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Newbie Joined: 08 Mar 2004 Posts: 4 Location: USA

OK, yes I know this sounds strange. And I'm posting this to both the Zmud and the NWN forums, to double the oddness.

So. I'm running Zmud 7.03. I try launching Neverwinter Nights 1.62.8047 in windowed mode. So far so good.

I go to load any game in NWN. The mod loads. The save game itself finishes loading, displays the room for a split second, and then exits (apparently cleanly) without error.

Has anyone else seen this weird incompatability? Is it actually NWN and Zmud clashing?

I didn't have this issue before updating NWN with the most recent patch. But then again, I recently updated Zmud to 7.x as well. It never came up until a couple days later, so I can't be sure what the frag is going on.

Thanks folks.

Posted: Mon Mar 08, 2004 8:24 am

If it came up a few days after the installation, what did you do in the meantime? Is the mod a new thing?

Wizard Joined: 14 Oct 2000 Posts: 1368

1. Does it work without zMUD running?
2. If it does:
a) try updating your video drivers. http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp
b) What motherboard do you have?
c) Do you have the mapper loaded?
3. If it doesn't then it shouldn't be a zMUD issue.

I doubt you'll get much help from the developers on the NWN forum. To get NWN support you need to contact Atari(who are known for their poor support Smile

). It is odd that a group of people that have no idea of a games internals should do technical support. Back in the old Win95/98 days I think it was more common for applications to clash. Nowadays this doesn't seem to be a very huge issue.

I guess Atari acts as a filter to provide good bug reports to Bioware. Then again fixing bugs cost money.

Newbie Joined: 08 Mar 2004 Posts: 4 Location: USA

I didn't play NWN in the meantime. Core campaign stuff, third party, all have the same symptom.

1) Yeah it works fine without Zmud running.

2) Up to date MB and vid drivers, as per Bioware's demands.

3) No mapper.

Wizard Joined: 14 Oct 2000 Posts: 1368

quote:
Originally posted by rrauwl

I didn't play NWN in the meantime. Core campaign stuff, third party, all have the same symptom.

1) Yeah it works fine without Zmud running.

2) Up to date MB and vid drivers, as per Bioware's demands.

3) No mapper.

A really odd bug :-). It feels like it should be some kind of video driver issue. Does it happen in full screen mode also?

You might want to send an email to support@zuggsoft.com because after a week or so Zuggsoft is going to work on the new email client. Good luck

Posted: Mon Mar 08, 2004 11:22 pm

What version of Windows are you running? Your system might be running out of resources and unable to run both at the same time. zMUD v7.x uses more system resources than previous 6.x versions due to the WinXP Theme support and the 256-color icons.

Wizard Joined: 14 Oct 2000 Posts: 1368

quote:
Originally posted by Zugg

What version of Windows are you running? Your system might be running out of resources and unable to run both at the same time. zMUD v7.x uses more system resources than previous 6.x versions due to the WinXP Theme support and the 256-color icons.

Here is a link to his report in the NWN forum (contains system information):
http://nwn.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=330740&forum=49

Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2004 12:01 am

I'm thinking "windowed" mode here is the issue. The NWN system info doesnt describe your refresh rates, which allows me to go pretty far out there ;) Try setting the desktop and NWN to the same resolution, XP may be trying to show the desktop in one refresh rate, and windowed NWN in another. Start at the basic 60mhz rate for both, and see where you go.

Either way, it wont hurt anything to try.

Wizard Joined: 14 Oct 2000 Posts: 1368

quote:
Originally posted by seamer

I'm thinking "windowed" mode here is the issue. The NWN system info doesnt describe your refresh rates, which allows me to go pretty far out there ;) Try setting the desktop and NWN to the same resolution, XP may be trying to show the desktop in one refresh rate, and windowed NWN in another. Start at the basic 60mhz rate for both, and see where you go.

Either way, it wont hurt anything to try.

I think games are forced to use the desktop's refresh rate if running in windowed mode. Also he mentioned NWN works well in windowed mode withoutt zmud running.

Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2004 7:47 am

I tried NWN for a while when it came out, it has that whole range of video selections. 800*640*60htz, 1024*768*100htz...so on, and so on. At this point its pure speculation :)

Wizard Joined: 14 Oct 2000 Posts: 1368

quote:
Originally posted by seamer

I tried NWN for a while when it came out, it has that whole range of video selections. 800*640*60htz, 1024*768*100htz...so on, and so on. At this point its pure speculation :)

The resolution means the size of the window in pixels. However the refresh rate can only be changed on the whole screen so in windowed mode it ignores the 60/100hz etc.

Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2004 12:46 pm

We're assuming that the refresh rate is being ignored here, remember, since theres still no feedback from rrauwl, nor do there seem to be any responses on the NWN thread you linked to.

Then again, he might have forgotten to update some drivers and has become too shy to say case closed ;)

Wizard Joined: 14 Oct 2000 Posts: 1368

quote:
Originally posted by seamer

We're assuming that the refresh rate is being ignored here, remember, since theres still no feedback from rrauwl, nor do there seem to be any responses on the NWN thread you linked to.

Then again, he might have forgotten to update some drivers and has become too shy to say case closed ;)

The NWN Technical Self Help forum isn't looked at by the NWN developers. It is pretty sad to see how bad support is nowadays. Support has to go through the publisher, Atari, which would just tell him not to run zMUD in the background. If the bug is in NWN and only a few have the issue then they don't want to spend money on the fix.

In some ways Zuggsoft has made me see the reality wrong. You always get support and Zugg even often adds stuff you want to see in zMUD. There's no secrets either and when beta testing you know and can talk about the features that's going to be in the new version. That's pretty different when comparing to a closed game like NWN that uses internal beta testers that get used to poor design, and bugs.

Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2004 10:33 pm

Surely other NWN users have seen his thread on the NWN forum. But if there's no resolution by the weekend, I'll reinstall NWN and fiddle around...

Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2004 4:32 am

Give the new 7.04 version of zMUD a try to see if the problem was caused by the resource leak in 7.03.

Newbie Joined: 08 Mar 2004 Posts: 4 Location: USA

Rff! Sorry about the lack of replies folks, I was heavily involved in business stuff the past couple of days.

I'll try the new version and let y'all know. Thanks! :)

Newbie Joined: 08 Mar 2004 Posts: 4 Location: USA

quote:
Originally posted by rrauwl

Rff! Sorry about the lack of replies folks, I was heavily involved in business stuff the past couple of days.

I'll try the new version and let y'all know. Thanks! :)

Nope same issue. I actually imagine that this is a Bioware issue. Zmud's code is, as always, pretty damned tight. :) But if you can think of anything else, let me know.

I'll try full screen mode, though I HATE playing games in full screen mode, so that won't be a solution, just more data.

Thanks Zugg! You spoil us. :)