MAC NWN FAQ CONTENTS:Section 1: General InformationSection 2: Tips and TricksSection 3: Updates and ExpansionsSection 4: TroubleshootingSection 5: Forum-SpecificQuoted PostsChangelogSection 3: Updates and Expansions3.01: What version of NWN is shipping in the Mac version? What is the current version? How can I tell what version I have?The shipped version of plain NWN is 1.30; the shipped version of the expansions is 1.62. The current version is listed
here. The version number of your Neverwinter Nights install is found in the top right-hand corner of the in-game Options Menu (here is an
example).
3.02: Will the Windows, Mac, and Linux Updates be released at the same time?[Quoting Derek French of BioWare:] For the most part, yes. We don't forsee anything that would prevent the Updates to all be released within 24 hours of each other, but we aren't willing to make statements in absolutes about this subject quite yet. You never know when the ninjas might attack again...
3.03: Is the NWN Updater included with the Mac version?No, the NWN Update utility is not included.
3.04: So how do I update Neverwinter Nights on the Mac?You will have to download and install updates manually. You can see what updates are available on the
Patches page. Follow the link for the update you're interested in to download it, see more details about what it includes, and get instructions on how to install it; generic instructions for any patch are below (note: some of the patches are known to have included erroneous instructions; if in doubt, follow the instructions below).
Note: if you plan on installing Mac versions of the expansions, do so before updating Neverwinter Nights (
see 4.17 for more information).
What to install: - If you have NWN alone, then you should use the plain NWN update.
- If you have NWN + SoU, then you should only use the SoU update.
- If you have NWN + HotU, then you should only use the HotU update.
- If you have NWN + SoU + HotU, use both SoU and HotU patches (in that order). When applying the SoU patch in this case, ignore installing the two files "xp1patch.key" (normally in the same folder as NWN) and "xp1patch.bif" (normally in the "data" folder in your main NWN folder). (Technically, you only need to update the files in the "nwm" folder from the SoU patch.)
How to install:After you download and unzip the patch, copy its files and folders to your existing NWN install as follows (you may want to make a backup of your install first if you have the disk space):
- files in the top-level folder of the patch ("dialog.tlk" etc.): copy them to the folder containing your existing NWN application.
- folders in the patch folder ("data" etc.): copy their contents to the same folder in your NWN application folder. Important: do not simply copy the folders over, as they only contain those files that are updated, not all the files needed to run the game.
- "override" folder: this is the exception; copy the folder itself from the patch to your existing NWN application folder, overwriting the existing folder.
for all of the above, overwrite any existing files and make folders as necessary.
Additional notes for patch 1.69:New content (for example, horses) will not show up unless the following new items are placed in the appropriate place:
- xp3.bif file: put in the "data" folder.
- xp3.key file: put in the main Neverwinter Nights folder.
- xp2_tex_tpa.eft file: put in the "texturepacks" folder.
- everything in the patch's "ambient" folder: put in your existing "ambient" folder.
3.05: Will the Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide (SoU) or Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark (HotU) expansions be coming out for Mac?Macintosh versions of
SoU and
HotU are now available
[Update: they are now very rare]. Each expansion provides 20+ hours of game play, new spells, extra tilesets, new creatures, and more. The expansions are only available for the Mac in their stand-alone editions (NWN Gold, NWN Platinum and NWN Diamond are not available for the Mac, nor have any plans to release them been made public).
3.06: Wait, I see people on the forum say they're playing with the PC versions of the NWN expansions on the Mac! How is that possible?All the data files used by NWN and its expansions are cross-platform. That means that the same data files that work on the Windows version should work on Mac and Linux platforms. In addition, the same game application is used in Windows to run NWN and the expansions. Before the Mac versions of the expansions were available, some Mac users reported having successfully bought the Windows version of the expansions, installed the included data files and run the expansions using the Mac game application (using the Mac NWN Play CD).
Neither BioWare nor MacSoft can provide support for users doing this. See also question 3.08 and 3.09.3.07: I've seen people say on the forum that if I install the PC expansions, I should also install the patches for the Linux version; the install instructions for that version say I should delete everything in my "override" folder. Is that correct?No! The Mac version of NWN depends on certain files in the "override" folder not included in other versions, so those instructions do not apply. As well, if you have added files not included in the original Mac install or updates from BioWare, the game may not run as expected. As of NWN version 1.64, it appears that files from the Linux patches are no longer necessary to install non-Mac expansions on the Mac (see also method four under section 3.09).
As of NWN version 1.64, your override folder should include, and only include, the following three files:
- load_legal.tga
- load_legal2.tga
- soundprovider.2da
In addition, if you have not installed either of the expansions, you need this file (making a total of four):
3.08: I've seen lots of discussion on the forum about a Mac NWN Auto-Updater. What's that?Update: the Auto-Updater no longer seems to be maintained and will likely not work with the latest patches; this information is being kept here for reference only. If you are trying to use the PC Diamond edition of NWN, see 3.09 below.There is a third-party update utility available from the
OpenKnights Consortium. From the old OpenKnights home page, it is "for managing Bioware updates for the OS X clients and servers, including installing the officially unsupported (on the Mac) expansions, Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark".
Note that this utility is not intended for use with the official Mac versions of the expansions. Neither BioWare nor MacSoft can provide support for this utility.3.09 Since there is no Diamond edition of NWN for the Mac, is it possible to use the Windows version?There are currently four ways to use the
Windows Diamond edition on a Mac. They are listed below in no particular order.
1. Install virtual machine (VM) software to run Microsoft Windows inside Mac OS X. NWN Diamond is then installed and run from inside the Windows VM.
