Stutters in cities without FPS loss

Hello.
I was away from NWN because I had an AMD gpu which was not good with OpenGL, but now I changed my gpu and cpu and tried a new module. I noticed that in cities when my character is running the camera stutters, but the framerate don’t go down.
I already removed the development, override and userpatch but the problem continues. It is more present in some modules more than others. Does anyone have any advice?

My system specs:
Intel I7 10700k
MSI RTX 3060 Ti
16GB RAM
Installed on a SSD

Thank you.

While I don’t know if it will make a difference, there is one thing you could try. All versions of NwN only use a single core but nvidia’s gpus by default optimise for multiple cores. You can change this behaviour -

  1. Open your nvidia settings app/program (on windows it is usually launched from your hidden icons area)
  2. Select 3D Settings/Manage 3D Settings and then the Program Settings tab
  3. There is a checkbox that you should check marked “Show only programs found on this computer” because it will make your life easier here.
  4. Directly under “1. Select a program to customize” there is a drop-down box. Open it and scroll to “Neverwinter Nights *nwmain.exe” and select it.
  5. You will now have a load of settings you could change. Leave all of them alone except for the one I am about to tell you. Scroll down until you come to “Threaded Optimisation” and set it to off.
  6. And that is it. Close the nvidia settings program and if it asks if you want to keep your changes answer yes.

Hope that makes a difference. Even if it doesn’t help you with your problem it should improve the stability of NwN.

TR

Are you using the Enhanced Edition or base 1.69 version?

Are you using the Beamdog HD pack?

Have you got an example module and area where it stutters?

Hello
It did improve but didn’t solve. The stutters are less noticeable now. Thank you for your help. If you or anybody think of something else please let me know.
Thank you very much.

Hello
I’m using the Enhanced Edition, the latest version I can choose (8193.34).
I’m not using the Beamdog HD pack because if I use the stutters are much more severe and are stutters that actually affect the framerate.
An example of a mod is “In the shadow of Darkhold”. In the city right after the first battle with the Gnolls. it stutters as I run specially on the road part with houses.
Thank you.

Make of this what you may: I have been dealing with microstutters for over a decade. We have discussed it in the forums at several different points, and it has never been solved. I now have 64 gigs in RAM, an RTX 3090, Enhanced Edition installed in an NvME… and it still stutters. It seems to be inherent to the game’s dynamic asset loading. The higher the poly count of models, the more frequent and lasting the stuttering will be.

An RTX3090 is pretty serious hardware. Im surprised it still stutters. None of my machinery is that advanced but i typically don’t encounter stuttering. On the rare occasion that I do encounter graphics oddities they are usually solved by zooming in just a little bit. The stability improvements in EE have made NWN nearly trouble free for me. Even my oldest desktop with GTX280 will run Eye of the Beholder or Accursed Tower without issue on a 31" monitor. They are both lush, pretty modules. Is it really a graphics issue or are we talking about an engine issue where the game can’t keep up with itself? For example in a 4 player game in EoB if two or three spellcasters start throwing spells out against a screenful of enemies then we get slow downs but never enough to care about.

Well, it also depends on how modded your game is. As I said, high-poly counts seem to be the killers. Some people over the years have also reported high-res textures caused issues for them, especially in animations, though I have never experienced stuttering due to textures myself. It bears to note my mods go well over 4 gb between override and hak packs, which may make the stutters last longer, but even in clean instalations, I’ve experienced microstutters when a creature is spawned or comes into line of sight. As for whether it is a matter of graphics or engine, we never figured out what the exact, technical issue is in over a decade of tests and back&forward in the IGN Vault/Rolo Vault/Bioware forums, which is also why we never found a solution. As to how much you care about it, it’s all up to the individual. To me it’s important enough that I bought myself two top-notch, gaming systems so I had no issues with any title (one of them expressely to stop microstutters in NWN!), but I would never rage-quit the game because of it!

Edit: It’s also worth noting every single title I have played stutters at one point or another. If you’re lucky, it will do so every new moon, but it’s still there. This is regardless of resolution or graphical options. Independent games do stutter more than triple A games, though. Both Hellblade and Innocence stuttered considerably more than God of War or RE3.

Iirc from the Discord discussions, you can get stutter from textures if you are using a lot that are bigger than 2048x2048. I think PLT stutters at 1024x1024 - aside from decompiled models that’s the biggest cause of issues with the HD pack (most of which is taken care with the Community update for it).

As for this…

That may not be an entirely accurate statement anymore.