Anyone else have a problem with massive slowdowns in parts of the game where there is a lot on the screen in the way of clouds/web spells/magic missiles, etc...?

I don't think it's my PC, it's a 2400+ with a 9600XP (basically a system made a couple of years after the game).

It makes the game effectively unplayable, you can barely move the mouse, and you get only about a frame or two per second.

http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/IWD2/index_editors1.php

"Slowdown Fixes"

I think I tried that one, my problems aren't really area specific, just any time spells such as cloudkill are on the screen...

If it isn't a common problem I might look into other stuff like drivers, etc...

Perhaps your RAM is not upto speed. One of my RAM sticks went bust and I didn't really notice until games started dithering.

Lower the graphics options a bit. Spell area effects are really graphic intensive. That may help.

yeah, what Taluntain said. There is a bug, especially in the Goblin warrens that slows things down ridiculously, but it is fixable. The patch changes the frequency with which the game checks certain conditions (I think).

Turning the graphs down help. I have the same in both IWD and IWD2 (2400+, 9800pro) with area and cloud spells, especially area fire spells in IWD.

He is not referring to the bug that's fixed by Extremist's patch... he's referring to the "general slowness" that happens when a lot of NPC's or visual effects are on the screen at once.

I've seen it too, and in these particular situations, IWD2 is slower than ToEE!

There's really nothing that can be done about it.
I have a feeling the problem is less serious on NVidia Geforce video cards though.

A really bad place with this problem is:
(spoiler)
The 5 point star you need to "draw" in order to get into the wizard's tower at the Severed Hand.
Check your framerate right before you "draw" the last line... it should be below 10fps, and your mouse should be as slow as molasses.

I've never encountered this problem. My characters must be too good at roasting enemies quickly for me to ever notice. :D ;)

My Neverwinter Nights runs far more slowly than my Icewind Dale II.

Yeah, this is very strange, just been trying to defeat Chapotek (or whatever) the dragon, and it is completely unplayable...

My system is several times faster than the recommended system, and the effects are turned down, but I still get only a couple of frames a second and the mouse drags so far behind me moving it that it is impossible to use.

Grrr.... just ordered Baldur's Gate II as well, hope it isn't as unbearable to play.

Well, what you can try is turning the resolution down to 640x480, and turn all the special graphics effects off for such areas. It should help somewhat.

Yeah, from what I've heard in this thread and elsewhere it seems that this problem only occurs on certain video card/OS/DirectX combinations.

For example, any ATI card 9500 or better + Windows XP SP1,SP2 + DirectX 9.0 + recent video card drivers

seems to exhibit the slow graphics problem.

Whereas your older computer which uses a Geforce3, Windows 2000, and video drivers from 2002 won't exhibit the problem.

(Meanwhile, when it comes to NWN, both computers are opposite in terms of performance... go figure)

Hommser,

This problem doesn't seem to occur in BG2. I think it's because BG2 actually used a better graphics engine (which used OpenGL acceleration!).
BG2 has better graphics than IWD2 as well... it truly is the King of all Infinity Engine games. ;)