Not all VM software works for this;
Parallels 3 has been reported to work (though it may be necessary to specify a NWN resolution matching the resolution of the VM and to play around with the VM window size slightly); VMWare Fusion 2 appears to work, but not at acceptable speeds (Fusion 3 has not yet been tested). The advantages of this solution are that it allows use of Diamond's normal install/update mechanisms and of the Toolset and included Premium Modules, and that it does not require restarting your Mac to run NWN. The disadvantages are that it requires a copy of both Parallels and Windows (making this potentially the most expensive option), it may provide lower performance than running natively, and it is not officially supported by BioWare.
2. (Vaguely related to 1.) Run the Windows version of NWN under Mac OS X using
Wine (Wine is a reimplementation of the Win32 API for other operating systems--if this doesn't make sense to you, you can think of it as cousin to
Rosetta translation, but for Windows applications instead of Mac PPC applications). Getting this to work might be esoteric for many, but user
doh123 has created a
NWN WinToOSX Wrapper which greatly simplifies the process. The advantages of this solution are that it likely does not require obtaining a copy of Windows (making this the cheapest option) and does not require rebooting into Windows. The disadvantages are that it does not support the Toolset or Server at this time, it may provide lower performance than running natively, and it is not officially supported by BioWare.
3. Use Apple's Boot Camp to start up your Mac using Microsoft Windows. NWN Diamond should install and run natively in such a setup, provided your Mac meets the
minimum Windows requirements. The advantages of this method are that it allows use of Diamond's normal install/update mechanisms and of the Toolset and included Premium Modules, likely offers the best performance, and makes it possible to obtain official technical support. The disadvantages are that it requires shutting down Mac OS X and restarting in Windows every time you want to play Neverwinter Nights, requires a copy of Windows, and requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later (earlier versions don't include Boot Camp).
4. Use NWN for Windows simply to provide the resources for a Mac OS X based install of NWN. As all NWN game resources are completely cross-platform, it should be possible to use them if one has the Mac retail version of the game's application file (in practice there are also a few other Mac-specific files required). There have even been reports of the Windows NWN resources being used with the free downloadable Mac Tech Trial of the game (
caution: the Miles Carbon Library included with the Tech Trial seems to be version 6.5c whereas the Mac Retail has version 6.5f; there have been reports of frequent crashes when the Tech Trial version is used). For more information, see the discussions linked above. The advantages of this method are that it is the only method that works on both PPC and Intel Macs, it does not require rebooting into Windows, and for those with only vanilla Mac NWN, it may be the only practical way to obtain the expansions (as the Mac versions are now rare). The disadvantages are that it involves a possibly tricky install process (see below), it does not enable installing Diamond's included Premium Modules (they work but can only be installed by manually copying them from a Windows install), it requires copies of NWN for both Windows and Mac (the Mac Retail version has become rare, and issues with the Mac Tech Trial are noted above), it does not allow the use of the Toolset, and it is supported by neither BioWare nor MacSoft.
General instructions for method 4 (using NWN Diamond; instructions are similar for other versions):
crispyking posted: Thursday, 09 March 2006 02:25PM
These are the (Terminal) commands I used to install it from scratch using the Diamond DVD. (This assumes you've downloaded the SoU and HotU [1.67] Mac patches to your desktop):
cd ~/Desktop
mkdir "NWN Updater"
cd "NWN Updater"
unzip /Volumes/NW_DIAMOND/Data_Shared.zip
unzip -n /Volumes/NW_DIAMOND/data/XP1.zip
unzip -n /Volumes/NW_DIAMOND/data/XP2.zip
unzip -n /Volumes/NW_DIAMOND/Data_linux.zip
cd ..
unzip -o XP1Mac_English_167beta2.zip
unzip -o XP2Mac_English_167beta2.zip
mv "NWN Updater" "Neverwinter Nights"
After that, I just copied the Bink Carbon Library and miles directory from my Mac version into the Neverwinter Nights folder and it seems to work fine (at least I can start each campaign and wander around with no issues).
crispyking also created a
shell script to simplify the instructions above. To paraphrase from the script's instructions, you need the Diamond DVD in your Mac's DVD drive, the Mac versions of the latest SoU and HotU patches in the same folder as the script, and the "Bink Carbon Library" file and "miles" folder from an existing Mac NWN install in the same folder as the script. The script will then, when run, do the necessary installation work.
Neither BioWare nor MacSoft can provide support for this utility.3.10: How do you feel about Mac users buying the PC expansions to play on the Mac?[A direct quote from Al Schilling, Product Manager, MacSoft:] "We really WANT you to enjoy NWN Mac. If picking up the PC version of SoU makes your NWN experience better-we're happy. We can't offer you tech support for it but we're not opposed to it."
3.11: I don't see Macs in the system requirements for the Premium NWN Modules (Kingmaker, etc.). Why don't they work?Like all modules, the Premium Modules are cross-platform compatible and do in fact work with Macs. However, they were never officially supported on the Mac. The last BioWare communication on this in the forums was as follows:
Derek French posted: Thursday, 16 December 2004 06:46PM
We are working through contractual details for Mac versions of the BioWare Premium Modules and we hope to have more info "soon".
Should you buy a Premium Module (or receive one as a gift!), simply download the "manual install" (or Linux) version. Once you unzip the package, install the files similar to how you would for a NWN patch (
see 3.04 above). Note that you will still need to meet the other minimum requirements for each module (such as installed expansions, etc.).
[Update: the Premium Modules are no longer available for purchase on any platform, presumably for similar contractual reasons.]
Modifié par Llandru, 12 août 2010 - 07:29 .