Install Neverwinter Nights on any linux distribution

nwnonlinux.md

Neverwinter Nights Diamond GOG on linux

Prerequisites

First make sure that you have the following tools and libraries installed on your system:

innoextract, unzip, 7z, tar, unrar (to extract the game files)

For the nwmovies, nwlogger, nwuser and nwmouse tools, you will need the 32-bit version of these libraries, including their development headers (-dev or -devel packages):

elfutils
glulibgl
libstdc++5
libxcursor
openal
perl
sdl_mixer
SDL-1.2
libX11
zlib

Use the package manager of your distribution to install them. On Ubuntu, development packages have the suffix -dev appended to their name, and you can install 32-bit versions of packages by appending :i386 to their name. For example, to install the 32-bit version of the sdl development libraries, you would have to type sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2-dev:i386.

In this guide, we will install the game in a folder named Neverwinter at the root of your home directory. Of course, you're free to put it wherever you want.

First, create some folders that we will need during installation:

mkdir ~/Neverwinter
mkdir ~/Neverwinter/nwn

Download these and puth them in the ~/Neverwinter folder you just created:

http://nwdownloads.bioware.com/neverwinternights/linux/gold/nwclientgold.tar.gz

http://nwdownloads.bioware.com/neverwinternights/linux/161/nwclienthotu.tar.gz

http://files.bioware.com/neverwinternights/updates/linux/169/English_linuxclient169_xp2.tar.gz

Note: There is a mirror of the bioware ftp site at:

http://lvlt.bioware.cdn.ea.com/bioware/u/f/eagames/bioware/neverwinternights/

Note: it seems like Bioware took down their FTP servers for good. Here are some actively maintained mirrors, courtesy of dotslashplay.it and lutris.net:

https://www.dotslashplay.it/ressources/neverwinter-nights/

https://lutris.net/files/games/neverwinter-nights/

The files you need are:

nwclientgold.tar.gz
nwclienthotu.tar.gz
English_linuxclient169_xp2.tar.gz

Navigate to ~/Neverwinter and clone these repos:

cd ~/Neverwinter
git clone https://github.com/nwnlinux/nwlogger
git clone https://github.com/nwnlinux/nwmovies
git clone https://github.com/nwnlinux/nwmouse
git clone https://github.com/nwnlinux/nwuser

You need the setup files from GOG, plus the Kingmaker expansion pack (the "premium module reinstaller" in the extras section in your GOG library):

setup_nwn_diamond_2.1.0.21-1.bin
setup_nwn_diamond_2.1.0.21.exe
nvn_KingmakerSetup.zip

Put them in the ~/Neverwinter folder.

To play movies, we need the BinkPlayer from RAD Game Tools. Download it here and extract it somewhere:

http://www.radgametools.com/down/Bink/BinkLinuxPlayer.7z

Finally, we need to write a custom patch file for the nwmovies tool. Open your favorite text editor and paste the following:

--- nwmovies_install.pl	2017-06-18 00:59:03.297013302 +0200
+++ patched.pl	2017-06-18 00:59:43.553680961 +0200
@@ -59,7 +59,7 @@
 			 $gcc, $cflags, $x86_64, $ndir, $ndir, $ndir, $ndir );
 do_exec($command); 
 
-$command = sprintf("%s %s %s -Wall -shared -g -I/usr/include/libelf -I%s/libdis -o %s/nwmovies.so %s/nwmovies.c %s/nwmovies_lookup.c %s/nwmovies_cookie.c %s/nwmovies_player.c %s/nwmovies_link.S %s -ldl -Wl,-static -lelf -Wl,-Bdynamic", 
+$command = sprintf("%s %s %s -Wall -shared -g -I/usr/include/libelf -I%s/libdis -o %s/nwmovies.so %s/nwmovies.c %s/nwmovies_lookup.c %s/nwmovies_cookie.c %s/nwmovies_player.c %s/nwmovies_link.S %s -ldl -Wl,-static -lelf -Wl,-Bdynamic -lz", 
 			$gcc, $cflags, $x86_64,  $ndir, $ndir, $ndir, $ndir, $ndir, $ndir, $ndir, $ldflags ); 
 do_exec($command);

Save it as libz.patch in the ~/Neverwinter folder.

To verify, make sure your ~/Neverwinter folder looks like this (type ls -1):

English_linuxclient169_xp2.tar.gz                                                                                              
libz.patch
nvn_KingmakerSetup.zip
nwclientgold.tar.gz
nwclienthotu.tar.gz
nwlogger
nwmouse
nwmovies
nwuser
README.md
setup_nwn_diamond_2.1.0.21-1.bin
setup_nwn_diamond_2.1.0.21.exe

Steps

Unless specified otherwise, all commands are executed from the ~/Neverwinter folder you created before.

1. Extract the game's data from the GOG installer:

innoextract -e setup_nwn_diamond_2.1.0.21.exe --gog

This will create a bunch of folders in your ~/Neverwinter directory.

