I ran into a very annoying problem the night before last. Started the shadelord battle and was amazed that he fired so many spells right off the bat, don't have the exact number but it was alot.

What this did other than destroying my party was slow my computer down to a crawl. The characters that were not slowed from his slow spell could still hardly move and could not make it from the door before getting killed.

The question, are there specific settings that I can alter that will make this a less computer intensive fight? This is the first enhanced encounter that has done this and might be as bad as it is because the battle scene is in the dark and I think that maps like this are more difficult and computer intensive. Just my opinion.

Romulas

For slowdown problems, see the mod's pinned F.A.Q.

Just for testing purposes, I soloed the battle against the shadelord with a 25th level sorcerer. Both sides had plenty of summons and cast plenty of spells. The area was quite crowded, but I didn't experience any slowdown or lag despite the fact that my computer is not a very fast and new one. Did you try the battle after restarting the computer. Perhpas the lag was due to your computer's status being working for a long time without a restart.

The exit behind you is closed as long as shadelord is alive; that's why you have not found it to exit.

As for the number of spells, I assure you that the number of spells each and every spellcaster in IA casts is "legal" and according to their levels of experience (Of course, I'm aware that you didn't mean to imply the opposite, but I just wanted to clarify for the third party readers).

Yes, legality had nothing to do with it and I didn't mean to imply that it did. The number of spells I think is alittle extreme but thats my opinion.

As for restarting the computer, you have a point and I will try it. I know after exiting the game completely my computer chugs along for a little bit rapping on the hard drive then its fine. I believe that it is rearranging the memory rescources and so forth.

I know that my computer doesn't have the best sound/video sharing methods for cpu cycles (cheap motherboard) and this might be something to check as well. I will try shutting off all sound for that battle and see what happens. I remember having to do that in a previous game just can't remember many details.

Romulas

Turning off the sound is very likely to help.

You should also look in the BG2 config utility and see what video effects you can turn down. It's called BGConfig.exe, it's in the BG2 folder.

I am extremely disappointed that I can't get anywhere in my IA game because of slowdown. I can only play for 15 minutes at a time before everything gets very slow and choppy. I know this isn't due to IA specifically though as it was happening before I installed IA. It is still extremely frusterating though.

Could someone be more specific as to all the setting tweaks I can make to improve performance?

I want to reformat but unfortunately I only have my ToB CD here and my SoA cds are back home, so if I reformat I wont be able to play BG2 for a couple weeks until I get home!

SOO FRUSTERATING!

Nataben,

One thing I did when I was running windows 98 was to finally do a disk defrag, I had not done one in years and the system was starting to show. The defrag tool over 2 hours to do but it helped.

Then, later I installed windows xp professional and that helped alot more, it seems the drivers for the motherboard has alot to do with it, especially since mine had integrated sound. I ran into alot less issues between heavy cpu useage and sound.

I think my current problems have to do with too many special affects and the sounds that go with them.

I remember playing one time when I was running windows 98 and I fought the warden in the planar prison, I attacked him with all my people and when he died the game closed to the desktop, everytime I tried it. So, I then attacked him with one character and won, no game crash at all.

So, I would check into your drivers, if they are all up to date then perhaps its just your motherboard. Some out there use generic bios and chips and don't share the cpu well. For instance, with windows 98 if I was doing something cpu intensive and playing music more times than not the sound would just shut down (this is with integrated sound), I would have to reboot to get it back. Going to windows XP solved that so I would say that was a driver issue.

Good luck.

Romulas

AFAIK turning of the walking sounds also helps improving the performance

For better perfomance you could try first the following:

- Defragmentation
- Try to not have a full HD (at least 15% of free space)
- Try to not have many programs running in the background (icons in the Taskbar included)
- Empty the data folder in the cache folder of BG2
- Sometimes using the same installation for different games and installing/uninstalling mods may cause similar problems.
You could try a clean installation.


If the problems insist you could try the following (especially for graphic-intense battles):


Go to the BGConfig (before running the game) --->Gameplay--->Visual
and check the:


a) No large Static Animations
b ) Disable All S.Animations
c) Disable Casting Glows
d) Disable VEF Vid Cells
e) Disable Statics During Combat
f) Translucent Shadows (uncheck)
g) Enable brightening (uncheck)

Nataben, and Romulas, can you tell me about your personal computers, ie: what is your CPU and how much RAM do you have? I have a below average computer as well and so I feel kinda afraid if IA V.4's superiour and unique scripts will cause a slow down on my machine too? When do you experience slow downs, only while there are lots of flashy spell graphics around? Or in regular fights where enemies use some of Sikret's custom scripts? Just curious, I will appreciate it if you can give me answers here. Thanks.

Silverstar

My computer has an intel 933 mhz chip with 512k memory, kinda old and a motherboard of suspect quality.

The main slowdowns occur when it becomes graphic intensive, lots of spell effects or larger creature animations. For instance the dragon battles can be alittle slow sometimes. It is obvious with the characters that are not hasted and not as noticeable for those that are.

This is why others have said and given tips on how to tone down the animations, sound, and so forth. I also find that the battles in the daylight (with light maps) are alittle better for quality of flow then those on a dark map, mainly because I think it takes more computeing power from the cpu or graphics card to pain dark. I could be wrong on this but its what it seems.

