Neverwinter Nights problems with Parhelia

[Frankfurt]

Well, i just got a Parhelia.
For some reason, whenever i try to run the toolset i get the message that it can't create a 3d window and the program closes.
I have installed the 230 drivers that were released on July 17th.
I have updated the NWN program to 1.20 and uninstalled/reinstalled NWN.

The toolset is one problem, my other problem is that whenever i try to load a saved game for the campaign that i had from when i was using my previous video card, the module unpacks and loads about 2/3s of the way, then the game crashes to desktop without an error. This problem only seems to happen with my save games becuase when i load a custom module it loads up without a problem. I suppose its possible that the save games are corrumpt, which is probably likely as i was easily able to start a new campaign without any problems. Is there anything i can do to gain access to the files again, so i can at least export my characters (i realize this is probably better posted on the bioware forums, but it doesn't hurt to ask)

Yesterday i installed the Direct X 8.1b runtime. My 3d settings are 16.8 million simultaneous colours, Application requested FAA 16x, applications determine the texture filtering and vsync is determined by the program as well. As far as desktop performance settings i have Glyph AA and Gigabit colors selected.

My hardware config is
Windows XP Professional
SB Live!
<b>Matrox Parhelia</b>
AMD Athlon XP+ 2000
Asus A7V266 Motherboard
768 MB of ram
3COM 905C nic

If you need any more information, just ask

Frankfurt

[Frankfurt]

The reason the toolset wouldn't work was the gigabit color bieng enabled on the desktop settings. i disabled that and it worked fine. and i imagine that the saved games are corrupted.

[leech]

That's a negative on the corrupted save games. It's that the Parhelia has some problems with this game. I have the same problem as you, I can't play the game now because the area that I am saved in is too big or something. There are other posts on here that explain it better. ROM said they're working on a fix. Unfortunately it didn't make it into the newest drivers as far as I can tell.

Leech

[Frankfurt]

Thanks for clearing that up for me leech, to be honest, i was sort of getting the feeling that no one actually came out and flat out said that was happening, so i felt like i was still not fully understanding what was happening.

[Wombat]

R0M talked about it before. The engine tries to use a bump-mapped setup that P doesn't support, or something :?

[R0M]

It's cube mapping and the problem is already fixed, next driver should have the fix,
Regards,

[TdB]

from: http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/t.../feat_summ.pdf

Planar, cubic and spherical environment mapping

I thought parhelia supported cube mapping?

[Kruzin]

Who said it doesn't?
R0M said it is a prolem with cube mapping, and that it is fixed.
He didn't say anything about the card not supporting it.

[Wienerschnitzl]

Originally posted by R0M
It's cube mapping and the problem is already fixed, next driver should have the fix,
Regards,

hi,
do you have (not exactly) an estimate date for that new driver ?
(few days/1week...)

i love NWN but i can´t play - please i just want to know

[TdB]

ahh!

I see.

[leech]

do you have (not exactly) an estimate date for that new driver ?

Yeah, gimme gimme gimme! Oh wait, do I sound like I'm going through withdrawls????

Leech

[Wienerschnitzl]

hi Leech,

i just want to play NWN, is that so hard to understand ?
This waiting for the next driver is really frustrating

[Kruzin]

Coding drivers, putting them through SQA then beta testing them takes time.
Plus, Matrox has more important things to do than cater to a single game issue.
Is that so hard to understand?
This constant whining from people who don't understand how things work is really frustrating

[103er-Fan]

Originally posted by Kruzin
Coding drivers, putting them through SQA then beta testing them takes time.
Plus, Matrox has more important things to do than cater to a single game issue.
Is that so hard to understand?
This constant whining from people who don't understand how things work is really frustrating

Kruzin, no offense to you, but you should also understand the gamers here.
Neverwinter Nights is not just some standard game, it is one of the most popular games out there at the moment and many people waited pretty long for it. Now they have a 400$ (500+$) card and can't play the game, that can be frustrating for them.
Personally I just ordered the game and it will arrive on monday, I hope a driver update or something will be there soon.
But of course it is wrong to rush Matrox, if we would do that we might see some nVidia driver situation here..... let them test the new drivers to make sure that they are working fine.

Wrote by R0M:
It's cube mapping and the problem is already fixed, next driver should have the fix

Is cube mapping needed to run the game? The only other game used cube mapping I remember right now is Colin McRae Rally2 and there you could disable it.
Maybe there is a way to disable CM in NWN, if it's not in the options, maybe it's in some .ini file or something like that

[Kruzin]

Frustrating or not, whining is not going to fix anything.
The card has only been shipping for a few weeks.
The game has not been available much longer than that.
People who think that issues with a new piece of hardware running a new piece of software can be solved with a snap of the fingers are delusional, and not solving a darn thing by crying about it.

We have already been informed that the problem has been fixed.
The drivers will be released when they are ready (soon).