Neverwinter Free MMO Guide

There are already a lot of Dungeons & Dragons games out there. From board games to card games and video games. The Lore of D&D is nothing new to most of us...
But I am excited to see Neverwinter appear as a Free game with the ability to use everything available in the game without having to spend a penny. The graphics are beautiful, the the world is huge, fight along side friends, customize your character and all the rest of the expected RPG qualities.

Follow my step-by-step guide on installing, configuring and optimizing Neverwinter in Linux with PlayOnLinux.

Note: This guide applies to the downloadable version of Neverwinter. Steam and Arc versions may require additional steps.

Tips & Specs:

To learn more about PlayOnLinux and Wine configuration, see the online manual: PlayOnLinux Explained

Note: March 2017 Perfect World Entertainment ended support for Windows XP and Direct X 9. This guide no longer applies until we can pursue more testing in Wine.

Mint 17 64-bit
PlayOnLinux: 4.2.8
Wine: 1.7.40

Wine Installation

Click Tools
Select "Manage Wine Versions"

Look for the Wine Version: 1.7.40
Note: Try using stable Wine 1.8 and 1.8-staging

Select it
Click the arrow pointing to the right

Click Next

Downloading Wine

Extracting

Downloading Gecko

Installed

Wine 1.7.40 is installed and you can close this window

Download the Neverwinter installer here:
http://download.perfectworld.com/nw/neverwinter_setup.exe

Save in a folder on your desktop

PlayOnLinux Setup

Launch PlayOnLinux
Click Install

Click "Install a non-listed program"

Click Next

Select "Install a program in a new virtual drive"
Click Next

Name the virtual drive: neverwinter
Click Next

Check all three options:

• Use another version of Wine
• Configure Wine
• Install some libraries

Click Next

Select Wine 1.7.40
Click Next

Select "32 bits windows installation"
Click Next

Wine Configuration

Applications Tab
Windows Version: Windows 7
Click Apply

Graphics Tab
Check "Automatically capture the mouse in full-screen windows"
Check "Emulate a virtual desktop"
Desktop size: 1024x768
Click OK

PlayOnLinux Packages (Libraries, Components, DLL's)

Check the following packages:

• POL_Install_corefonts
• POL_Install_d3dx9
• POL_Install_tahoma

Click Next

Note: All packages will automatically download and install

Installing Neverwinter

Click Browse

Navigate to the folder on your desktop
Select "neverwinter_setup.exe"
Click Open

Click Next again

Select language
Click OK

Click Next

Click "I Agree"

Click Next

Uncheck "Create a desktop icon"
Click Install

Uncheck "Launch Neverwinter"
Click Finish

PlayOnLinux Shortcut

Select "Neverwinter.exe"
Click Next

Name your shortcut: Neverwinter
Click Next

Select "I don't want to make another shortcut"
Click Next

PlayOnLinux Configure

Select Neverwinter
Click Configure

General Tab
Wine version: 1.7.40

Note: Click the + to download other versions of Wine. Click the down-arrow to select other versions of Wine

Display Tab
Video memory size: Enter the amount of memory your video card/chip uses

Close Configure

Launching Neverwinter

Select Neverwinter
Click Run

Login with your account credentials

Neverwinter will begin downloading and patching
In total the game is about 13 Gigabytes

Note: This process can take several hours depending on your internet speed

When its done downloading click PLAY

Long Cryptic loading screen
At first launch, this Cryptic screen can literally take 15-20 minutes
Please be patient and take a break

Sometimes the login will fail and end up at this login screen
Enter your account credentials
Click LOGIN

Once in game, select your character
Click Enter World

Optimization

Click Options
Click Graphics Tab

Adjust resolution to match your Linux desktop

Adjust:

• Screen
• Detail
• Effects
• Lights

or

Use the Render Quality (Video Card) and Graphics Detail (CPU) sliders

Go to the Advanced tab for more settings
Click OK or Apply

Note: When in-game, settings will automatically change on the screen

Conclusion:
Neverwinter runs extremely well on my Geforce 550 Ti. I can turn almost all the graphical settings to high and still get a decent frame rate. This game is beautiful for an Online MMO and its best to play on a desktop with a modern graphics card.
Normally when I first Enter World, there is a bit of lag as the level loads.

Gameplay Video:

Screenshots:

 

Hi,
Thank you for your guide.
It's working for me, until the loading screen which comes just after "Cryptic". I'm stuck on it for more than 40min, and finally the game launches. Is there any method to reduce this so long time?

 

Welcome to GamersOnLinux
Yes, I had the same problem. For some reason it was faster over time, but I have never been able to pin-point why it takes so long to load the game.
I has never been 40 minutes for me, more like 15 minutes. So it may be related to internet speed or processing.
Please keep trying Neverwinter and let me know if the loading times eventually get better.

 

I think my config is guilty. I have such low frame rates, even with the lowest quality ever.. I should buy a new one, this laptop is too old for this...

