: August 22, 2012, 04:44:27 PM »
I'm getting a new pc built soon and now I'm getting paranoid!  
« Last Edit: August 23, 2012, 11:24:47 AM by Dobian »


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Re: NWN Keeps crashing!
« Reply #11 on: August 22, 2012, 10:21:41 PM »
Okay, found the program that guy was talking about in the video, although it took awhile. You can download it here: http://nvidia-powermizer-manager.software.informer.com/download/ The main download link is broken, but the mirror link works and I was able to download and run the program. I will test it out over the next few days and see if it solves the problem.

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Re: NWN Keeps crashing!
« Reply #12 on: August 22, 2012, 11:40:45 PM »
...and no dice  :banghead:

Back to the drawing board

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Budly

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Re: NWN Keeps crashing!
« Reply #13 on: August 23, 2012, 04:31:57 AM »
aren't u supposed to be on vacation in bulgaria? noob :P

Whoms in Bulgaria?  :shock:

I never been east of Spain and south of Sweden, ever.

And thanks for those  tips Blue, to bad its no dice :/

Talek

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Re: NWN Keeps crashing!
« Reply #14 on: August 23, 2012, 08:53:51 AM »
aren't u supposed to be on vacation in bulgaria? noob :P

Whoms in Bulgaria?  :shock:

I never been east of Spain and south of Sweden, ever.

And thanks for those  tips Blue, to bad its no dice :/

oops, wrong guy  :oops:

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Re: NWN Keeps crashing!
« Reply #15 on: August 23, 2012, 02:40:35 PM »
I found out the reason the Powermizer Manager doesn't work is because 1. I'm using Windows XP and 2. I have an older nVidia card which doesn't allow for power management options.

So in other words, in order to fix (more like workaround) the issue with current drivers, I need a newer OS and a newer video card.

I'm going to see if I can dust off my previous computer and try running it as a dedicated NWN1 machine, since it has an older video card that I can use on an older driver that's more compatible with OpenGL.

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Dobian

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Re: NWN Keeps crashing!
« Reply #16 on: August 23, 2012, 03:06:55 PM »
I'm keeping my old pc intact when I get my new one just for this contingency!


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Ryltar/ Robert Archer

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Re: NWN Keeps crashing!
« Reply #17 on: August 23, 2012, 09:35:00 PM »
I'm keeping my old pc intact when I get my new one just for this contingency!

ditto my 'old' pc is still newer then nwn and its just fine as it is  :lol:

Bluebomber4evr

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Re: NWN Keeps crashing!
« Reply #18 on: August 24, 2012, 04:20:17 PM »
Yeah, it's really frustrating. Basically the version of OpenGL used by NWN is not 100% compatible with the latest nVidia drivers (series 300+). This means that sometimes the video card will end up taking too long to draw a model (over 2 seconds) and then start trying to use more power to complete the task. GeForce cards use a default power setting known as "adaptive power" which tries to use the least amount of power necessary for any given task. This means that whenever the OpenGL glitch occurs, the card doesn't have enough power to complete its task and it causes a video crash.

Windows Vista and Windows 7 have crash recovery options which prevent this from cascading and causing the whole system to crash, but Windows XP does not. The problem could also be overcome (or at least mitigated) by changing the power settings of the video card from "adaptive power" to "use maximum power" but you can only do that in series 9 GeForce cards and higher (I have a series 7 card).

I've been dealing with this problem for years (since about 2008) and it's only in the last week or so that I've finally figured out what it was. Instead of being enlightening, it's become frustrating because there's no way to solve the problem with my current setup.

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Blacky Rose

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Re: NWN Keeps crashing!
« Reply #19 on: August 24, 2012, 05:14:25 PM »
Yeah, it's really frustrating. Basically the version of OpenGL used by NWN is not 100% compatible with the latest nVidia drivers (series 300+). This means that sometimes the video card will end up taking too long to draw a model (over 2 seconds) and then start trying to use more power to complete the task. GeForce cards use a default power setting known as "adaptive power" which tries to use the least amount of power necessary for any given task. This means that whenever the OpenGL glitch occurs, the card doesn't have enough power to complete its task and it causes a video crash.

Windows Vista and Windows 7 have crash recovery options which prevent this from cascading and causing the whole system to crash, but Windows XP does not. The problem could also be overcome (or at least mitigated) by changing the power settings of the video card from "adaptive power" to "use maximum power" but you can only do that in series 9 GeForce cards and higher (I have a series 7 card).

I've been dealing with this problem for years (since about 2008) and it's only in the last week or so that I've finally figured out what it was. Instead of being enlightening, it's become frustrating because there's no way to solve the problem with my current setup.

Wouldn't downgrading to older drivers solve the issue though? I had a GeForce 7600 back in the day and it ran NWN without problems.
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Re: NWN Keeps crashing!
« Reply #20 on: August 25, 2012, 12:14:11 AM »
Yeah, it's really frustrating. Basically the version of OpenGL used by NWN is not 100% compatible with the latest nVidia drivers (series 300+). This means that sometimes the video card will end up taking too long to draw a model (over 2 seconds) and then start trying to use more power to complete the task. GeForce cards use a default power setting known as "adaptive power" which tries to use the least amount of power necessary for any given task. This means that whenever the OpenGL glitch occurs, the card doesn't have enough power to complete its task and it causes a video crash.

Windows Vista and Windows 7 have crash recovery options which prevent this from cascading and causing the whole system to crash, but Windows XP does not. The problem could also be overcome (or at least mitigated) by changing the power settings of the video card from "adaptive power" to "use maximum power" but you can only do that in series 9 GeForce cards and higher (I have a series 7 card).

I've been dealing with this problem for years (since about 2008) and it's only in the last week or so that I've finally figured out what it was. Instead of being enlightening, it's become frustrating because there's no way to solve the problem with my current setup.

Wouldn't downgrading to older drivers solve the issue though? I had a GeForce 7600 back in the day and it ran NWN without problems.
Then I wouldn't be able to run anything else on my computer, like all the games I have on Steam. I don't really like the idea of going back and forth between drivers.

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Budly

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Re: NWN Keeps crashing!
« Reply #21 on: August 25, 2012, 08:37:24 AM »
Seemingly my problems solved themself somehow! Dont know how but I guess something was in conflict with my NWN.  :(

Reigh

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Re: NWN Keeps crashing!
« Reply #22 on: August 25, 2012, 01:51:11 PM »
Cleaning and fixing your registry for errors, invalid paths.. will also improve your computers performance.

Budly

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Re: NWN Keeps crashing!
« Reply #23 on: August 26, 2012, 05:12:22 AM »
Cleaning and fixing your registry for errors, invalid paths.. will also improve your computers performance.

I had a recent reformation myself, one error went away and another came.

Bluebomber4evr

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Re: NWN Keeps crashing!
« Reply #24 on: August 30, 2012, 12:56:42 AM »
I put a series 9 nVidia card in my computer and guess what? You need Vista or higher to switch from "adaptive power" to "maximize power"! Something that nVidia utterly failed to mention in their help file but have on their website.

Anyone know where I can get a copy of Windows 7 for cheap? :grumble:

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