You're not mistaken. Same game engine. And that only puzzles me the more. How can the same game engine look/run worse after one year of work and tweaking?
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Does no one read my posts? Crist, ....
Yes, they tweeked the engine, but not for graphical improvements.
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>
/comfort Grandpa
For all the new'ish people to the forum
Back in development then it was explained that due to the features they put in such as flowing cloaks and weather effects... AA improvements and such, the game engine was losing memory towards the end.
If you go back to KotOR1 i think you will find hardly anything has changed as well but if there is a difference. I blame it on the game engine not being able to cope with any more improvements and therefore they took some shadowing effects out, you would be suprised how much that makes a difference.
Another thing could be mind over matter... if you have played a game like Doom 3 or Half-Life 2 since you last played K1 it may seem like the graphics are worse... this is not the case