Fixing issues with Vista/7 and NWN

[Aperion]

If you are having stability issues OR are installing NWN on Vista or Windows 7, here's some more useful information. First and foremost, to get the game to work at all, this is the absolute minimum you must do:
-Update to 1.69.
-Install all Avlis haks.
-Set ALL executables in your NWN folder to run as Administrator. All of them.
-Make sure you use up to date drivers and all mandatory patches for your OS.

At this point, NWN should work. However, not all things are equal, and different machines with different hardware can affect NWN in different ways. Some Vista/7 machines play NWN perfectly. Others crash all to hell without any rhyme or reason. Other things you can do to help:

-Set compatibility mode to Windows XP Service Pack 3.
-Shut down the Aero UI.
-For ATI users in particular, there's a problem with some recent updates to their Radeon video drivers regarding OpenGL. The specific issue is detailed here, and it appears the fix originated in this thread, so yay for Avlis nerds:

Hi guys!
Ressurecting this thread as I just had the same issue.
Fixed it with some elbow grease!

The problem is indeed with the new AMD openGL drivers, atioglxx.dll to be exact, in Catalyst 10.2 and 10.3. If you want to run either of these you need to use the 9.12 version of atioglxx.dll
to do so you can follow this thread here. Post nine has the info, I'll summarise:

Get a copy of the 9.12 driver, extract the file atioglxx.dl_ using 7-zip (it should be in $_OUTDIR\Packages\Drivers\Display\W76A_INF\B_92022\ or similiar) then use expand in the command prompt as follows:

click start and type cmd in the search bar
go to the directory you extracted atioglxx.dl_ to using cd (for example: cd d:\ati_extract\)
type: "expand atioglxx.dl_ d:\nwn\"

d:\nwn is my nwn install directory.

Rename the expanded atioglxx.dl_ in your nwn directory to atioglxx.dll
All should be happy.

Alternativey you can shoot me a pm and I will give you the file you need to put in your nwn dir.
Or as noted above you can use the 9.12 drivers.

Jay

Aero and Neverwinter Nights

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 will automatically shut down the Aero theme if it detects you're running a program that's not compatible. It flags NWN as such a program, and does exactly that. If you are not running SP1, or Vista, and have stability issues including problems tabbing out or crashes at seemingly random intervals, then you need to manually shut off Aero. I have tested this on several machines so far, and stability under Windows 7 dramatically improved once Aero was turned off. I encourage others to confirm or deny this issue.

[Manuel the White]

Bummer buddy. I just got a new 17" Dell. Really liking Windows 7. I'm running NWN as Administrator. I have noticed an increase in crashes from XP. But it's not terrible.

[Darkfire]

On the short list of things I've already tried:
1. Uninstalling drivers, uninstall NWN, scrub remaining driver profiles, reinstall drivers, reinstall NWN. Nothing.
2. Set Administrative permissions, set WinXP compatability. None of this helps.
3. The Bioware forums. They mention atioglxx in several places, but none of it in this context.
4. ....
5. Still no profit.

Step 4, perhaps you should try ???? instead of .....

[Aperion]

On the short list of things I've already tried:
1. Uninstalling drivers, uninstall NWN, scrub remaining driver profiles, reinstall drivers, reinstall NWN. Nothing.
2. Set Administrative permissions, set WinXP compatability. None of this helps.
3. The Bioware forums. They mention atioglxx in several places, but none of it in this context.
4. ....
5. Still no profit.

Step 4, perhaps you should try ???? instead of .....

You're not going to believe this, but doing ???? actually had an impact.

So, I uninstalled all my ATI drivers. Swept everything out. No more display driver, working in 800x600 resolution at the moment. NWN loads up perfectly.

So the question is now what older driver will work without fucking up NWN? This question, I will answer soonish.

edit: So, the oldest Windows 7 release drivers from ATI work. You know what? I've spent nearly 4 days on this, I'm claiming Mission Accomplished, and moving on right here and now.

