Upgrading my PC

albonia · Post by **albonia** » Mon Jun 20, 2011 6:24 am

It seems that my Motherboard is on the way out. So i need to think about a replacement the replacement would be Motherboard, CPU and maybe the Graphics card, have the case, memory, and HDD/DVD player. I am asking for advice now because i had a bad experience a couple of years ago with a new GPU a Zantac 9800 GS.

It seemed the card would run other games with no problem but as soon as i tried running NWN it locked it within a minute and the only option was to reset the PC. I tried a number of thing suggested but none of them worked. And after a lot of hassle i eventually ended up returning the GPU as faulty maybe it was maybe it just did not like NWN.

So I am asking for is what kind of set-up people are using to run NWN now so i know what i buy should run NWN. I usually go with AMD and Nvidia. But maybe its time to change and go for Intel or whatever. The games i play are usually the older games. So i don't need cutting edge components really.

Zombie · Post by **Zombie** » Mon Jun 20, 2011 8:47 am

Honestly, if your running older games, there int any real reason to upgrade your graphics card. However if you get one of the ones with hdmi output that passes sound through that as well you can hook it up to a big tv and sound system and run nwn at a stupid size

If you like I can let you know what I have in my PC as it kicks the snot out of NWN, plays fallout 3 and dragon age nicely and will be cheap enough.

My MB is for a core2 duo cpu so its a bit older as well.

Grimm · Post by **Grimm** » Mon Jun 20, 2011 7:22 pm

I would not recommend Nvidia Geforce 400 or 500 series cards at the moment. The architecture on the fermi cards does not support all the open gl extensions used in NWN. Customers have been waiting for a fix for the past year and a half (a few months myself). The driver fix has been pushed back several times, and is now scheduled for the beginning of July.

This is the current thread for the issues http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?show ... 88517&st=0

Tremayne7 · Post by **Tremayne7** » Mon Jun 20, 2011 9:43 pm

I had an NVidia card in my PC and it was the biggest pain in the arse. I couldn't run NWN for almost a year as I had to get new graphics card. AVI (I think that's right I can't remember what is currently in there) runs much better.

Gregpooh · Post by **Gregpooh** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 8:23 pm

Tremayne7 wrote:I had an NVidia card in my PC and it was the biggest pain in the arse. I couldn't run NWN for almost a year as I had to get new graphics card. AVI (I think that's right I can't remember what is currently in there) runs much better.

My lovely wife means an ATI card, and yes, the Nvidia card drivers did horrible things to NWN.

VIpAcT · Post by **VIpAcT** » Wed Jun 22, 2011 5:10 am

I have not done this for myself yet. But I'm finding more and more that having a laptop as your main PC is starting to make sense.

It costs a little more, you won't be able to get all the bang for your buck---but for older games it could work.

That way you could move your station away from your big screen setup for a little and sit next to an open window. Or even better, leveling a new amazon warrior while on the throne---make a DM event at a coffee shop or while traveling.

Just a thought (or a protip?).

Xanthalas · Post by **Xanthalas** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 5:52 pm

VIpAcT wrote:I have not done this for myself yet. But I'm finding more and more that having a laptop as your main PC is starting to make sense.

It costs a little more, you won't be able to get all the bang for your buck---but for older games it could work. ...

I have been thoroughly impressed with the performance of NWN and similar games on current laptops, even with the on-board graphics processors. I picked one up for an associate of mine, and they asked me to put it through it's paces, so I loaded up a rendering of a large 3d architecture file, loaded up a data-analyst routine (data modeling that was processor heavy) then loaded up NWN and played it up front. The background processes finished without failure, and NWN never even slouched at me. (Graphics cranked nearly all the way up.) I might pick up an old refurb just to do exactly this, to leave my large computer to handle my work intensive projects.

Doug Danger · Post by **Doug Danger** » Fri Jun 24, 2011 12:21 am

VIpAcT wrote: Or even better, leveling a new amazon warrior while on the throne--.

Bahahaha! hahaha!..... Oh shoot dude that made my day.....!