224 replies to this topic

[Thad]

Okay, I tried the PC version of NWN2 on my machine via Boot Camp and the difference is unbelievable. Using the same minimal settings I'd been using on the Mac side (1024x768, low textures, no shadows, linear filtering, horizon about halfway, all eye candy off), the frame rate was, on average 2.5-3 times as high as the Mac version.

In the PC version I have found the following settings very playable ("playable" = average frame rates consistently at or above 20 fps, even outdoors with lots of people around): 1024x768, high textures, low/med shadows (depending on the area), anisotropic (high) filtering, horizon at maximum, and all eye candy turned on except water effects and far shadows.

The difference is really spectacular -- the PC version of the game plays so much smoother and looks dramatically better. I don't know what accounts for the massive discrepancy in performance on the Mac side -- I know Mac ports are often somewhat sluggish compared to the originals, but seriously -- 2.5-3 times slower? I don't think that's up to Aspyr's usual high standards.

(I should also say that on the PC side, I am using the latest ATI Catalyst drivers for the X1600 -- the OS X drivers for this card are very far behind. And also, by default the X1600 runs at a higher clock and memory speed in Windows -- for some reason, Apple has dramatically underclocked the X1600. So perhaps some of the Mac version's sluggishness isn't Aspyr's fault.)

[Cain]

Well, I just picked up my copy and I can't seem to find an option to enable anti-aliasing. Apparently the PC version received anti-aliasing in patch 1.3 but I can't seem to find it in the the Mac version. Is it not available?

[gmfeier]

jgwdoc, on March 7th 2008, 09:55 AM, said:

Just got my copy but haven't had the time to play yet. On the MacPro, did you turn any graphic features off or did you just accept what the game gave you for medium settings?

I've been playing around with it some more. Still runs fine with high textures and render grass enabled.

[Thad]

Cain, on March 7th 2008, 10:49 PM, said:

Well, I just picked up my copy and I can't seem to find an option to enable anti-aliasing. Apparently the PC version received anti-aliasing in patch 1.3 but I can't seem to find it in the the Mac version. Is it not available?

Nope -- no AA available on the Mac side (though I shudder to think how poorly the game would perform if you turned it on).

[Cain]

Thad, on March 7th 2008, 08:36 PM, said:

Nope -- no AA available on the Mac side (though I shudder to think how poorly the game would perform if you turned it on).

Wow, that's just sad. Now I know I should have picked up the PC version. Oh well, I think I may sell my Mac version and pick up the PC Gold edition in April for the same price. The game runs fine on my rig (2.8 GHz Quad Core, 512 MB Nvidia 8800) but the lack of support Mac gaming is receiving (ie. up-to-date drivers) has me asking why pick up an inferior version for twice the price?

[Sargiel]

Just to point out that Mask of the Betrayer does give distinctly improved performance on the PC side regardless of patch versions - so I'd expect the Mac performance to perk up in comparison when Aspyr port it for us (please !!).

[Crunchy in milk]

Sargiel, on March 8th 2008, 12:31 PM, said:

Just to point out that Mask of the Betrayer does give distinctly improved performance on the PC side regardless of patch versions

That's entirely down to better area design.
The nwn2 oc start point (west harbor fair) is one of the most performance hungry areas in the game.

[Sargiel]

Actually I'm really impatient to get my hands on the Mac version of the game now and see for myself. Amazon.co.uk have updated their release date to March 28th ..  

[bryanzak]

Pre-ordered through Amazon
Paid for priority shipping

Game is not compatible with my Mac Pro with its 8800 GT card. WTF. The game immediately crashes on startup 100% of the time. I filed a bug report with Aspyr and got this bs response:

"Unfortunately the NVIDIA Geforce 8800 video card in the new Mac Pro is not supported for NeverWinter Nights 2 .  This video card was not around during the development of the game and so we could not test it.

This issue has been brought to our attention previously and we are in contact with Apple to try and find a solution."


Amazing that the developer would write "directly to the metal" so-to-speak. I thought that's why we had OpenGL and drivers so developers wouldn't have to rely on coding for specific graphics cards. Needless to say, after pre-ordering NWN2 through Amazon, getting priority shipping only to have a game that is worthless and won't work on my machine is very disappointing.

And here we are March 10th and there's still no solution. How long has the 8800 GT been available now?

Very frustrating.

[GlendaAdams]

The 8800 was released by Apple in January.  So it's been out for for 6-8 weeks (not sure when those Mac Pro's shipped to the day).  This was after NWN2 was at final candidate and code frozen.  So there really was no way to test it on the 8800.

