NWNEE/BGEE Fatal Error at launch

SerpentmF

Game wont start, fatal error at launch, but I have fixed it. Just here to document how. IF you have not already done all the everything (update drivers, windows, dx, runtime, run as admin, run openal installer, ect) please go find the already plentiful support threads and do all that first as this is a bit extreme.

alright on to what I dun did since none of that worked for me.

download openal-soft-1.20.1-bin FULL NOT THE INSTALLER!

extract it somewhere you can find like my documents

open it

go to bin

go to Win64 (I tried win34 but it no workie)

find soft-oal.dll (should be the only one in there)

Make sure this is the one from Win64 because Win32 has a file that looks exactly the same.

Take this one from Win64 and COPY it to the folder your executable is in (steamapps/common/neverwinter nights/bin/win32 probably)

rename openal32.dll to openal32.dll.backup so its easy to undo this if it doesn't work

rename soft-oal.dll to openal32.dll

Bingo bango bongo your game should worko

If it doesn't delete the new openal32.dll, rename openal.dll.backup to openal.dll in order to undo what we have done. Then proceed to continue to suffer.

I opened at ticket with Beamdog before I figured this out, if they reply I will tell it to them and maybe they can make a patch or something.

Symphony

@SerpentmF

OpenAL soft is a really cool project, and I started compiling my own versions of it recently with feedback and edits from its current maintainers, but, it is not required for gameplay.

If the above instructions resolved your issues, while installing OpenAL 1.1 from OpenAL's website did not, it is likely because you previously "tried everything" out of order.

In that particular case, I've seen people modify the OpenAL driver in their win32 folder, have the game not launch, and THEN install OpenAL's 1.1 installer, and the game will still not start, because the game is trying to use the .dll you put in your win32 folder still.

With the default installation, if you are missing the OpenAL driver, and your game does not start because of it, you will be able to start the game if you run the OpenAL 1.1 installer. Even though the game will have the default installed driver in your bin/win32 folder, it will see that it needs more, and check your System32 folder where Windows keeps your system drivers, such as OpenAL after you install it from their website. https://www.openal.org/downloads/

I have also seen people end up in your situation where the game will not start because they need (or don't need) OpenAL, as well as needing Microsoft's runtime redistributables. When installing from the above website does not fix their launch crash, they end up putting an OpenAL driver in their win32 folder, which gets used instead of the OpenAL 1.1 installed in System32, and THEN they fix their Microsoft runtime missing DLL's, but the game still won't run because of the OpenAL32.dll they put in win32.

The 64-bit crossover has been a difficult time with the sudden batch of new required drivers, but it has been a very confusing time as well. It is good that everyone is willing to help, but I've seen a lot of advice get echoed about what people have to and don't have to do, and some of the things I hear repeated are not accurate.

PS: for the love of god, if anyone reading this has a launch problem after installing their game, don't reinstall the game, you already have the game. The problem is something else, I promise, and if that something else is stuff you put in your install folder (Don't do that, by the way. For real), then it's usually the case that Steam won't delete it when you reinstall the game! And if it would, it would do the same thing with a "Verify install", which is a lot less downloading.