in a turn of bad luck, i had to format my comp a few days ago :( anyway, i got round to reinstalling NWN and its running completely AWFUL. i used to put the settings pretty high and it was ok, but even turning them all down to lowest doesn't help now. i really have no idea why

any ideas?

Is your desktop color depth 32 bit?

IIRC NWN runs in 32 bit color and runs absolutely AWFUL if your desktop color is 16 bit.

I've been having this exact same problem actually.

Some of the dialogues don't even work now (takes several minutes to load the next line after clicking "Continue"). My computer is set to 32 bit and the box is more than powerful enough to handle HotU.

Did you re install your video card drivers after you re formatted?

I just put the newest Forceware drivers on my PC. NWN now runs perfectly smoothly at a solid 30 fps with all the graphics settings cranked to the max.

The drivers will say that they may not be compatible with WinXP, but they haven't caused any problems on XP Pro. In fact, my PC is running faster now than it ever has.