It's not an issue of coding "directly to the metal".  NWN2 is a standard OpenGL application.  Unfortunately, the Mac has had some recent problems with initial video card drivers for new cards being a little unstable.  The 8800 is likely a victim of this.  Also, NWN2 uncovered some pretty tough problems with a few of nvidia's drivers (one of the reasons we had to drop support of the 7300 completely), and I wouldn't be surprised if the 8800 was being bit by those as well.

We are actively working with both Apple & nvidia, and in the past they've been good about getting issues cleaned up and new drivers released, it's just hard to know what the time frame will be.  I still hope somewhere down the road we can add the 7300 back in as a supported card, not to mention the 8800.

Glenda

bryanzak, on March 10th 2008, 05:42 PM, said:

Game is not compatible with my Mac Pro with its 8800 GT card. WTF. The game immediately crashes on startup 100% of the time. I filed a bug report with Aspyr and got this bs response:

"Unfortunately the NVIDIA Geforce 8800 video card in the new Mac Pro is not supported for NeverWinter Nights 2 .  This video card was not around during the development of the game and so we could not test it.

This issue has been brought to our attention previously and we are in contact with Apple to try and find a solution."
Amazing that the developer would write "directly to the metal" so-to-speak. I thought that's why we had OpenGL and drivers so developers wouldn't have to rely on coding for specific graphics cards. Needless to say, after pre-ordering NWN2 through Amazon, getting priority shipping only to have a game that is worthless and won't work on my machine is very disappointing.

And here we are March 10th and there's still no solution. How long has the 8800 GT been available now?

Very frustrating.

[Cain]

Hey Bryan, NWN2 works on my Mac Pro with the Nvidia 8800 without any problems. Have you updated to 10.5.2 and installed the Leopard Graphics update?

Also Glenda, why was anti-aliasing support dropped for the Mac version? Is there any chance we'll see it in a future patch?

[bryanzak]

Cain, on March 10th 2008, 11:15 PM, said:

Hey Bryan, NWN2 works on my Mac Pro with the Nvidia 8800 without any problems. Have you updated to 10.5.2 and installed the Leopard Graphics update

Yes I have all recent software updates. In the bug report I filed with Aspyr I included the crash log - it crashes VERY early and 100% of the time and all the company responses have been the same: the card is not supported and has problems. So I'm not quite sure how you manage to get it working.

GlendaAdams said:

The 8800 was released by Apple in January. So it's been out for for 6-8 weeks (not sure when those Mac Pro's shipped to the day). This was after NWN2 was at final candidate and code frozen. So there really was no way to test it on the 8800.

It's not an issue of coding "directly to the metal". NWN2 is a standard OpenGL application. Unfortunately, the Mac has had some recent problems with initial video card drivers for new cards being a little unstable. The 8800 is likely a victim of this. Also, NWN2 uncovered some pretty tough problems with a few of nvidia's drivers (one of the reasons we had to drop support of the 7300 completely), and I wouldn't be surprised if the 8800 was being bit by those as well.

We are actively working with both Apple & nvidia, and in the past they've been good about getting issues cleaned up and new drivers released, it's just hard to know what the time frame will be. I still hope somewhere down the road we can add the 7300 back in as a supported card, not to mention the 8800.

So if you have known for 6-8 weeks why do you not have something in your knowledge base about the problem. The fact that I find out only by going through the trouble of installing it and dealing with the crashing and then reporting it and the getting a response that it's a known problem. If it's a known problem, document it so people can be aware of the issue. I would NEVER have purchased the game had I known it would not work on my computer. I find it distasteful that there is STILL nothing on your site saying that it's not compatible.

6-8 weeks and no patch. Frustrating. Though I guess you're saying this is an Apple issue (or Apple/nVidia) and there's nothing you can do about it. And now you're saying "you still hope" to support the 8800 - the latest, greatest, fastest video card Apple has. Yeah I feel great about this purchase.

And you say it's a standard OpenGL app, yet the crash is so hard, and so early in the launch process. I find it hard to believe it's all that standard. Otherwise what you're saying is that Apple's drivers for the card are incredibly buggy, so much so that no other app or game is exposing the problem that NWN2 instantly exposes (and apparently can't be worked around). You say "the 8800 is likely a victim of this." and "I wouldn't surprised if the 8800 was being bit by those as well" - that makes me think that you don't even know what the problem is. Now maybe that's appropriate for your role - maybe you wouldn't have intimate knowledge of the problem. But if you don't, then how can you say this is an Apple bug? Or an nVidia bug or that NWN2 is a good OpenGL citizen?


