Hello all, I've been playing this game for more than a year, yet in the last month I've encountered a pervasive freezing problem that forces me to reset my PC. I'm using Windows 7, and have set nwn.exe to compatibility mode among other things. I've tried reinstalling to no avail. I'm at my wit's end, and I don't know why it's decided to start acting up all of a sudden.

You have played without incident for a year, and a reset resolves the current issue. What does that tell you? It is your PC, and not the game. You should start with some basic maintenance, ie. clearing out your temp folders and run a complete system scan with malware/antivirus. Then you should look at what is running in the background whilst playing and close down everything that's not essential. Lastly, but certainly not least, you should look to overheating. Open up your box and use a can of compressed air to clean off all of the dust bunnies, and make sure that your box is not stood too close to anything that could restrict proper air flow.

Well, I might agree with you, however this affects no other games, and as it turns out this is a fairly common issue from a thorough online search. However, I've yet to come across a solid fix, thus I've come to you all.

Because it's common (the complaint, that is) doesn't mean it's the game. It clearly is not.

Tried reinstalling, decreasing graphics settings, checking "disable desktop composition" and "disable visual themes" under compatibility?

Neverwinter Nights 2 is a bit of a resource hog, so it stands to reason it would be a bit more prone to causing system overheating than other games. Neverwinter Nights 1, however, seems an unlikely culprit for overheating if no other games cause the problem.

Most likely cause would be graphics drivers - newer versions have a growing tendency to "break" older games.

Although this may seem contradictory advice, first check whether your system has the latest drivers for your graphics card (check with the manufacturer's website, don't rely on Windows Update) and if not, try an update.

If that doesn't help, try an older driver version (ideally, what you were running when you first installed NWN), but this may affect performance for newer games.

Also, make sure that you have software installed to monitor GPU temperatures (MSI Afterburner being a good example for AMD/Nvidia GPUs). It's unlikely that NWN1 could be causing temperature spikes, but a persistent lockup with no other factor than time played does hint at a temperature issue.

This. I know there were (are? I'm not sure about the latest drivers as I haven't fired up the game in some time) a series of nvidia drivers that caused all manner of woe for NWN1 for many people. Perhaps try a fairly old version of your video driver to see if it helps.

If Nvidia drivers are involved, then a look at the Huge Problem GTX480 and Neverwinter Nights ... impossible to play thread may be of relevance (best to start at the end but Forceware 280.19 beta gets a big thumbs-up on page 28).