Completely new to NWNX

[draco celtae]

I've been contimplating a switch to NWNX, but I have quite a few questions before I do anything, since i dont want to mess anything up (As im prone to doing).
Reading through some of the Q&A here...i realize that I'm completely NWNX illiterate, and ive gone cross eyed tryin to understand some things...so please, treat me like im mental, and explain slow (I would appretiate it very much)

I've been making a semi-PW, and so far have just been using NWN normal database (I guess)...

I havnt put the server up yet, so im not particularily worried about loosing data...but my questions are:

With all the erfs Ive d/lded from the vault and implemented into my mod...will NWNX cause any of them to not work correctly?
IE:
NPC Actions 6.0
Rocc's Subdual damage
Intrepid CW's db_manager (..to be honest, i still am unclear as to what thehell this does...a friend just reccomended i use it)
and a PW banking system.

ALSO
what are the benifits to using another DB (other than the one thats standard with NWN)?...I know it makes things "faster"..but at the rsk of sounding even MORE like i know nothing...makes WHAT faster?
Does it reduce lag?

Anyhow...I would appretiate any answers...and I apologize for being so very very cluless haha

[Kosmous]

the banking system adn the db_manager will probably be thrown out unless they have a version which utilizes NWNX specifically.

NWNX is actually SLOWER when it comes to retrieving data (as ive heard from forums) but not significantly. The "speed advantage" of NWNX is during writing to the database. Bioware DB is extremely slow while NWNX writes dozens of times faster. Basicly, unless ur reading and writing between NWN and the db a hundreds of lines per second, it probably wont affect the server. However, the bioware db writing can be a problem if writing more than a couple of dozen items (dont qoute me on this tho).

Regardless, speed isnt y u should use NWNX. There are two main reasons u would actualy use it extensively (if at all), 1)You cant live without SQL. If youre not familiar with SQL, its a very simple and powerful language u can use to make simple to the most complex queries. Its hard to stress how impt it is for server admins who dont just want to retrieve values from a single table. 2)You love the NWNX plugins and perhaps even make your own. If you look around at the existing plugins for NWNX, there is so much to offer even WITHOUT a database connection. You can do stuff like setname, have NWN use external resources (ResMan), delete characters from an account etc... just by dling existing plugins. you may also make your own if ur good enough.

[draco celtae]

Thank you

Yeah, I was looking at some of the plug-ins (Such as the Server restarter, and an external program that will delete unused chars in the server vault every some odd days)...Stuff like that would really help out ina server where I cant be around to do housekeeping all the time.

As for the bank vault script...Why would it be affected? And now that i know that lol...will NWNX also affect my PW Inns script (which didnt mention compatibility with NWNx, but didnt mention UNcompatibility either)

AND

So I can keep using my NWN database with NWNx...all I'd have to do is comment out the lines in the INI file that direct it to another db? (such as SQlite etc etc)
Thats the part that absolutely baffles me...I really want players to be able to delete one of their chars if they choose (so they stop bugging me)...but I cant get it to work...im not sure how to direct nwnx to my servervault or to my NWN default database...then again, like i said before im not sure of anything haha

[MacLir]

[Acrodania]

To give you a small example of the difference in speed since numbers don't nessessarily do so....

The first quest system I wrote had 4 steps in it and wrote 48 variables into the database to support them. 5 of those lines were multiple sentance text.

When the quest was given and I was still using the Bioware DB it took 5 1/2 seconds for the entries to be made. That is over 5 seconds of LAG in the script engine that you could feel in the entire server. With NWNX and setting those same variables into the MySQL database you could not feel the lag at all.