I don't know. I'm frustrated by this. I really can't remember EVER purchasing a brand new game for a current top-of-the-line machine and basically found out I installed 6.25 GB of ... nothing.

[smurfk1]

I just installed NWN2 on my MacPro and am also having difficulty. My ATI x1900 512mb card should handle the load, but I don't know. Anyway, I get into the game, but I always crash at the fair. Isn't that always the case!? Anyway, performance if fine until it freezes. I just submitted a support ticket with Aspyr, so I'll let you all know what I learn.

On a brighter note, as far as I can tell, the graphics and performance are both pretty good on my machine, even at 1920x1200. But then again, you really shouldn't need 4 cores to run a game.

[Eric5h5]

bryanzak, on March 11th 2008, 12:34 AM, said:

Otherwise what you're saying is that Apple's drivers for the card are incredibly buggy

Yes, this is true.  Apple's drivers have been pretty lousy lately.  For example, I know some apps have to specifically disable stuff (which they shouldn't have to) in order to run on the GMA X3100 without crashing or displaying stuff completely wrong, given the current state of the drivers.  I wouldn't doubt that NWN2 is standard OpenGL.

--Eric

[jgwdoc]

smurfk1, on March 10th 2008, 10:55 PM, said:

I just installed NWN2 on my MacPro and am also having difficulty. My ATI x1900 512mb card should handle the load, but I don't know. Anyway, I get into the game, but I always crash at the fair. Isn't that always the case!? Anyway, performance if fine until it freezes. I just submitted a support ticket with Aspyr, so I'll let you all know what I learn.

On a brighter note, as far as I can tell, the graphics and performance are both pretty good on my machine, even at 1920x1200. But then again, you really shouldn't need 4 cores to run a game.

I'm having no problems at all, running on medium settings on my MacPro. Same card as yours. 4GB RAM, though.

[Silver Samurai]

Game looks soo purdy, but looks like I'll have to keep plugging away on my NWN1. Unless if someone has a PC version and is willing/able to try it out on a MacBook/Mini via Bootcamp?

But ya I have little hope. lol

[Tacohead]

GlendaAdams, on March 10th 2008, 07:16 PM, said:

We are actively working with both Apple & nvidia, and in the past they've been good about getting issues cleaned up and new drivers released, it's just hard to know what the time frame will be.  I still hope somewhere down the road we can add the 7300 back in as a supported card, not to mention the 8800.

Well here's one 7300 user who would buy NWN2 if you did support it. Thanks for trying.  

-PN

[msykes]

Silver Samurai, on March 11th 2008, 08:53 AM, said:

Game looks soo purdy, but looks like I'll have to keep plugging away on my NWN1. Unless if someone has a PC version and is willing/able to try it out on a MacBook/Mini via Bootcamp?

But ya I have little hope. lol

People on the NWN2 forums have gotten different patch versions working to different extents on some of the integrated intel chipsets like those in the MacBook and Mac Mini.  However, the results haven't been very good, and I'm not sure if the most recent patches still work.

I think it's best to stick with NWN1.

msykes

[jgwdoc]

OK. Now I'm playing this thing and I have a few practical questions. First of all, are any of you having problems with the camera mode? In NWN1, if you held down the middle button and turned the mouse, the character and camera turned with you. In NWN2, the camera turns, but the character snaps back to the original position as soon as you let go of the middle button. I had to program other mouse buttons to make the character turn. Have any of you folks found a solution to this, or am I missing something obvious(USB Overdrive is off, by the way)? Also, I don't seem to be able to bash trunks open in NWN2. The option is not offered to me when I click on a trunk or armoire. Is that a new thing for NWN2, or is there some little menu I'm missing?
Edit: Apparently, I have to hold down the right click much longer, and then I get the option to bash a trunk.

[Thad]

jgwdoc, on March 11th 2008, 05:28 PM, said:

Have any of you folks found a solution to this, or am I missing something obvious(USB Overdrive is off, by the way)?

For just running around, I use Character View with the camera set to follow the direction the character is facing, and then use keyboard movement keys for movement etc. For combat, I switch to Strategy View, where the camera is not linked to the direction the character is facing.

jgwdoc, on March 11th 2008, 05:28 PM, said:

Also, I don't seem to be able to bash trunks open in NWN2. The option is not offered to me when I click on a trunk or armoire. Is that a new thing for NWN2, or is there some little menu I'm missing?

Right-click and choose "bash" from the contextual menu. Be aware that bashing trunks will break some of the items inside.