[Darkfire]

You're welcome!


A friend's computer that I just fixed and installed NWN on... same issue but it was with Windows XP. Looks like ATI is the culprit, not Windows 7. Default drivers that installed with XP for the card (they were proper drivers surprisingly) left the game running very slow, even the startup menu.

Installed the newest drivers for the card and NWN wouldn't even load up. Luckily I had backed his video drivers up onto my computer from 2007 and still had them, so tossed those on there and ta da! Worked great.



Glad you got it all fixed.

[Aperion]

Here's what I can determine:

ATI's newest drivers (10.2) come with some new OpenGL stuff, which is what my NWN was getting hung up on. I had to do it properly, but once I got the 10.1 drivers without the new OpenGL material, it all worked again.

So, while I'm not usually one to advocate older drivers, I'll just say back your stuff up before installing the newest ATI drivers that are out there.

[Li'll Divvil]

I never use the newest gfx drivers for anything. Either Nvidia or ATI.

Had the biggest problems with the (then time) newest Nvidia drivers just after buying an 8800GT (in Jan. 2008 I think), but when I went back to the oldest microsoft certified nvidia drivers that would support my gfx card it worked fine. I waited for a few months, then upgraded to the newest drivers again (newer version than the previous newest drivers of course) and they worked so I guess they fixed whatever was borked.

Rule 1 when upgrading drivers always make sure you have an archive copy of your old ones lying around so you can go back to a version that actually works.

[jaythespacehound]

Hi guys!
Ressurecting this thread as I just had the same issue.
Fixed it with some elbow grease!

The problem is indeed with the new AMD openGL drivers, atioglxx.dll to be exact, in Catalyst 10.2 and 10.3. If you want to run either of these you need to use the 9.12 version of atioglxx.dll
to do so you can follow this thread here. Post nine has the info, I'll summarise:

Get a copy of the 9.12 driver, extract the file atioglxx.dl_ using 7-zip (it should be in $_OUTDIR\Packages\Drivers\Display\W76A_INF\B_92022\ or similiar) then use expand in the command prompt as follows:

click start and type cmd in the search bar
go to the directory you extracted atioglxx.dl_ to using cd (for example: cd d:\ati_extract\)
type: "expand atioglxx.dl_ d:\nwn\"

d:\nwn is my nwn install directory.

Rename the expanded atioglxx.dl_ in your nwn directory to atioglxx.dll
All should be happy.

Alternativey you can shoot me a pm and I will give you the file you need to put in your nwn dir.
Or as noted above you can use the 9.12 drivers.

Jay

[mhogar]

big thanks man ... damn AMD

[jaythespacehound]

No worries, and yes AMD drivers are still not 100% it seems But they added a whole bunch of stuff that is awesome so... *sigh*

[Aperion]

Mixing and matching driver files as described above is a bad idea. It may work perfectly, and have no troubles, or it could really mess up your computer when it makes a call to that atioglxx.dll file that the older version isn't set up to handle.

The simpler solutions is to just use the 10.1 driver, it's the latest that works with NWN still without any issues at all.

Or go with nVidia.

[EvokedShade]

STRAIGHT FROM RANTS!!!

Holy shit. Found what I needed here

http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview. ... TMP=Linear

fucking ATI i hate you

BOOM! - Worked for me. I just compressed nwmain.exe with that little program mentioned in the thread. Have't ha a problem since. Stoped the memory leak dead in it's tracks and hasn't messed with my game play or game graphics at all. oh and I turned off Shiney Water in the video advanced menu.

Hope that helps!

[EvokedShade]

oh.. and a common sense thing.. don't forget to back up your nwmain.exe

[jaythespacehound]

Mixing and matching driver files as described above is a bad idea. It may work perfectly, and have no troubles, or it could really mess up your computer when it makes a call to that atioglxx.dll file that the older version isn't set up to handle.

The simpler solutions is to just use the 10.1 driver, it's the latest that works with NWN still without any issues at all.

Or go with nVidia.

