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Linux Client News Archive

Previous Updates:

[Mar 14 2003] These questions were recently posted to the Linux Forum. Thanks for the questions, Fuzzle!

1. Were you expecting the current level of frustration from the Linux crowd? And do you find it tiresome?

We are seeking to deliver a product to the Linux crowd that meets their expectations. Unfortunately, this process has taken longer than originally anticipated but will ultimately meet performance expectations. I don't find the interest of our fans to be tiresome in any way! To me, its more of an indication of just how passionate our Linux fans are. They keep us honest.

2. As soon as you get the go ahead, how before the client will hit the download page?

4.3 milliseconds. =] We have everything packaged up and ready to go, and are just waiting on the trigger to be pulled. Again, we cannot give you an estimate, as this is a Go, No-Go situation. Yes, we are very aware of the waning days of Winter 2002 that are remaining. We are counting the seconds ourselves.

3. Looking back, if you had the chance at doing NWN from scratch, would you do anything differently?

From Trent Oster, Producer, NWN - I would focus the core concept further and deliver a tighter implementation of the game. I would improve the storyline in the official campaign by focusing the same resources on a smaller scope. Essentially making less, but ensuring consistent high quality and immersiveness.

[Feb 26 2003] We are about ready to go for the Linux Client Public Beta, but we are waiting on some standard commercial issues to be completed. This is a normal, expected step in publicly releasing material. This does not add any new obstacles or complications to the mix. It’s about as ready to go as can be from our end and after these commercial issues are finished up we will get it out to you. Sorry, but we cannot give you an exact time estimate right now.

[Feb 14 2003] Not much news to report this week, but we've got screenshots! The Linux client has been brought up to date with the 1.28 updates. Apparently, there are also some really nasty penguins camped out with the recently added Gnolls...

[Feb 7 2003] Bugs. Dammit.

[Jan 31 2003] Aside from the mind-numbing bug fixing process, we have started testing the Linux client on various boxes around the office. We are getting mixed results, but our spirits remain high. And did we mention we're still fixing bugs? *sigh*

[Jan 24 2003] We are now into the rather boring stretch at the end of game development. We are currently running through the loop of: find bug, fix bug, make new build, test. Rinse and repeat. Unfortunately, this is also the longest part of development and the most uncertain. It is even harder now to give you a date on the Client Beta.

[Jan 17 2003] Lots of Linux Client bug fixing happened this week. Things are moving along smoothly and we just have a few more big things to work out before we can proceed to the next step. The significant news item this week is that we currently do not have a movie player for the Neverwinter Nights Linux Client. At this time, we do not want to delay the release of the Client for a movie player, so we will continue to look for a solution after release.

As promised, here are the answers to a number of questions about the current and future status of the Neverwinter Nights Linux Client.

Neverwinter Nights Linux Client Public Beta:
There will be a Public Beta of the Neverwinter Nights Linux Client, but it will have the same restrictions as the Neverwinter Nights Linux Client Installation. You will need both the game resources and a CD-Key.

Neverwinter Nights Linux Client Installation:
There are 2 things you will need for the Neverwinter Nights Linux Client, aside from the Linux Client executable:
- the game resources
- a CD-Key

You will need to get the Neverwinter Nights game resources from one of two locations. You can either get them from an existing Windows installation of the English 1.27 build of Neverwinter Nights, or from a Neverwinter Nights Linux Game Resource download that will be available from several mirror sites. Either way, instructions will be provided with the downloads. Why must it be this way, you ask? It is because there is no feasible way to get the game resources from the InstallShield cabinet files on the Windows version CDs.

You will have to purchase a copy of the game to get a valid Neverwinter Nights CD-Key. Of course, with this purchase you also get a lovely Neverwinter Nights mapkin, a spiral-bound game manual, and three plastic-coated aluminum-reinforced W1nd0z3 brand coasters.

Neverwinter Nights Linux Client Update and Beta Release Timing:
Neverwinter Nights Linux Client Updates and Betas will be released at the same time as the Window version Updates and Betas, barring any unforseen Ninja attacks.

Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide & XP2 - Linux Client:
Since the executable for Neverwinter Nights will be the same, with or without any expansions installed, we plan to release Linux Client versions of both Shadows of Undrentide and XP2 for download at the time of their shelf date. We have not resolved the game resource installation issue for Linux at this time. We will know more closer to the release date of Shadows of Undrentide.

[Jan 10 2003] We have finished integrating the Linux version of the Miles Sound System into the Neverwinter Nights Linux client. There have been a number of questions regarding the Neverwinter Nights Linux client including such topics as installation, expansion packs, betas, and release date. We will be spending all of next week (January 13 - January 17) working on answers to all of these questions for the January 17 update. Stay tuned.

[Dec 20 2002] This will be the last OS update for the year 2002 as we are off on our Christmas break. Our next OS update is scheduled for Friday, January 10th, 2003.

Despite all of the excitement around sound and The Two Towers, work on the Linux client this week consisted mainly of finishing up some display issues. Resolution switching, full-screen modes, and other mode switching was pretty flaky, but is working fine now. Sound-wise (Samwise?) we are gutting and replacing code like mad and look forward to the the final integration in the new year. There will still be about a week or two of work to make the final changeover.

