Neverwinter Nights on the Aspire One

[Kallethen]

So I decided to see if I could run Neverwinter Nights on the Aspire One. One great thing about this game is that BioWare put out a Linux client that's downloadable from their website. You still need the install disks for all the data and such.

Now, I cheated a bit. I used my flash drive to copy over my NWN folder from my Linux desktop computer to the AA1. The only hiccup I had with this method was that I had to manually re-create the symbolic links, I couldn't copy those over. After getting those made, I ran the startup script from a terminal and viola, the game started up!

The game was a bit slow starting up and of course I had to change the resolution to 1024 by 600 (800 by 600 was also an available option). The game runs pretty smoothly otherwise if you keep the graphics options on the fast and low end. It can work at the high settings, but it's jerky (as I expected). For any Linux install, I'd also recommend the NWMouse scripts to have mouse control that isn't software based (and thus limited if the FPS get low). Said scripts work perfectly on the AA1, as do some other overrides I have.

 

[Kallethen]

I have been suffering one small problem. Since my SD card is formated as a FAT32, it's not keeping the executable permissions of the files used to launch NWN. So just a word to the wise, try to reformat your SD cards if you want symbolic links and permissions to jive.

Also, I should note that the whole NWN folder (which does include some overrides, but no hak files and I deleted the movie files) is 4.7 GB in size, so you will need to use an SD card unless you picked up an AA1 with the larger hard drive.

 

[Zyphlin]

Intriguing user name You use it online ever and if so hows it work? I just got one myself

 

[Kallethen]

Hee hee. Fancy meeting you here.

The game plays decently on low settings, though it gets choppy when there's a lot of foes attacking. I don't mind that so much on a single player game where I can pause if necessary or load up a saved game, but I'm more wary when playing online. But if you are just RPing and not combating, it'll be just fine.

I also came up with a work around for the FAT32 vs. symbolic links issue. Instead of formatting the SDHC card, I took a look in my NWN folder and saw that 4 GB alone were just the "data" folder. So I made a "nwn" folder on both SSD and SDHC. On the memory card I placed the data folder, and on the SSD I placed everything else and setup all the simbolic links. Put the SDHC in the expansion slot, turned the AAO on and let it merge the drive with the card. The result? The two nwn folders merge into one and I can play the game.

 

[Gallean]

Does that mean I can run NWN Nights with the 2 expansions straight out of the box? I've seen the Game Compatibility threads and it says this game works perfect. Just trying to get a second opinion, etc.

I have the 1.6 GHz, 120 GB, 1 GB Aspire One.

Do I need to tweak anything in the registry for screen size, sound, etc.?

On a sidenote... I don't suppose NWN 2 would work, would it?

 

[dbd123]

Also got it working by copying a working linux install to the acer aspire one (110, 8gb linpus version).
The NWN folder is about 2,4 Gb (a couple of save games).
The same small problem (need to recreate the symlinks by hand)...

But i've got a question: could anyone share their built nwmouse.so and other needed files (the cursors, example nwn start script etc...) ?
The homepage of nwmouse seems dead and i can't seem to find it anywhere else !