Now running NWN from my cellphone!!!

Sorry for the teaser topic - it can easily be interpreted as I'm running NWN *on* my cellphone... I'm not, read on for the details.

I've finished a minor project of mine, figuring out how to get a NWN install (which will now be my ONLY install) running from a sd card in my phone.

1. Get a 32GB micro-sd card and put it into your phone
   
2. Copy over the entire NWN folder
   
3. If you use the patched version of nwmain.exe for nwncx copy over the M$ VC++ redistributable installs (x86 and 64 bit). You will need to install the VC++ dlls if the windows computer you are using doesn't already have them installed.
   
4. If you use it, copy over the (Alundaio's) Neverwinter Nights Launcher folder
   
5. On encountering a new pc run nwn.exe *first time only* this will create necessary registry entries. You may exit after loading into the initial menu. NOTE: You will probably receive an error complaining about nwn.exe not being able to determine your version and recommending you re-install. Ignore this message.
   
6. Configure (and perhaps re-configure) the Neverwinter Launcher config to point to the assigned drive letter of the sd-card. Alternatively, arbitrarily decide upon a driver letter (I chose O:\) and leave the launcher config alone and force windows to assign the O:\ drive letter to the sd-card when it mounts
   
7. Run the Neverwinter Nights Launcher to enjoy playing NWN and Aenea on a windows PC that doesn't have the game installed on it!

For those that don't run the launcher, following step #6 run nwmain.exe from a shortcut containing the direct connect info, or manually select Aenea from the gamespy menu inside the game after running nwmain.exe

I started this project so I could have a stand-alone install that I could take with me to my local gaming tavern and play while socializing with other gamers and drinking beer and eating nachos.

As an added benefit I'll now be using a single install across all of my PCs, so logs, saves, screenshots etc are always available in one spot.

Given the volatile nature of sd-cards and their MTBF I'll be performing regular backups so I won't lose my data.

Future thoughts: put this all inside a (bootable image) of WinXP, making it so that it can run on *any* USB bootable PC regardless of "native" OS installed on its harddrive.

Very clever!

I'd also be interested about the program with XP, as I've wondered about a time when NWN might no longer run well on newer OSs and run best in an XP emulator. And portable like that might be very useful.

Although when it comes time for me to move on from my lovely XP, I will hopefully find a good laptop and probably install a general emulator for XP like Win7 offered, since I've got many older programs that do so well with it.

But I find this interesting as I've recently become very enamored of portables, programs that just run from any location without needing to install, and generally run extremely lightweightly on resources.

Dude, awesomesause! Totally! I personally used to use Teamviewer to take control of my PC from my phone, and play it that way (not very good, though, I must say)...

Ramana Jala wrote:
I'd also be interested about the program with XP, as I've wondered about a time when NWN might no longer run well on newer OSs and run best in an XP emulator.

Upon reflection, I'm becoming less convinced that this would be worth the hassle.

This approach means that each time you encounter a new pc you will need to potentially install drivers specific to that pc's hardware: graphics card, network card or wifi, sound card, etc. This is a pretty big downside over relying on the native OS to already be configured for use.

If I go the live image direction I would probably use linux instead, but that means losing nwncx (a very tough pill to swallow).

I'm going to have to think on this one some more.

Keep us informed as to your progress ... I'd love to have a NwN installation that I could take wherever I went!

I think I've figured this out.

Create a WinXP live image, but do NOT boot into it unless required. Normal use will be as a usb drive on the already installed OS.

If the OS or OS configuration is unsuitable, THEN (and probably only then) boot to the live image.

This has an interesting effect of enabling use on a Mac (Intel chip) without having to monkey around with the Mac version of the client.

I'll report back once I've done this successfully. Will probably be several months off, have a lot higher priority projects to tinker with right now.

NOTE: I would probably keep two copies of the image on the drive so I can "rollback" to the vanilla image after installing drivers for a specific PC. This will keep the OS much cleaner and more stable.

I may need to go to a 64gb card to pull this off.

This is very cool. Keep us informed!

Currently im playing nwn on my cellphine with the use of an app called splashtop. veryy fast and steady pc streaming. I am playing on a note 2