Seeing The Two Towers will probably come first, though.

[Dec 14 2002] FANTASTIC NEWS!

We are in discussions with Rad Game Tools (http://www.radgametools.com) for audio and video solutions for the NWN Linux Client. It looks like we have some good solutions coming out of these discussions.

We would like to apologize for the confusion arising from the previous update where we noted that to the best of our knowledge that Linux solutions for sound and movies were less readily available than in the Windows and Mac versions of NWN. There are some things that we are working on together with Rad that will help the Linux Client for Neverwinter Nights. We will post more information when it is available.

[Dec 13 2002] There have been many questions as to why the Linux client is taking so long. The two big issues are sound and movies due to the fact that BINK and Miles are only available for Windows and Mac. BINK is the in-game movie player and Miles is the sound engine for Neverwinter Nights. We are having to find our own solution for Linux sound in Neverwinter Nights, and we are exploring possible movie options. Due to these factors, we are revising the estimated release date from Fall 2002 to Winter 2002 (Dec 22 2002 to March 21 2003), with January 2003 being the earliest date it could be out.

Progress has been made on sound this week, and to re-iterate, the graphical side of the Linux client is looking excellent and is almost complete.

[Dec 6 2002] A good part of this week's work on the Linux client was to get the codebase up to date with the latest code in patch 1.27 for the PC client. And... guess what? ;) We've also discovered some new issues with the sound implementation that we need to take a closer look at.

[Nov 29 2002] Linux development this week has been focused primarily on audio. We have found that sound in general has been taking longer than we had hoped, but such is development. Progress is being made, and we will continue working on the sound until all the remaining issues are resolved.

[Nov 15 2002] Short weeks always play havoc with development, and in Canada we had Monday off for Rememberance Day. The result was that we were far to busy in development to have screenshots this week but did a bunch of multiplayer "testing" and bug-fixing. A great deal of time was spent playing competitive multiplayer modules connected to the Mac Client/Server version. Playing the game too much is also bad for development, but good for testing. :)

[Nov 8 2002] Forgot to mention last week that we changed our Linux development platform from Mandrake to Redhat 8. We made this change mainly because we were getting reports of Redhat 8 compatibility issues and we wanted to deal with them directly. At this point, we believe we have fixed the high CPU utilization issues we were experiencing and they will be in the upcoming 1.27 update. The one thing that usually eats up half a day per week is sync'ing the codebase from Windows to Linux and finding the differences and changes that need to be Linux specific. We'll have some new screenshots next week.

[Nov 1 2002] Thanks to all of you that e-mailed in about Linux mouse wheel support. We really appreciate the support of the Linux community. We are still trudging along this week, working on various bugs and getting more features implemented into the Linux client. We have fixed an issue with the GCC compiler under RedHat 8, but are still working on the RedHat 8 high CPU utilization issue. Some of the GUI button issues in the Mac client also reared their ugly heads in the Linux client. Its certainly is nice to fix a bug on one platform and have it fix the others, too. Here are some Succubi screenshots for you veiwing pleasure.

[Oct 25 2002] Mouse wheel support is an interesting issue right now. Support for the wheel varies on different distributions of Linux. In the end, we want the mouse wheel to work for all users. Also, we have made progress on music and sound effects. The current audio developments are starting to add to the immersive experience of the Linux Client. And since we can't give you a screenshot of sound, we have some screenshots of Fire Giants for your fear and trembling.

[Oct 18 2002] We were working with sound this week and looking into some video card compatibility issues. I also was a bit surprised when I managed to get moving grass and wind effects up and running. Screenshots showing the moving grass have been added.

[Oct 4 2002] The remaining known sound bugs (non-streaming sounds) have been fixed and they appear to be playing properly in-game now. We're currently looking at getting the streaming sound support in and we do have some basic streaming sound code working in a simple little test app. We'll be trying to integrate this code into the existing game sound code.

[Sept 27 2002] We're continuing to work on the sound code (we're using OpenAL). Currently, all the sounds are playing (with the exception of streaming sounds), but there are still a few issues with them, such as the positioning of the 3D sounds not working quite right as they don't seem to be fading/panning properly. Support for playing streaming sounds will be the next thing to be added in.

[Sept 20 2002] We now have some simple sounds working in the game. There are still issues to work out, but various in-game sounds (such as gui sounds, footstep sounds, and combat sounds) are playing. We've also managed to fix up most of the remaining known input and graphical glitches. 2 new screenshots have been added below.

[Sept 13 2002] - Overall, the Linux Client is progressing nicely. We've managed to get a lot of the basics working and have a fairly functional client up and running. There haven't been many really major issues, and the fact that the Linux Server has already been done has certainly helped (the support libraries for networking, resource management, etc. were already working). We're currently looking at issues with sound, as well as a few input and graphical problems that we are confident can be resolved. Finally, there are also various other issues that need to be fixed up. Added 3 screenshots.

[Aug 16 2002] - Added first Linux Client screenshot.

[Aug 9 2002] - Linux Client information page launched.