Override: Tree Growth!

I probably won't put this into a hak form, since it is hard on lower-end graphics cards (like my laptop), but this override by Helvene really improves the appearance of the rural tileset trees.

Bioware Rural Trees Override by Helvene

I saw that ... I have a fairly decent card in my basement box, but the processor sux, plus 512 meg ram total ... so I am considering DLing it very, very carefully...

Easy enough to test out, and if it doesn't do good for you, you can always just remove all the newest override files that start with tt01 .

I sometimes think Eric's override directy is as large as my hakfile directory.... in the words of Groundskeeper Willie of the simpsons... "we have wee, not so wee, and FREAKING HUGE!"

Hey I love these trees, they look good, but it what I like better was the Suspended city tileset I found by the same author (Here ) ...

.. I'm thinking The Sylvan Realm just opened it's boarders... or the lonely lizardman in the swamp does have a "home town"... it's a really good looking little set....

I dropped these into my overrides and BAM! They sure are beautiful! I likem, likem lots! And my machine doesn't take a hit, so all is good!

Well I can see why the trees override isn't part of the standard Aenea file set. I run my PC at max settings just fine, but when I installed the override the Lag Monster became an ever present menace.

Unfortunately I won't be running this override although it is stunningly beautiful.

I may experiment with bumping down my settings with the override in place to see what that would look like/perform like.

I'll report back my experience after doing so.

I found that increasing the max memory size of the game client corrected me lag issues with this. Should be in the NWN.ini file and it defaults to only like 64 MB or something ridiculously small. I cranked it to 512 MB and thing run smooth as silk for me.

daveyeisley wrote:I found that increasing the max memory size of the game client corrected me lag issues with this. Should be in the NWN.ini file and it defaults to only like 64 MB or something ridiculously small. I cranked it to 512 MB and thing run smooth as silk for me.

Thanks Dave, I'll try this out! My netbook (with dedicated ATI video and dual core 2ghz proc 6gig ram) isn't able to run D3 (not surprising), but can run crysis (1) at high settings, so I was surprised when this override caused the nwn client to lag like crazy. Hopefully this fixes it.

daveyeisley wrote:I found that increasing the max memory size of the game client corrected me lag issues with this. Should be in the NWNPlayer.ini file and it defaults to only like 64 MB or something ridiculously small. I cranked it to 512 MB and thing run smooth as silk for me.

^
Corrected the file name, it's the nwnplayer.ini not the nwn.ini...

daveyeisley wrote:I found that increasing the max memory size of the game client corrected me lag issues with this. Should be in the NWN.ini file and it defaults to only like 64 MB or something ridiculously small. I cranked it to 512 MB and thing run smooth as silk for me.

This did the trick, I still get a tiny bit of lag if I am in a heavily wooded area and I zoom the nwncx camera all the way out.

This override is beautiful, really does a great job of improving the visuals.

Yeah thats what I get for posting from my phone at work without a PC to check the filename.

I want to try this, but I went through all my ini files, and do not see anything relating to memory.

Eric of Atrophy wrote:I want to try this, but I went through all my ini files, and do not see anything relating to memory.

If it's not there, you can add the line yourself...

1. Go to your nwn folder and open up the nwnplayer.ini file
2. At the very top you should see the [Game Options] category, underneath "Memory Access=1" add the following "Max Memory Usage=?"
_{*Replace the "?" with the X mb you want (like for example, 512, as dave mentioned above).}

3. Done!

_{(I suppose it doesn't necessarily have to be underneath "Memory Access=1" as long as it's in the [Game Options] category, but I like to keep things organized... >.>)}


Edit:
For more ... http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Nwnplayer.ini#.5BGame_Options.5D

I was thinking it was something along those lines, but I don't like to tinker with ini files all by myself ... thanks dave and AoD for this tweak ... we'll give it a go and see how it goes!

RustyDios wrote:Hey I love these trees, they look good, but it what I like better was the Suspended city tileset I found by the same author (Here ) ...

.. I'm thinking The Sylvan Realm just opened it's boarders...

That's a really nice set, and it's actually what I had in mind for one particular Sylvan Realm Faerie area that I'm working on, that right now only has the capability for treehouses without catwalks.

Can this become part of the official set of download files, but marked as "optional?" The reason I ask is because of the "official" screenshot/video capture policy that states no visual mods other than what is available from the downloads page.

I've got a swanky new PC and would like to video cap and wanted to include the trees...

We have an official screenshot policy?  If we do/did...I must have forgotten about it completely.

I'd say anything that improves the look of the game is good.

Except NWNCQ.  I know many folks rave about it, but I don't personally care for some (many) of the texture changes and not all of the ceilings that are included are necessarily an improvement over not having one at all.

Okay, policy was too strong of a word.

Here is a post that touches upon what I'm talking about.

Glad that it is no longer a concern, I'm putting the trees in and getting snappy...

Ah, I see.  That post is just in relation to taking screenshots for use as new "area loadscreen" images.

For anything else...y'all got free reign to show peeps your own playing style/looks/whatever.

The more screenshots for any purpose, the better.  

Is the tree override acceptable for the load screens? I was planning on beginning to try to get some additional captures, including loadscreens as I play...

odbo255 wrote:Is the tree override acceptable for the load screens? I was planning on beginning to try to get some additional captures, including loadscreens as I play...

Sure.  Almost everyone seems to use it, and it does improve things.  I'll have to see about running those models through CleanModels and compiling them to see if it makes things smoother.

What's the proportions of the images for loadscreens?

I can take a picture that's 1920 pixels wide, but what do I crop the height to?

Ramana Jala wrote:What's the proportions of the images for loadscreens?

I can take a picture that's 1920 pixels wide, but what do I crop the height to?

Final screenshot size is 738 wide x 251 high.

Great, thanks!

So that means that if I want to utilize a full 1920 of a landscape shot, I could crop it at 653 before reducing it to 738 x 251.

And for eyeballing possibilities, the proportions are roughly 3:1.

Ramana Jala wrote:So that means that if I want to utilize a full 1920 of a landscape shot, I could crop it at 653 before reducing it to 738 x 251.

For those of us who may not have followed this, can you explain further?

Crop which direction? From 1920x1080 to 1920x653 I assume?

Yes, the larger number is the width, and the smaller number is the height, in the ratio of the width being about three (2.94) times larger than the height.

If you want to take a wide shot to keep the entire 1920 width of a 16:9 (1920 x 1080) monitor image, you will crop off the 1080 height down to 653.  That way, the image will neatly reduce to the final desired size of 738 x 251.

Or if you want to crop after reduction, reduce the uncropped 1920 wide image to 738 wide, and then crop off the height down to 251.