Friday, March 21, 2003

Yet Another NWN Update -- 10:21 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I'm guessing no one would mind another Neverwinter Nights Linux update :) I created a new character and got him up to level five. All told, I've probably played for about two or three hours and it's been rock solid. I've been very impressed. I think my sound issues come from the fact that the game seems to be expecting at least a four-speaker system whereas I only have two. That option is not available in the sound settings. Hopefully that will be fixed soon. Other than that, it's been great.

NWN Linux Installer -- 3:25 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Ravage has created an installer for Neverwinter Nights in Linux so that you don't have to have a Windows partition to copy the files from. You will also have to download the NWN manual patch to 1.29 and run it with Wine or WineX. The author of the installer is working on a version that includes the 1.29 patch. I have not tried this, but others have reported success.

When the final version of the Linux client comes out, Bioware says that you will no longer need a Windows partition. This is just a temporary measure.

UPDATE! The installer now includes the 1.29 patch in English only. I'm going to have to download this and give it a whirl.

NWN Linux Client: Beta 2 -- 2:32 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Well, that was fast! Bioware has already posted a second beta of the Neverwinter Nights Linux client. I'm hoping someone posts a changelog soon so I know what the difference is. I'll install it and see if I find anything obvious.

NWN Linux Beta Client Tips -- 2:13 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Here are a few tips for people who are having problems getting the Neverwinter Nights beta Linux client running. I've gleaned most of these from the NWN Linux forum.

• Make sure you run ./fixinstall first! In other words, read the README!
• Double-check all of your permissions where you installed it. The user running the game will need write access to just about everything. I issued these commands after I installed the game as root in /usr/local/games/nwn:
  
  chown -R root:games nwn/
  chmod -R g+w nwn/
  
  Then I added my username to the games group.
• Zombie reports that after he reinstalled the NVIDIA binary drivers everything worked fine. Some have had conflicts with previously installed Mesa libraries.
• Make sure AGP support is working (type cat /proc/driver/nvidia/agp/status if you have an NVIDIA card. ATI cards should be similar.)
• Set XFree86 to use 24 bit color. Make sure you also have the resolution modes you want to use added to your XF86Config-4 file.
• Try copying the contents of the miles subdirectory to /usr/local/lib (or, better yet, add the full path to the miles subdirectory to /etc/ld.so.conf and the type ldconfig). That shouldn't be necessary, but some have reported that it works. That sounds like an ld problem to me.

Pondering the Imponderable -- 1:53 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I'm not going to comment much about the war in Iraq. I am continuously praying that this will be resolved quickly. I'm not going to use this website as a bully pulpit unlike so many actors who use their fame to try to make us believe that their views are worth listening to. Having said that, I found it interesting that Iraq launched Scud missiles against British and American troops as well as Kuwait City. Why didn't Hans Blix and the U.N. inspectors ever find those? And here I thought Iraq had complied with the U.N. sanctions.

Some fans of the Montreal Canadiens booed the American national anthem. I think there are two possible explanations for this:

1. They are just mad that their team once again is going to miss the playoffs and thus have no shot at Lord Stanley's hardware.
2. The French word "Boux" actually means "hooray!" in English.

Thursday, March 20, 2003

NWN Linux Client: Beta 1 -- 5:21 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Pardon me whilst I have a heart attack, but Bioware has finally released the first beta version of the Neverwinter Nights Linux client! That page has all the details. I'll let you know how it is as soon as I get it installed!

UPDATE! I had a meeting tonight, so I didn't even get it fully installed before I had to leave. So far, the beta works very nicely. I think it even runs more smoothly at the same settings than it did in Windows! I'll have to play some more to give it a better test. Here's a list of "issues" I've run into, none of which are show-stoppers by any means:

• The game must be installed as the user who runs it. That means you have to have a spare 2G in your /home partition. I install it as root then created a "games" group and added myself to it. I chowned everything as root:games and made sure all the permissions were set properly. The main reason I did this is that if I installed it as in /home, I wouldn't have much space left.
• The sound effects and voices seem too soft, especially compared to the music volume.
• The "Load Game" screen shows a stretched-out version of my portrait instead of a screenshot.

I've been very impressed so far. Looks like I'll have to do a bit more "research." :)

Bleh -- 9:21 am CST, Update by The Master

Eeyore picked up a digital camera for us yesterday. We settled on a Sony Cybershot DSC-P72. This is a very sweet camera--it takes great pictures (up to 5x7 at high quality) and is reasonably priced. I had a good time toying with the software that interfaces it with the PC. The only complaint I have with this camera so far is the USB device driver for Windows 2000 is not placed on the CD in such a way that Windows can install it automatically -- you need to use the installation menu Sony provides. But that's a minor complaint.

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