mars_army

You're in the EXACT same boat as me, Maytime. My Xpress 200 is doing the same thing where the menu is really slow and the in-game gets even worse. The horrible thing is that NOTHING I've tried has given any remote difference! I mean drastically different drivers, settings, etc. and the menu still runs at the same low ~5 fps and the game still lags as slow as it always does. Not ONE solution has worked at all, though me and Trin were trying to figure it out. The only explanation I've gotten is from some guys on the Lucasarts forum and they said that the game will NOT run correctly on vid cards with shared video memory. Period. No fix, no tweaks, no solution. Oh, and I'm willing to bet it's seeing your card as 512mb because the mem is shared. I don't know, there must be SOMETHING we can do. My laptop is running Doom3 and Half-Life2 fine but it's ridiculous for it not to be able to run KOTOR. It's not that the game is graphically intensive, it's that it was poorly ported from Xbox to PC.

hey Trin, I got the dlls alright from pcgamemods, thanks dude! i've yet to test the 5.4 one because i've been hooked on half-life 2, which i just beat today, so i'm gonna do some tests with those dlls and post my results. UPDATE 10-11-05: Well I tried putting the 5.4 dll in the folder and running the game...nothing happened. Actually, my cd rom froze and most apps on my laptop stopped running, so I had to do an unorthodox restart and get rid of the dll. I really appreciate your help Trin but it looks like it's going to take a miracle to get KOTOR to run on my notebook

hi again Trin, my laptop is the new limited edition HP Lance Armstrong model...runs everything perfectly EXCEPT for KOTOR of course I tried changing the settings for opengl and directx in my advanced graphics settings but it didn't change anything. If you can upload that 5.4 dll that'd be great, otherwise I'll try installing the full Catalyst set and hope it makes any difference. This whole shared memory thing is really getting to me! Surely that can't be the one reason my gameplay is so choppy.

Thanks for the links, Trin. I tried putting the 4.2 dll into my kotor directory and running it...the game would not even load I'll try with 5.4 but I would like to just have the opengl driver and not have to install the whole 5.4 Catalyst. I noticed noone else seems to have any input at all on the subject of shared video memory, though I KNOW that there are others with the same issues. Anyway, for anyone who cares to know, my Radeon Xpress 200M card wouldn't work with the 4.2 opengl driver. I doubt using the 4.11 would make any difference seeing as it's an earlier version, but I'm going to try with 5.4

Wow, thanks Trin! That has to be one of, if not the MOST helpful reply I've gotten on a message board :D After reading through your post I've decided that I should be able to get the KOTORs to work "fluidly" on my laptop. The big thing was, from the Bioware guys, they said that shared memory at all was bad and was unfixable, but with you it seems that there's surely a way around it. I'm going to take all of your advice and see if I can get the games to run on my system, and as you can clearly tell, I am quite determined to get them to work! I do, however, think it's best that I get KOTOR 1 to work on my laptop before I buy KOTOR 2 just to be sure of success. And sorry to ask again, but did you mean that you use Catalyst 5.4 to run the KOTOR games, or does running 4.2 work better? I'm currently using the newest Catalyst and it runs absolutely awful with KOTOR.

Hey Trin! Yes it was your particular post I was referring to in that topic. Now, my card IS supported by the 'official' Catalyst drivers and I currently have 5.9. I had a similar problem as you with a laptop I had a year ago where I had to use the Mod to install Catalyst. Here's the thing about running KOTOR 1, though... No matter what settings or tweaks, the framerate is ALWAYS low and there are a few random graphical glitches. Yes the game will load, but very very slowly. The guys in the Bioware forum told me this: KOTOR simply will not run correctly on vid cards with shared memory, period. They also said that rolling back to version 4.2 Catalyst (a popular thing to do concerning KOTOR 1, apparently) would STILL not work because of the shared memory *shrug* Now obviously I've become quite discouraged. I have the same complaints as most people with this problem, IE: I can play Doom3 and Half-Life2 perfectly but I can't even play KOTOR? I'm just curious as to whether KOTOR II will run smoothly on shared memory cards as where KOTOR I didn't. And does anybody have any suggestions or know of any mods that will allow me to play KOTOR on my laptop. and Trin- have you personally gotten either of the KOTORs to run on your system? Smoothly or otherwise?

Hi guys, first time poster here... First and foremost, I do not yet own KOTOR II, I have the first one, and would like to address an issue before I spend the 50 bucks on II. My post here is sort of meant to cover both KOTOR games, but I did NOT want to discuss it on Bioware because you guys just seem to be way more competant and helpful. Now here's the facts: the people on Bioware forums say that KOTOR I will not run on my laptop because it uses shared video memory and will never work because of that fact. My question: will KOTOR II run with an ATI card with shared video memory? I'm using: ATI Radeon Xpress 200M with 128mb shared memory. System memory is 1024mb Processor AMD Turion64 1.8ghz Has ANYONE gotten either KOTOR game to work on a computer (in my case, a laptop) with shared video memory? I read this topic and someone posted near the middle that using the ATI Modder from driverheaven.net enabled them to play KOTOR? Does that mean it'll work for mine as well? Thanks guys