In general, true!
In this case not so big a problem as atioglxx.dll is only being called by nwn (you are not replacing the system atioglxx!) and nwn is known to work well with that version of it. That + nwn isn't likely to update any time soon.

@EvokedShade, Cool, thanks missed that bit! happy with how it's going at the moment but if I have any issues in the future...

[EvokedShade]

Mixing and matching driver files as described above is a bad idea. It may work perfectly, and have no troubles, or it could really mess up your computer when it makes a call to that atioglxx.dll file that the older version isn't set up to handle.

The simpler solutions is to just use the 10.1 driver, it's the latest that works with NWN still without any issues at all.

Or go with nVidia.

In general, true!
In this case not so big a problem as atioglxx.dll is only being called by nwn (you are not replacing the system atioglxx!) and nwn is known to work well with that version of it. That + nwn isn't likely to update any time soon.

@EvokedShade, Cool, thanks missed that bit! happy with how it's going at the moment but if I have any issues in the future...

right on.

[Krator]

Hi guys!
Ressurecting this thread as I just had the same issue.
Fixed it with some elbow grease!

The problem is indeed with the new AMD openGL drivers, atioglxx.dll to be exact, in Catalyst 10.2 and 10.3. If you want to run either of these you need to use the 9.12 version of atioglxx.dll
to do so you can follow this thread here. Post nine has the info, I'll summarise:

Get a copy of the 9.12 driver, extract the file atioglxx.dl_ using 7-zip (it should be in $_OUTDIR\Packages\Drivers\Display\W76A_INF\B_92022\ or similiar) then use expand in the command prompt as follows:

click start and type cmd in the search bar
go to the directory you extracted atioglxx.dl_ to using cd (for example: cd d:\ati_extract\)
type: "expand atioglxx.dl_ d:\nwn\"

d:\nwn is my nwn install directory.

Rename the expanded atioglxx.dl_ in your nwn directory to atioglxx.dll
All should be happy.

Alternativey you can shoot me a pm and I will give you the file you need to put in your nwn dir.
Or as noted above you can use the 9.12 drivers.

Jay

Thanks for this guys.

Googled the problem, this thread was hit #1

[Aperion]

o hey this thread

[Aperion]

Bumping this thread. I've turned the OP into more of a general 'if things go wrong, here's what you do first' post. I've tried to make it as simple as possible and included some information beyond the problems of ATI, which is originally what this thread was about. It seems that every so often that someone needs help with getting NWN to run properly on newer operating systems or hardware.

[mhogar]

*tests this old solution for catalyst 12.4 with the atioglxx.dll from catalyst 12.1*

IT SEEMS TO WORK

[Vanar Alhaldren]

This thread is super helpful! Seriously. Must have been the new graphics card I got a while back (just a newer version of the last radeon I had so not sure why this one was so unhappy, but whatever) but this is what has gotten things up and running again. Thanks!

[HeroOfTime49]

I jut got a Windows 8 computer. Do you guys think this process will work for it too? I just wanted to ask before I went through the trouble. I am not too computer savvy.

[Levis Pie]

So I've tried running as Admin, compatability xp service pack 2 & 3, graphics lower than my standards, still choppy as a midsummer squall matey! Don't suppose it would have anything to do with the fact I don't have a vid card? Would she run right using XP even w/o a card? Not exactly the most 'puter savvy but I'll re-read more in depth in a couple days when I have 'net access again and a little more time.

[tindertwiggy]

So I've tried running as Admin, compatability xp service pack 2 & 3, graphics lower than my standards, still choppy as a midsummer squall matey! Don't suppose it would have anything to do with the fact I don't have a vid card? Would she run right using XP even w/o a card? Not exactly the most 'puter savvy but I'll re-read more in depth in a couple days when I have 'net access again and a little more time.

What video card do you have? You have to have something in there if there is a monitor attached to your computer.

[Gumble Tinkertumble]

On board GPU?

[Levis Pie]

aye, onboard i'm assuming.