swaaye

AI is an ATI specific chipset function that is supposed to detect certain rendering pathways and automatically adjust how a game looks and runs and give the end user better performance without them having to adjust anything themselves. However, most gamers/games get better performance with it OFF as it is still pretty much in an experimental/beta stages right now even if they include it in the Catalyst Control Center... Which I highly recommend you DON'T use for the simple fact it is a resource hog that has to run in the background for AI to work. Ergo, sucking up valuable gaming resources even on high-end rigs. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The idea is to figure out ways to reduce redundant rendering and filtering by using more CPU basically. It will try to prevent things like anisotropic filtering on textures that shouldn't be filtered in that way. It actually supports specific games, like HL2 and UT2004, but it obviously has a general profile as well. I believe you can definitely benefit from it, depending on how the game is bottlenecked. If your GPU is holding you back because of lack of bandwidth or fillrate, you should see a benefit if your CPU is not the issue. So, if you have a 9550 say instead of a X800 XT, you could benefit a lot more. KOTOR 2 doesn't like it.l But, it seems, KOTOR 2 doesn't like much of anything and doens't work right anyway.....

I found that having Catalyst AI set to High caused me to have WAY more serious missing wall problems. Turning it to OFF helped a lot but there are still some missing walls. But, the game runs real smooth without walls!!!!! (heh)

I am running the game on a Athlon 64 3000+, K8T800 based mobo, 1GB PC2700, Radeon 9600, Audigy 2 ZS. Catalyst 5.1, latest Audigy drivers, latest VIA Hyperion drivers. Windows XP SP2 all critical updates. Graphics issues: No Widescreen Support - this feature is something I really wanted to see with KOTOR 2. Something I thought that was mentioned as being supported in one of the developer interviews out there. Transparent walls - Sometimes a wall or floor will just disappear and I can see into other rooms. In the prologue, the entire Ebon Hawk was flashing in and out at one point. Game Starts in Window - Randomly the game seems to choose to start in a window. Is fixed by setting resolution again in game settings. Annoying. Slowdowns for no apparent reason - At some points while looking at various things, even just plain walls, the framerate will plummet. Makes me think back to the transparent wall issue where I can see thru the entire level and wonder if hidden surface removal is broken. Usually the game runs pretty good though. Crashes to Desktop - Sometimes if I change graphics settings while in-game, such as antialiasing, the game will "think" for about 30 seconds and eventually crash. It locks up the taskbar when it crashes and I have to reboot to get control over windows again. Audio Issues: Dialog cuts off before finished - Nearly every single cutscene where a character speaks cuts out too soon. Where it says "static" in the subtitle, there is no static in the sound....it just jumps onward.

Yes, the game definitely needs widescreen support. Not just for anamorphic TVs, but also for widescreen notebooks! Many people are switching from desktops to mobile systems, and these mobile systems often have Radeon 9000+ (up to 9800 now!), or a NV GFFX chip. They are totally capable of playing KOTOR1. In fact, I beat KOTOR on my notebook, a Radeon 9600. Unfortunately I had to play it in 1024x768 because of the lack of more resolutions (namely 1280x800!!!!!!!). SO I REALLY DO HOPE YOU GUYS CAN SET US UP WITH MORE OPTIONS!!!!

Heh, I just read that hands-on preview at gamespot. It sounds promising. Yes, I do mean 'strange' resolutions. Many laptops and widescreen TVs use resolutions that games that have fixed resolutions rarely support. KOTOR only supported like 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024, and 1600x1200 I believe. It lacked the ability to adapt to different resolutions since the developers had to redo that interface art for each resolution.

One of my biggest annoyances with KOTOR 1 was the limited number of resolutions. This wasn't really an issue until I got this laptop with its 1280x800 resolution. The fact that KOTOR doesn't support this resolution means I have to play it in 1024x768 and get the blurring pixel resizing of the LCD. Can we get some new resolutions in part 2?