I know that many modules require you to have the 1.69 critical rebuild, but is there any difference between the out of the box GOG 1.69 install and the critical rebuild patches, or are they one and the same?

I have read somewhere that even if GOG's version is 1.69, they still recommend you to use the patch for it solves some of the bugs. I didnt do that and didnt encounter any problem on my playthrough but I havent played any of the player made mods either.

NWN Diamond out-of-the-box comes with the 1.66 patch, but the GOG version contains the latest update (1.69). You should not need to get the 1.69 critical rebuild unless you have problems running the game that cannot be fixed by installing the DirectX version that works with NWN1. You can refer to this old thread for further details.

Can you name one?
I've never downgraded the gog version with the critical rebuild patch & have never had a problem.

Many of the PWs say you should have the 1.69 CB, for example Avlis.

Oh, well I only play single player modules, so maybe that's why I have no problems.

I remember reading that thread before and another one, but ultimately it seemed too much confusing, with two opposite teams.

Does anyone know if there truly were two different versions of the 1.69 patch? Ie. basic one and the rebuilt one? And is there a way to tell if the GOG version comes with the CP, perhaps by comparing all the stuff it has?

In the past, when Bioware was still updating the game, they would release a patch along with a critical rebuild. If you had kept up with the patches, you wouldn't need the critical rebuild unless you ran into problems such as missing textures. If you missed a patch version, if I recall correctly, your best bet was to use the critical rebuild.

To sum up, the critical rebuild contained all the necessary fixes to the game, while the patch only contained the fixes beginning from the previous patch.

It wasn't clear whether the GOG version was fully updated unless you had the game installed, and most people in that thread had the game installed already for quite a while. I believe someone did a fresh install and confirmed the game had the 1.69 patch.

As to how you can tell if your version has the 1.69 patch, look for this text file in the game directory: NWNv169.txt. That lets you know your game has been updated with the 1.69 patch.

Sorry that wasn't made clear earlier.

The critical rebuild does two things, the patch replaces all the critical files that may be missing or damaged.
The end result is you get the same files as you get with installing patch 1.69 (which GOG does.)
Patch 1.69 upgraded some of the image files, this caused problems with some graphics cards back in the day.
The 2nd thing the critical rebuild patch does is replace these upgraded files with the old ones.
This is probably why PW's need the Critical rebuild patch so that everyone is using the same files.

I know that I have the 1.69 version, I just wasn't sure if there was a difference between the GOG 1.69 and the Critical Build 1.69, but you and olnorton have confirmed that. But is there a way of checking if the files from the Critical Rebuild and what is included in the GOG version are the same, since you say the CB sometimes fixed stuff if you didn't keep up with the patches and so on? Wait, what? How can the critical rebuild patch downgrade the files? So the standard patch upgrades some images and the critical rebuild downgrades them?? Why would the CB version of the patch downgrade the images??

The upgraded images caused problems with some graphics cards.
The easiest solution was to remove them, as the difference was only minor.
I had saved a link to where they explained all this, but it now leads to a 404 on the old bioware site.

The patch gives you the .dds textures I believe, which are larger than the .tga textures. You can compare by checking file sizes. I don't know of an easier way to do so though.
NWN Wikia explains that .dds files are preferred when a person's computer is able to support both .dds and .tga as the files are compressed and smaller. However, if that computer is unable to process .dds files, then the owner of that system needs uncompressed .tga files.

Edit: this is also explained here, probably more clearly.

Do you think the link would work with web archive?
Thanks! So if I install the critical rebuild I'll get worse graphics/images? Does CEP fix that?

Alright, thanks! In that case I'll try it and do the rebuild. I wanted to grab some high res graphics anyway since the game needs to run on my dedicated card either way (540M). Is there any specific high res pack you'd recommend?