I have two very annoying tech problems that are almost making me feel like quitting EFU:M. I'll try to put as much of my hardware/software as I can in the next post for clarity's sake.
PROBLEM ONE:
At various times, my drive keys (Q, W, E) don't operate correctly, or seem stuck. This causes my character to turn around in circles indefinitely until I click on the dialogue box which usually seems to end this "seizure" state.
Unfortunately, I am unable to access my character or inventory screens, use a hotkey, or even use the Shift or Ctrl keys until I click on the dialogue box. As there is no visual cue this is happening - in combat this can be deadly to my poor little PC.
Also, I can't tell if I can't use my keyboard because of this issue, or whether its...
PROBLEM TWO:
Lag. But it's on my end.
During game play, there will be sporadic periods where everything freezes from 3-5 seconds. Last night it was when my PC was running across a poison gas vented corridor that required good timing to navigate.
Needless to say - FUGUE.
I have what I think is a fairly decent computer purchased a year ago.
My somewhat tech-savvy (but only 12 year old) son thinks its due to a problem with our wireless router. He experiences the same issues in online gaming such as Halo and all of the Call of Duty series.
He thinks its related to something called NAT, which I don't have a fucking clue about. I know that it stands for Network Address Transfer, but that's about it. We also don't know the password (bear with my ignorance) to reset it, because I don't even remember setting one or how the hell to enter it.
Could BOTH problems be due to this NAT issue?
I just bought a new keyboard AND mouse, and the problem hasn't been corrected. I'll buy whatever I need short of a new computer to address this.
In short - HELP!
Windows 7 Home Premium
Hardware
HPE-170f
Intel Core i7 920 @2.67 GHz
9.00 GB RAM
Video Card:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260
I have Norton antivirus running.
Open nwnplayer.ini and find the line Client CPU Affinity=
Set it to read Client CPU Affinity=1
Report back afterward
I've changed the visual options from the entire range of "Best Quality" to "Fastest" without any change in these issues.
Wireless is 100% part of your lag problem. Fact is, wireless is never fully solid and constant stream, it will lose packages and nwn does not like losing them one bit. It will freeze and wait until it can catch up with packages, as it has that 30 second timeout window, before it even attempts to disconnect you.
NAT doesn't really cause lag, it just usually either works or causes a block in connection, for example for IPTV boxes. If your connection works, don't think about that.
Easiest fix, play through wired connection when you play games. Wireless can never reach 100% package stream, it always has it's up's and downs and will jump in speed and connection. In normal programs it does not matter, but games are constant stream of package back and forth, and if something lacks, the game has to wait and catch up as it has the missed package re-sent.
Quote from: Kotenku;292222Open nwnplayer.ini and find the line Client CPU Affinity=
Set it to read Client CPU Affinity=1
Report back afterward
All right. I did a search and can't even find that file.
I tried looking manually through the C: --> Neverwinter Nights --> NWN folder, then I'm not seeing it. Is it in a subfolder?
I see an ini.bif in the data subfolder, but I can't open it.
Can go to IRC if you prefer...
Quote from: NetherGonnaLetYouDown;292224Wireless is 100% part of your lag problem. Fact is, wireless is never fully solid and constant stream, it will lose packages and nwn does not like losing them one bit. It will freeze and wait until it can catch up with packages, as it has that 30 second timeout window, before it even attempts to disconnect you.
NAT doesn't really cause lag, it just usually either works or causes a block in connection, for example for IPTV boxes. If your connection works, don't think about that.
Easiest fix, play through wired connection when you play games. Wireless can never reach 100% package stream, it always has it's up's and downs and will jump in speed and connection. In normal programs it does not matter, but games are constant stream of package back and forth, and if something lacks, the game has to wait and catch up as it has the missed package re-sent.
So there is NO way to correct this for my son who plays XBox360 on the wireless?
You have to directly connect a cable for every game device?
Kot,
I'm wondering if messed up my ini file somehow trying to add the new spells, or change my windowed mode or something?
