geldonyetich

For what it's worth, upgrading to 5.2 does allow you to get past the initial character creation screen. Unfortunately, later gameplay is somewhat choppy (in places, possibly even unplayable) in the 5.2 drivers. 4.11 drivers are known to be much smoother with KOTOR 1 and KOTOR 2, but that initial video sequence seems to lock up with them installed. To my knowledge, only the initial video sequence is affected like this, so you could potentially create a character using drivers 5.2, then resume that character with drivers 4.11. (Or possibly just disable video sequences until past the first video sequence.)

Folllowing someone's advice on here, I went back to Catalyst 4.11. The general theory is that the only movie that's affected like this is the initial movie after you first create a character. I can tell you that, now that I've downgraded back to 4.11, I was able to go through a multiple video landing sequence and still have game afterwards. So that theory holds water given the current data. That again in a nutshell: 1) Upgrade to Catalyst 5.2 2) Create your character, get past the video sequences (5.2 can do that) and save. 3) Downgrade to Catalyst 4.11 (which should eliminate in-gameplay chopiness) 4) Now resume your save and see if you can make it to the endgame. (Possible way to get around steps #1 and #2, just disable video sequences until you reach a point where you can save the game.) So far so good here, but I haven't really had the time to give it a real thorough testing yet.

If you read the messages already on the board, you'll have your answer in short notice.

Sounds like a plan, I think I'll go do that.

Yeah, that's a fair no brainer. The original KOTOR had the same problems with ATI chipsets and KOTOR 2 uses the same engine. You could get the original KOTOR to work well with version 4.11 of the Catalyst drivers, but I noticed that KOTOR 2 locks up after the intro movie with them installed. Didn't bother to try any other movies. Somebody suggested that this was an unrelated bug. From what I understand, ATI and Bioware are still pointing fingers at eachother as to who should fix this problem.

That's less a solution and more an abortion I can play the game, with movies, by running a more recent version of ATI Catalyst drivers than the 4.11 you'd use with the original KOTOR. Only problem is that the gameplay itself gets choppy in places, maybe even unplayable. So for soft shadows, yeah, leave those disabled. I think I read somewhere that software shadows only cause ATI cards trouble in the original KOTOR. In any case, that's a step down in graphic quality anyway, so there's no real need to have them enabled.

Interesting. I ran into the same problem but solved it by installing up to date drivers (which introduces other problems). I wonder if, now that I've gone past the intro sequence, going back to version 4.11 of the ATI drivers would work?

I'm guessing you're referring to these drivers. I wouldn't recommend using them. They're dated 9-27-04 and only address issues with the original KOTOR. (I'm not entirely sure the original KOTOR's issues were successfully fixxed by them, either.) For the original KOTOR, the solution is to run Catalyst 4.11. Unfortunately, KOTOR 2 locks up after movie playback with that version. A solution I've adapted is to use up to date drivers (5.2) and insert "Disable Vertex Buffer Objects=1" into teh swkotor2.ini file under [Graphics Options]. I'm not sure it actually does anything (it was a recommendation of another forum poster here) but since I've done that the game has been playable. It's still not as fluid as KOTOR 1 was under the 4.11 drivers, but I've made it into a prettyy wide-open area now and it's playable, which is a good sign because those were the usual places where things became unplayably choppy.

Not a bad solution, this may have done the trick. I'm not certain because I haven't entered any really large areas yet (nothing like the Dune Sea in the KOTOR 1). Things seem a little uglier, but it might just be my imagination. Being able to run the latest Catalyst drivers (5.2) with just a minor tweak to KOTOR 2 would be great.

Sorry, I'm a bit under the weather right now so I'll cut to the chase: ATI Radeon 9700 All-In-Wonder Pro. Drivers 4.11 (KOTOR 1 optimal) do not work. Get as far as the first video sequence, then blackscren. Upgraded to Drivers 5.2, got an error during driver installation process, but reboo indicated 5.2 were installed except for the ATI Control Center. seemed to work great. I got as far as swapping back to T3 on the mining station (early enough I hope that doesn't spoil anything) and soon afterwards I start experiencing artifacts. Seems my Video card has given up the ghost. Probably a total coincidence, all computer hardware burns out eventually, but looks like my video ram (?) has suffered permanent damage. Good thing I shelled out for that extended warrenty. I wouldn't bothered to have mentioned that except if anybody else runs into this problem we may have an epidemic to consider.