Game stalls in maximized mode

nwmorol

After this preview weeks patch, the preview game does not run properly in maximized mode. The game runs for about 1 sec every 20 sec. If the game is launched in safe mode things seem fine, but the problem returns when maximized again. The 1sec out of 20 is confirmed by the cpu history of task manager. I am running Win XP. I do not have this problem on live version. I do have the problem of the game crashing to the desktop after an hour or so depending on zone changes and how many people are in a zone. Most noticeable in Icewind and Dwarf valley.

nwmorol

I got it to behave normally again tho I cant say exactly what I did to correct the problem. I initially had fps on, so turned it off, maximized, then turned it back on. I also had tried cascading and tiling in the meantime, so I cant be certain.

nwmorol

Well, the problem comes back if I hit the mount tab or the travel screen in anything other than the default window mode. Guess I'll just stick to the small default windowed mode off in the corner for a while.

nwmorol

Finally resolved the problem by changing the advanced graphics settings while in safe mode. The default values looked reasonable, but maybe changing them also reinitialized some other values.

nwmorol

Experienced random 35 sec game freezes while trying Castle Never today. I also notice that the live server takes 57s from the time I hit the play button until the character screen comes up while the preview server takes 97 sec with about the difference made up with cpu usage being near zero, as if something is not happening and finally times out.

terramak

Sometimes that extra launch time can be a new large map starting up, but if it's consistent then it's not likely that that's the case for your report.

Random 35-sec. game freezes are huge. Sorry to hear about the weirdness, what vid card are you using? I'd like to bug some folks to give similar hardware a sanity check, if it's indeed a hardware issue and not some weird settings corruption issue.

nwmorol

Well - there are still times when the game freezes for 20-36 secs on live server for me. Really frequent in Pirate King. It also froze after the cutscene on the 1st boss in frozen heart, but I only ran it once. I did find something that would consistently cause a freeze. If I don't move Immediatly! when a marsh pirate throws what i think is a poison aoe, the game will freeze for 36 sec. Not a problem if a am able to dodge it. I first ran into that problem from the boss attack in the 1st lair of whatever the pirate king zone is, and again in the second lair where there are several marsh mystics. I donno if I have the problem in the skirmish - wasn't willing to risk it. Another area where I just happen to find a problem is in the Goblin Warrens lair next to the fire near 431.6, 128.5, 349.9, camera 13,105,0 ( not too far from the boss). I happened to pull up the char screen and the game would freeze for 36sec, run for 1 or 2 sec, then freeze and repeat. It would unfreeze with continuous cycling of the esc key to close the char screen. This was a repeatable effect. Maxfps was set at 30 at the time. If I set maxfps to 20, I could not get it to freeze. Put it back to 30, could get it 2 freeze every time. I would have about 50% cpu usage on both cores at 30fps, slightly less at 20fps. I was using the windowed mode with the border but full screen in that mode at the time. I had found some differences in behavior previously on the preview when running maximized windowed mode. I realize this may be just a quirk with my particular setup, but I did not have a freezing problem before Maze. I have been playing since before Icewindale on the same machine.
Another detail about the extended startup time with 0 cpu for about 38 sec. during the game startup process. Usually this would be after the Neverwinter logo came up, but sometimes it would be during the Cryptic logo. This would account for the longer load time previously noted.
Also my Vista laptop could play the game pre Maze, but no longer. I get a shader error message box popup and the game quits before the Cryptic logo. I would get a shader error pre Maze on the laptop but that was after the Cryptic and Neverwinter logo screens. It would be in course txt at the bottom of the game window briefly while the character screen was loading.
I am running WinXP with a HD 5450 card. If other people are reporting similar problems, this may help sort that out. I would post my dxdiag and gamepref, but that seems a bit too verbose for posting. Maybe i could attach in a support ticket to someones attention, but I doubt it would get thru the help desk. I realize there are a lot higher priorities atm, and one guy with a problem on an obsolete machine would never make it to the long list, much less the short.

nwmorol

Seems that the marsh mystic would only freeze me in the lair quest. I could not repeat the issue in the zone with the one mystic I found. Also, the startup pause would disappear if I was running teamspeak logged into an active channel.

nwmorol

OK, - so it appears that the game cannot detect graphics cards/drivers with limitations in all cases. The sm20 switch enabled my laptop, Dx11, to run the game, which it could pre-maze, and my destop, Dx9c, to run without the 38 sec idle delay on startup and 20 sec freezes at other times. The sm20 switch did cause range of sight problems in Pirate's Hideout, fog, but the sm2b switch fixed that although I got error messages during startup. Shame that there is not a test program to flag these problems pre-patch, would have saved a lot of people a lot of frustration I am sure, on both sides of the game. Thanks again for resolving the problem.