Kiwegapa

Does it leave a .txt file behind in the SWKotor2 directory?

I agree, Lundquist. I would love to see some developers or moderators in here with the occasional answer. The problem is that this is a 'self-help' forum which means that devs and moderators apparently stay out completely. The reason why they do so is probably because they're under a license agreement which requires that Lucasarts provide all support for the game, an agreement which is pretty common in modern developer-publisher relationships. And for good or ill, Obsidian is sticking to the letter of that agreement. <_< The real problem is that Lucasarts has shown very little willingness in the past to communicate with the public. I expect that if a patch is being worked on, we won't know about it until it's finished and posted online. I don't envy Obsidian right now..if they are the innocent party in this, then they've been forced to release a project that wasn't finished yet and are being prevented from working to correct it until bug reports are collected, verified, and approved by the publisher. Then Obsidian gets to fix ONLY the issues authorized to be fixed, and once the patch is complete, it will get tested and judged for approval. If the approval is denied, Obsidian has to try again on the patch and hope THAT one gets approved. If the patch gets approved, Lucasarts puts a final polish on it and then and only then releases it to the public. Meh. Of course, since I haven't talked to Obsidian, they very well could be incredible slackers, but after seeing some of the deft touches they put in KOTOR 2 and in games done under their earlier incarnation as Black Isle, I doubt it. They seem to care for games as much as we do. Games that mean something.

*sigh* Taken from http://support.lucasarts.com/patches/KotOR2.htm I quote: 'UK Version' being of course an English file as you describe, because the CDs that shipped to Europe had a bad PDF on them. No one has been able to verify rumors of spelling corrections being patched into the game files, and I tend to believe that the reports that 'the game works now' are coincidence. I have heard several times that people who couldn't open the game fullscreen now can do so, but that's all. Sorry, I don't mean to sound upset. it's just that I realize how many people keep seeing this topic and getting hopeful for a solution. In anyone CAN verify that the patch does indeed make changes to ANY files besides the PDF manual, please PM me.

Reinstalling Windows will NOT clear your registry entries. It might overwrite some options like the size of the Recycle Bin and any really funky registry tweaks you've made, but it won't cost you anything except time and effort. All your programs will still be installed and working. Before trying a reinstall of Windows, I suggest you boot into Safe Mode by hitting F8 while booting. When the menu comes up, boot into Safe Mode. Then right clicks My Computer and click Properties. Then pick the Hardware tab. Finally, click the Device Manager button. When the Device Manager opens, you should be able to see your old sound card in the list of devices. You may need to go to the View menu and select 'Show hidden devices'. I'm willing to bet you'll find that Aureal card still listed. Uninstall it. if there are any remaining Aureal files, delete them. You may want to use Driver Cleaner for this. You may even need to uninstall your new sound card while you're there. Reboot into normal Windows and let Windows find your new sound card. Install the newest drivers you can get, either from your driver CD or the web. You should now have a clean sound card install.

Not sure what's going on there, Hardtarget. I have the same card and no sound issues about 20 hours into the game. Make sure your motherboard and sound card drivers are up to date. You might also try forcing software sound or lowering the number of 2D/3D voices.

Okay...I've just taken a look at the 256x256 textures for KOTOR 2 (The best of the three sizes). They're actually not bad at all. Now I'm confused. Either the game is mistakenly loading the low quality textures somewhere, or it's handling them in a different way than KOTOR 1. Kotor Tool will work to extract and view textures, but it doesn't recognize some key files that have changed between KOTOR 1 and 2.

Actually, I believe that's how it's intended to work. The record is projecting holograms into the current room of what happened earlier. So hologram crewmen will be standing near their bodies. As the hologram recording plays out, you will see how they died and ended up laying there.

This is probably the bug listed in the game's Readme.txt: "The game may freeze or crash to a blank screen if you play in one level for extended periods of time. This was typically seen when playing the game between thirty and forty minutes without transitioning to a new level or movie. We recommend that you save the game often to avoid losing progress if you encounter this issue." The bad news is that they released the game while knowing the bug exists. The good news is that it will almost certainly be addressed in the first game patch. No word yet on when such a patch will be out. As far as getting your prestige class, you need to have influence with your party members andbe 15th level or better. Then speak to Kreia. She will train you.

What I don't get is that the XBox is hyped as being able to do fairly decent 5.1 sound. I've heard praise regarding some XBox games on how good the sound is. Why would they reduce the sound quality by such an amount if XBox is capable of better and all modern PCs are as well?

As has been stated before, this is a patch for the international European version, and it fixes a corrupt manual PDF that shipped with the game. NO game fixes are included.

The textures are kept in such files as swpc_tex_tpa.erf and you'll need a utility such as Kotor Tool to unpack them and a paint program to edit the files. Kotor Tool's home page is at http://kotortool.home.comcast.net/ and there's good news: The textures have no size limit that I'm aware of. They must be proportional and a multiple of 2, i.e 256x256, 512x512, 1024x1024. I went and retextured Bastila in Kotor 1 and upgraded her texture from the high-res 256x256 to 512x512. If you're skilled at texturing, I would LOVE to see what a 1024x1024 texture pack might look like. I'm planning to do a high-res pack for KOTOR 2 myself after I finish the game.