Now, as for your concerns with playing this game on a slower computer, just be aware that you might have to tone down some of the above mentioned things to get through the battles. I have to say that not every enhanced battle in the game slows my computer, regardless of scripts and so forth.

I have also started to reboot my pc everytime before I play and when I log off the game, my kids also use the computer so who knows what it has in memory.

In closing, I would not let these concerns deter you from playing this game. It is quite the challenge, for me the worst parts of the game are starting out and getting waxed everytime I turn around. On the other side, when you get a few levels under your belt things tend to go alittle better.

Take for instance the shade lord battle that I mentioned, with more levels and hasting my party prior to the encounter there was very little "perceived" slow down in the movements of my characters. Trying to create separation between the strongest enemy and your weakest party members, even on the same maps helps alot.

Romulas

Players who play the game on powerful computers will not probably experience any slowdown or lag during the game. Players who play the game on average computers may experience lags and slowdowns only during some of the mod's heavy battles (such as EDE and Improved Oasis). This type of players should read thetruth's hints in this thread.

A third group of players are those who are playing the game on slow and old computers. If this third group of players keep too many items in their containers, they may experience slowdown even when no battle is in progress. The general guideline for this third group is this:

- Do not install the Bottomless Bag of Holding or any mod which may increase the capacity of the game's containers (as it has been mentioned repeatedly before)

I just thought I'd mention my own problems with slowdown while using a Gateway500. At times general movement appeared 'jerky'; battles had large action stoppage and the HD kept accessing at odd times.

Finally found out it was spyware. Alexa key entries and tracking cookies with log files in the Windows Temp folder was what kept accessing during play, and particularly in active battles.

I now run a spyware detector before playing and the game runs much smoother.

Happy hunting.

-kix

I have (hopefully) solved my issues, and here's what I did. I believe several of these are factors in improving my performance (not just the reformat). I am using an older laptop. These are tested for regular BG2, not IA. Hopefully it will continue working for IA once I install it (waiting for 4.3). #3 is probably only applicable to laptops:

1. Reformatted!

2. When playing, turn off my wireless card, firewall, and virus protection.

3. I noticed that my laptop was getting rather hot, and I think this had something to do with the choppiness. So now when I play BG2 I prop it up on the corners of four books, so that the underside of my laptop has more space between it and the desk. This seems to allow the air intake/fan to operate much better. To this end, also, do a full install of BG2 so that your laptop doesn't have to spin the disk during the game and heat things up.

Oh no. I checked my Widu log file and it seems I have 'bottomless containers' installed.

Sikret, you say that this will really slow down my game, and this is the last thing I want. I still did not have time to start a BG2 game, but am about to finish BG1 so I can start a few weeks later, hopefully. I plan to play IA excessively and uninterrupted this summer.

So, that component is also one of the first installed in my long mod-list. What should I do?

If I really don't put too many stuff in my containers, will they still slow down my games? I used to have HUNDREDS of all kinds of potions in my bags in my last games and it got real slow sometimes. This time, if I don't abuse it, will it still slow down?

So do I really have to uninstall that component? But it will be really painful as Weidu will uninstall and reinstall all my serious mods and I am afraid it can cause 'some' problems. No way! I want my all-new IA run to be as smooth as possible! (I had to abandon a previous game of IA in the middle of it, no thanks to a nasty bug which prevented me from lvling up my fighters. It had nothing to do with IA though, it was my guilt for having too many mods.) What can I do to make the proccess as bugless as possible?

Any help would be appreciated.

Silverstar, the slowdown problem occurs when you have too many items anywhere, whether you have 1000's of items in a bag of holding, scroll case or even on person (a 65,000 stack of identify scrolls will do it ). Just try to keep somewhere within the ballpark of the 100item/bag limit and you *should* be fine.
i.e. 100 items in a regular bag and 100 items in a bottomless bag should have exactly the same effect on the game.

Please correct me if I've misinterpreted it though.

I agree with Stu. I have a slower computer and as long as I sell off the junk in my bags between major quests, I do fine. Even my missle belt had probably 2500 arrows in it by the end of the game, and it still didn't slowdown.

You are right, guys (this type of slowdown is indeed caused by too many accessed items, regardless of their location), but stacked items is a different case.

Their instances aren't stored and accessed as separate objects in memory, this is why you didn't experience performance problems. (Think of your thousands of stacked arrows as one object, with a label "Hello, we're 2500 arrows". Actually, it's more than one object, but the time to access n stacked items is still O(1), that is, constant. In other words, it doesn't depend on the number of items.)

So if I don't put too many items in my bags, it won't slow my game, despite the fact that I have 'bottomless bags' component installed? It means it won't slow down if I don't use the 'limitless' ability of the bags...I was afraid that merely having 'limitless bags' component installed would cause a slow-down in my poor, poor machine. (AND I hate slow downs.)

Thank you very much friends, this was the answer I needed!

Nice to read from you again, Silverstar!

There are two bags of holding available in the game: The one you normally find in spellhold (capacity = 100 items) and a new bag added by IA (capacity = 200 items). So, a total number of 300 items in your bags is ok. If you have a bottomless bag, just make sure that the total number items inside the bags remains (more or less) in that limit.

Cheers

Thanks Sikret. That's what I understood exactly!

I have always been around here, lurking in the shadows. I still did not have chance to play BG2 so I did not post much.

Hopefully things will change with the summer, a few weeks later, when I get chance to play your mod throughly!