I vaguely remember trying to do something that changed my ini file and wonder if that is why I can't find it now?
o.o
No, I don't think there's anything you can do that would delete your nwnplayer.ini file, since I think it's supposed to regenerate when you run NWN. Could be wrong about that.
Get on IRC, I'll see what I can do to help from there.
Quote from: Krustee;292227So there is NO way to correct this for my son who plays XBox360 on the wireless?
You have to directly connect a cable for every game device?
Frankly, yes. Wireless is amazing and convenient, but it's just the truth. You cannot keep full capacity of the connection up with wireless constantly. Anything from the machine, connection, packages to humans/devices/weather can affect wireless connection and it's speed and integiry goes up and down like waves. I am obviously exaggerating a bit, but that's the point in a nutshell.
If you want a solid connection, you need to use a wire. Nothing is perfect, but atleast that way you can avoid losing packages in your own end, instead of having to deal with both online lag and wireless connection being twitchy here and there.
The nwnplayer.ini file should be directly in your NWN root folder (no sub folders), it might appear as just nwnplayer if you have hide extensions for known file types enabled, it shouldn't be a hidden file, but I've seen people make it such in the past. IIRCly even if you did delete the file, it should recreate one upon opening NWN anyhow.
Kotenku made a very good suggestion with the CPU affinity peice of advice, I'd also suggest perhaps trying the following three as well, all of them including the CPU affinity should be under the game options section.
Quote[Game Options]
Max Memory Usage=1024
Memory Level=2
Memory Access=2
I'm not going to make recommendations based on wireless or not, what Nether said is true, though he exaggerates beyond reason (Most of the time if setup correctly there should be no issue and one isn't using cheap first generation wireless equipment.) in all honesty though, I doubt a wired connection will fix your particular issues.
Password for your Wireless router, if you've not set one it should still be the default (which can vary depending on your routers brand and model), try the manual that came with it original or try googling it, I suppose. I'm going to leave advice regarding the NAT alone as I've never had issues with them before, however have heard some of the cheaper OEM routers do from time to time. (Xbox lag issues, your son might be correct, such an issue is known to happen with cheap home equipment)
QuoteDuring game play, there will be sporadic periods where everything freezes from 3-5 seconds.
By that just to ensure I've got it correctly, do you mean everything just stops completely? spells mid flight across the screen, combat actions pause, your character won't move forward, can't turn the camera to various angles?
If it is the above that will be a hardware/software issue and I'd suggest trying to update both graphic's and sound drivers as well as running everything on lowest setting for both for a while, if that fixes the issue, slowly start increasing them back up. (note only if the nwnplayer.ini file changes don't help)
If you can still move the camera, spells still fly through the air but don't cause an effect when they first arrive, then that will be a connection issue - from your PC to EFU server - and I'd certainly start looking into your connections from your PC to router, Router to Modem and Modem to ISP/EFU.
As for your keyboard issue? I've no idea, perhaps try a different USB port or make sure that you don't have any popups appearing (popup's tend to screw things up when running in fullscreen)
I just got out of bed, if you need somebody to decipher what I attempted to say, ask in a few hours sorry.
Eddie.
Kot, Eddie, NGLD - thank you.
I found the file, made the changes and will try things out later today.
Really appreciate you guys taking some time to help me out on this.
:D
I'd definitely suggest to start by hooking up by network cable instead and just see if that helps, then report back. (Make sure you're not actually still connecting via wireless.)
Also, as far as your router goes, 2 things. First, they usually have a default password. Search google for "default password [your router model here]" and you should get something. Secondly, if you set it to something else and forgot, you can usually reset routers to factory settings (and thus the default password) by a button on the actual router. Often it actually just looks like a little hole with a button inside, and you need a paper clip or something to poke inside the hole and hold the button down for 3-5 seconds to reset it. Then use the default password as above.
Actually, another troubleshooting thing you can do is to hook your computer up directly by cable to the modem itself, instead of the router, just bypass the router entirely. If that fixes things, you know the router is a major issue. If not, there are other issues. I'd probably do this one first.