Try disabling sounds, or try disabling Frame Buffer Effects. Those have helped some people with constant crashes. You can do so by opening swkotor2.ini and changing the line Disable Sound=0 to Disable Sound=1 or possibly change Force Software=0 to Force Software=1. Both are under [sound Options]. Frame Buffer Effects can be disabled either in-game or by changing the line Frame Buffer=1 under [Graphics Options] to Frame Buffer=0. Pretty much everyone should try adding Disable Vertex Buffer Objects=1 under [Graphics Options]. Without it, Dantooine slows to a complete crawl of 1-2 frames per second. I haven't heard of it fixing any other issues however.

Just to be clear...does that ini entry read exactly as you posted it, or were you abbreviating? The proper entry is Disable Vertex Buffer Objects=1 and everyone I've talked to so far has gone from 1-2 FPS to normal speed once they enter it. Be certain Soft Shadows are disabled. For some reason they cut frames per second in half or worse on ATI cards.

Hmm..that's a shame. It does wonders for folks with laptops, but I see you have a good quality soundcard. I have an Audigy 2 and few sound issues myself. Lowering the lines Number 3D Voices=59 and Number 2D Voices=64 to Number 3D Voices=24 and Number 2D Voices=32 helped choppiness during movies, but I haven't had them not play. Try setting Frame Buffer=0 and EnableHardwareMouse=0. I doubt that the hardware mouse is the issue but it's been known to happen. Frame Buffer Effects on the other hand have apparently been the key for a couple of people to get the game working. And most definitely add the line Disable Vertex Buffer Objects=1 under [Graphics Options]. That setting has worked miracles for people with slowdowns in the game, though I don't remember hearing of it fixing any movie issues. I'm sorry I can't provide any surefire answers. You don't have any obvious problems, and it's only been a little more than a week since I got the game, so I'm still learning its quirks. Good luck, and post back with results if you can.

While using the 4.11 OpenGL driver will help some issues, the fix that seems to help most people is actually editing swkotor2.ini and adding the line Disable Vertex Buffer Objects=1 to the [Graphics Options] section. I recommend that everyone who has slowdowns try this.

Glad you got it working. Heat and shoddy/weak power supplies have grown to be the biggest cause of computer instability these days. Enjoy the game!

Please post your system specs, especially your sound card and the contents of your swkotor2.ini file. Many times movies will play properly if sound is disabled.

I agree..your results are going to be heavily slanted. One, this is the support forum, full of users with problems, as was said. Two, the game has known issues, some that affect everyone, some that affect only some users. What might be a better poll is to ask how tolerable people's KOTOR 2 experience is. Is it uninstalled and forgotten about? Have they given up playing until there's a patch? Do they struggle on despite bad problems, have only minor problems, or have simple, easily addressable issues? I would say I've had minor problems, but every time I start the game, I love it more.

9mak9, Horus: You can try, but I don't have much hope, no. The game needs OpenGL hardware 1.4 on ATI cards. I've got a Radeon IGP 320M in my own laptop, so I'm out of luck too. If you DO manage to get it working or find out a way to do so, even if it's not the best, I'd really appreciate it if you'd PM me or leave a message on the forum.

I'm actually thinking about what I should do with it, as I've hit the length limit for a post on the forum it's currently on. I've got it saved in Microsoft Word format so that I can paste it onto other forums, but what I think I might do is convert it to HTML and post it on my site, and a plain text version at GameFAQs, if they'll take a guide dealing with bugs rather than gameplay. The current version of the guide is at Rage3D, here. UPDATE: I've now uploaded a roughly formatted HTML version of my guide to my site. You can find it for now (and likely in the foreseeable future) at this link. Now that I've done that, I'm no long constricted by forum post lengths or formatting rules. I'll be happy to take any contributions to the guide someone may have to offer, but I am trying to verify entries as they go in by either witnessing them or getting multiple reports.

This is a serious error, and I'm not sure what might be the cause. Make sure your motherboard, sound card, and video card all have updated drivers, especially the video drivers. A lot of instability in KOTOR 2 seems related to sound and video card drivers that the game isn't working with perfectly. This is because your monitor is not adjusted for 1024x768 at the refresh rate the game is currently using. Adjust your monitor or change the refresh rate to the one you normally use at 1024x768 and it'll look fine. The patch currently out is for international European versions and contains NO game fixes. It replaces a corrupt manual PDF that shipped with the game.

This can be fixed by being in control of the character having that problem and hitting the X key to brandish the lightsaber. Afterward, the lightsaber will shut off normally.

Can you post the specs of your computer? Operating system, video card, motherboard, CPU, memory, power supply, and if possible, what temperature your CPU is at are all things that will help me diagnose the problem.

It's an option for people with older soundcards or onboard sound. If your sound card can do EAX or other hardware accellerated stuff, then leave it alone. But the option is encouraged for many laptops. On my laptop I got a big improvement in Neverwinter Nights by changing to software sound. If you enable software sound, nothing bad should happen. The worst might be that the game will slow down because the CPU is controlling the sound. But if your sound card/chip doesn't do hardware accelleration, it's already doing that.

Thank you for bringing this up...I've added the info to my KOTOR 2 Guide, which covers bugs, missing features, and how to get the best performance out of the game.