This is kinda specific, so I don't know if this'll help anybody here, but this bug annoyed me so long I figger'd it was worth a post. For those of you who, like me, are enjoying Wizardry 8, but are getting lots of weird pauses and the map takes between 20 seconds and five minutes to load, there is a fix. Switch from DirectX to OpenGL using the "Setup" utility on the Start Menu. DirectX support is f@#%^ed all to hell.

Hope that helps somebody. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

(Oh, and if you haven't tried Wiz8 yet, you really should. One of the most unique first-person CRPGs out yet. Kind of like quake meets the Final Fantasy combat system. )