2. Extract King Maker data files into kingmakertemp (excluding the $PLUGINSDIR folder, as well as exe and dat files):

unzip nvn_KingmakerSetup.zip
7z x KingmakerSetup.exe -xr'!$PLUGINSDIR' -xr'!*.exe' -xr'!*.dat' -okingmakertemp

3. Move game files from the game subfolder into nwn, as well as your cdkey:

cd game
mv -t ~/Neverwinter/nwn ambient data dmvault hak localvault modules movies music nwm texturepacks premium chitin.key dialog.tlk xp1.key xp2.key
cp ~/Neverwinter/support/app/nwncdkey.ini ~/Neverwinter/nwn

4. Move over the contents of the nwlogger, nwmovies, nwuser and nwmouse folders into the nwn subfolder:

cd ~/Neverwinter
mv nwmouse/* nwn/
-mv nwlogger/* nwn/
mv nwuser/* nwn/
mv nwmovies/* nwn

5. Extract the Linux client files in this order and move over the King Maker game files:

tar xfv nwclientgold.tar.gz --directory nwn 
tar xvf nwclienthotu.tar.gz --directory nwn

mv -n kingmakertemp/\$0/* nwn/

tar xvf English_linuxclient169_xp2.tar.gz --directory nwn

6. Compile and install nwmouse, nwuser, nwlogger and nwmovies. You need to patch nwlogger_cookie.c so that gcc finds the sys/user.h header file. We will also apply the libz.patch patch that we created before:

cp libz.patch nwn/nwmovies/
cd nwn
/bin/sed -i 's|linux/user.h|sys/user.h|1' nwlogger/nwlogger_cookie.c
cd nwmovies
patch < libz.patch
cd ..

./nwmouse_install.pl
./nwlogger_install.pl
./nwmovies_install.pl build
./nwuser_install.pl

cp nwmovies/libdis/libdisasm.so lib/ 

7. Create the launcher script. Open your favorite text editor and paste the following:

#!/bin/bash

# Create user directory if it doesn't exist
if [ ! -d "$HOME/.nwn/"  ]; then
    mkdir $HOME/.nwn/
fi

# Uncomment to make SDL sound work on software mixers
#export SDL_AUDIODRIVER=esd
export SDL_MOUSE_RELATIVE=0
export SDL_VIDEO_X11_DGAMOUSE=0

# Hardware mouse cursor
export XCURSOR_PATH=/opt/nwn
export XCURSOR_THEME=nwmouse

# Enable AA on NVidia cards
# 3 = 1.5 x 1.5 super sampling
# 4 = 2x2 super sampling
export __GL_FSAA_MODE=4

export LD_PRELOAD=./nwuser.so:./nwuser64.so:./nwmouse.so:./nwmovies.so:./nwlogger.so

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=./miles:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
#run the game, allowing for executable flags
./nwmain $@

Save it as nwn.sh inside the nwn directory and make it executable, like so:

cd ~/Neverwinter/nwn
chmod +x nwn.sh

8. Run the fixinstall script. It will rename a bunch of files and check file permissions. Look carefully at the output and make sure that all tests pass.

cd ~/Neverwinter/nwn
./fixinstall

9. If you want to play movies, you need to put the BinkPlayer executables you downloaded into the nwmovies folder:

mv BinkPlayer ~/Neverwinter/nwn/nwmovies/
mv BinkPlayer64 ~/Neverwinter/nwn/nwmovies/
chmod +x ~/Neverwinter/nwn/nwmovies/BinkPlayer*

10. Test the game by running ./nwn.sh. You will have to run it several times in order for the various nwlinux tools to intialize their configuration files.

You can now run the game with ./nwn.sh.

Optional: .desktop entry and icons

In this part we will create a .desktop entry so that you can run the game from your applications menu.

[Desktop Entry]
Categories=Game;
Comment=A Forgotten Realms CRPG
Exec=$HOME/Neverwinter/nwn/nwn.sh
Icon=nwn
Name=Neverwinter Nights
NoDisplay=false
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=false
Type=Application

Save it as nwn.desktop and move it to /usr/share/applications/:

sudo mv nwn.desktop /usr/share/applications/

Next we'll create icons to go with your shiny new desktop entry.

First we will convert the .ico provided by the GOG installer into the more usable png format:

cd ~/Neverwinter
mkdir icons
icotool -x -p 0 game/goggame-1207658890.ico -o icons

Then we'll install them into the system's icon folder:

sudo mv icons/goggame-1207658890_6_256x256x32.png /usr/share/icons/hicolor/256x256/apps/nwn.png
sudo mv icons/goggame-1207658890_7_48x48x32.png /usr/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/apps/nwn.png
sudo mv icons/goggame-1207658890_8_32x32x32.png /usr/share/icons/hicolor/32x32/apps/nwn.png
sudo mv icons/goggame-1207658890_9_16x16x32.png /usr/share/icons/hicolor/16x16/apps/nwn.png

Finally, we update the icon cache:

xdg-icon-resource forceupdate --theme hicolor

Credits

From the AUR:

Stephen Baker Slash <demodevil5[at]yahoo[dot]com> Adam Griffiths <adam_griffithsAATTdart.net.au>

From linuxgamecast.com:

Pedro Mateus: https://linuxgamecast.com/2015/11/l-g-c-how-to-installing-neverwinter-nights-linux-native/

Download links from bioware.com and bioware.cdn.ea.com seem dead.
Alternative downloads for the NWN Linux client can be found there: https://www.dotslashplay.it/ressources/neverwinter-nights/
These are lightweight alternatives that will only work on 1.68 or 1.69 version of the game.

bioware's cdn has been weird since 2010 or so, I remember having to poke around their FTP server back then to get the files - still have them around somewhere, was a right pain to collect all of 'em.

Don't think they allow public FTP now either so that door's closed for the better part of half a decade.

Thanks so much for these instructions! The only things I had to change were:

• It should be kingmakertemp in mv -n kingmakertmp/\$0/* nwn/ (step
• I had to set export SDL_AUDIODRIVER=pulse in nwn.sh.