 

Probably, laptops really aren't geared for gaming. You can get away with some lightweight Facebook and Flash gaming, but once you get into heavy 3D games, your performance really suffers.
There are some nice gaming laptops out there but they cost more than an amateur Desktop.

 

I had to reinstall STO 2 days ago and it loads in about 5 minutes. Its the same launcher used for Neverwinter so the two games should perform exactly the same. It sounds like your laptop just can't handle the load. I think your right about buying a new laptop. Sorry that reality sucks so much.

 

Steve, did you ever have long loading times at the cryptic screen?
I've seen it go for at least 10 minutes.

 

Didn't see if anyone mentioned this, but you can use the launcher to download cryptic's other games. On the launcher, click the Options link, then click "show other games". After restarting the launcher, you'll see the other games in a dropdown list near the bottom of the launcher (just above the progress bar when patching).

 

I figured as much because now you can actually search for games. I havn't tried installing other games this way, but I have mentioned in the Star Trek Online guide that the Arc installation is the same as Neverwinter and you can install your game from there.
Thanks for mention it.

 

Booman, thanks for the excellently written guide. Unfortunately there's something that I must be doing wrong because I keep getting crashes when launching Neverwinter. I can run Arc Games, install Neverwinter, but then I get a crash. I'm running Mint 17 RC 64-bit.

Has anyone had Neverwinter crash on them when they launch it? Based on the screenshot, is there anything I missed out on? I've redone the PlayOnLinux setup two or three times and run into this issue each time. Thanks in advance!

 

Thanks for the compliment!
I just updated to Mint 17 as well. I do have a few questions...

1. Do you have the video drivers installed?
   - Intel HD Graphics
   - Nvidia GeForce
   - AMD
2. Do you have the 32-bit libraries installed?

Unfortunately Ubuntu 13 didn't include a single package for installing 32-bit libraries, so Mint 16 didn't either, but a developer provided them later on: ia32-libs
You can search for them in the package manager, or use the Terminal.

I havn't tried yet because I did an upgrade via internet and ran a game real quick. The game ran fine, so I have a feeling the 32-bit libraries from Mint 16 are compatible with Mint 17.

 

Lacking ia32-libs was the culprit. Thanks again, booman! Now to continue waiting at this loading screen.

 

Ah, nice!
So how did you install with Mint 17?

 

Other than forgetting the ia32-libs piece, I followed the guide exactly. The Arc Games client ran fine without me needing ia32-libs, but it wasn't until the game's launcher ran that I had issues.

Now that I'm past that, the only problem now is getting my lousy little AMD APU to play the game without locking up. Using the fglrx-updates driver that is given to me as an option in Mint 17. Going to play around with it some more and report back!

 

Yes, Mint 17 should have an "additional drivers" tool that can install proprietary drivers for you. Sadly AMD is known for having a lot of problems. Nvidia is the way to go!
Please post your updates... I love hearing how other people are finding success with Mint.

 

Thanks for this guide. I'm glad you included screenshots as well since I was using a guide to do League of Legends and since I'm a newbie to Linux/Ubuntu I was like mega confused for the most part as I normally use Windows.

However after the Cryptic screen it seems to stick on the next loading screen. I know a user has mentioned this but its been like this for 44minutes and the whole thing has froze so I'm very tempted to hold down the power button :l I don't think it's the spec since I can run it on my Laptop which has worse specs then the pc. Maybe I need to update Ubuntu I don't know how to do that though :l

Awesome guide anyway!

 

Hey, I'm just finished installing Mint 17 - Cinnamon but now it crashes after the cryptic screen (Error shown in screenshot) I've tried using the "fglrx-updates" video driver but it doesn't launch Neverwinter at all whereas the "xserver-xorg-video-ati" AMD/ATI display driver wapper just gives me the error I've mentioned.

 

So I think its to do with my drivers not being installed or something but again being unexperience with Linux/Mint I'm unable to install them/get them so could you do a step by step guide like very basic to install AMD drivers on Mint 17 please

 

You tried the "fglrx" drivers correct? Don't use the "fglrx updates" driver.
The "xserver" drivers are open-source and don't normally have performance of AMD's fglrx.
But, sadly, I have read many reports of bugs and bad performance from AMD's drivers as well. Really sucks because how are gamers supposed to move to Linux smoothly when the drivers suck and their games don't launch?

I'm guessing you are using Mint 64-bit, make sure to install the 32-bit libraries for Mint.
Try opening the synaptics package installer and search: ia32-libs
If its there, install it. This make a huge difference in games because most game are only 32-bit compatible.

You did select a 32-bit virtual drive right?
Try the above and report back here.

 

Personally since this is a different computer I'm not all to sure what the graphics card is I mean according to System Info its [AMD/ATI] Cedar [Radeon HD 5000/6000/7350/8350] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller]). I did select the 32-bit Virtual drive as well. Current rebooting after installing the ia32-libs. Should I be using the Fglrx drivers or xserver?

 

Okay after testing it on the xserver it crashes after the cryptic load screen.