ATI video cards with KotOR2

[ericenders]

Try Omega drivers instead, thats what i use on my Alienware Area 51M and KOTOR runs great

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If I want to try a new driver, I just wanna know how to download it?

 

I have no idea how, sorry guys, Im a little PC inclined to not know how to do all this technical stuff....

 

please advise...thanks everyone...

[AlanC9]

For starters, try Googling the model of your card and "drivers", or go to the manufacturer's site.

[Kiwegapa]

Can someone link to a thread detailing how to take 4.11 OGLs and put them in 5.2s?

 

Go to ATI's old driver page and download the 4.11 drivers.

 

Run the installer for the 4.11 drivers, but cancel it as soon as it extracts the files.

 

Locate the dir with the atioglxx.dl_ file. Open a DOS prompt and navigate to that dir, or write down the path.

 

use the command

expand atioglxx.dl_ atioglxx.dll

and copy the file to your SWKotor2 dir.

 

Or if you want it to affect your entire system, go to C:\Windows\System32 and rename atioglxx.dll to atioglxx.dll.5.2 or something so you remember what it is. Then copy the 4.11 file there.

 

Or you can do it all in one swoop.

expand atioglxx.dl_ C:\Windows\System32\atioglxx.dll

[rahaney]

Hi,

 

I'm using Cat 5.2 drivers but with the 4.11 driver dropped in the KOTOR directory and the game is running like a dream.

 

However i still have the black line down the middle of the faces.

 

Anyone solved this old KOTOR 1 bug yet?

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Does this happen with all the models? I only get this black line with Atton o_O

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Nope, its with everyone and was in KOTOR1 if i remember correctly.

 

Cheers,

[twingo]

Hi,

 

I'm using Cat 5.2 drivers but with the 4.11 driver dropped in the KOTOR directory and the game is running like a dream.

 

However i still have the black line down the middle of the faces.

 

Anyone solved this old KOTOR 1 bug yet?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

for kotor 1 you need catalyst 4.9.

 

also for kotor 2....to fix the crashing problem i installed catalyst 4.12. Guess what

 

I DIDNT CRASH YET :D :D :D :D......but still i wish obsidian made a patch for all catalysts.

[cordas]

i want to thank the good folk here for the solutions. i have the 5.2 cats installed and did not want to have to go back to 4.2 cats (like i had to for kotor1) i put in the Disable Vertex Buffer Objects=1 line and voila! dantooine is running absolutely fine! (wasn't necessary for me to install the 4.11 open gl driver)

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I would like to second this post, I put the Disable Vertex Buffer Objects=1 into the swkotor2.ini file under the [Graphics Options] and the game now works brilliantly, no more stuttering / crashing on dantooine.

 

[Graphics Options]

Disable Vertex Buffer Objects=1

Anisotropy=2

Frame Buffer=1

Grass=1

Soft Shadows=1

Shadows=1

Brightness=72

EnableHardwareMouse=1

FullScreen=1

AllowSoftShadows=1

RefreshRate=85

Width=1024

Height=768

V-Sync=0

Texture Quality=2

Anti Aliasing=2

Emitters=1

 

Thanks to who ever figured this out, as I was about to take the game back to the shop and demand my money back this bug was annoying me so badly.

[Haitoku]

i want to thank the good folk here for the solutions. i have the 5.2 cats installed and did not want to have to go back to 4.2 cats (like i had to for kotor1) i put in the Disable Vertex Buffer Objects=1 line and voila! dantooine is running absolutely fine! (wasn't necessary for me to install the 4.11 open gl driver)

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I would like to second this post, I put the Disable Vertex Buffer Objects=1 into the swkotor2.ini file under the [Graphics Options] and the game now works brilliantly, no more stuttering / crashing on dantooine.

 

[Graphics Options]

Disable Vertex Buffer Objects=1

Anisotropy=2

Frame Buffer=1

Grass=1

Soft Shadows=1

Shadows=1

Brightness=72

EnableHardwareMouse=1

FullScreen=1

AllowSoftShadows=1

RefreshRate=85

Width=1024

Height=768

V-Sync=0

Texture Quality=2

Anti Aliasing=2

Emitters=1

 

Thanks to who ever figured this out, as I was about to take the game back to the shop and demand my money back this bug was annoying me so badly.

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Just curious about what this option does... Lowers image quality?

[Kiwegapa]

Just curious about what this option does... Lowers image quality?

 

I haven't seen any visual differences or any difference in stability. All it seems to do is make Dantooine playable. If someone has some technical knowledge of what Disable Vertex Buffer Objects does, I'd really like to know too.

[Bazooka]

but still i wish obsidian made a patch for all catalysts.

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That's ATI's work....

[Kiwegapa]

ATI has been notified of some of the problems we're having. No word yet on whether they'll be able to do anything, but they're taking an interest.

[Skydude]

I've got a Radeon Mobility card, and I've tried every driver I can find. Omega Drivers (for both Catalyst 5.2 and 4.1) and the Catalyst drivers themselves (using Patje's mobility modding program). I haven't gotten any better performance.

 

What happens is that I can create my character, and it plays the first movie...and then it shows one of three things:

 

1. Black screen with the area's sound in the background (this is what it almost always does when I'm starting again, rather than after a restart)

 

2. Interior of the Ebon Hawk, with the top of T3-M4's head, picture freezes, same sound in the background.

 

3. Actually starts showing the scene, but stops playing it at about where 2 is.

 

Occasionally I have heard T3's beeps as well.

 

I thought this might just be an issue with starting directly from the movie, so I saved a game on my friend's computer and transferred it to mine. Loading gets me either 1 or 2.

 

Is there any way around this?

 

KotOR worked fine for me on Ax16 and High-Res textures at 1024x768 (60 Hz refresh rate, though), with shadows. I mean, it didn't look WONDERFUL (missing light bloom and some other effects), and was a bit choppy, but all in all it worked just fine with the now 3-year-old drivers I had on my laptop when I got it. This won't even start up with the newest ones.

 

Oh, right, and I'm using Windows XP.

[Kurotowa]

Is this advice on dropping DLLs WinXP specific? Because I'm using WinME and I don't see any files by those names anywhere on my system. Does anyone have suggestions on how to replicate this effect on WinME?

[Kevin Lynch]

Is this advice on dropping DLLs WinXP specific?  Because I'm using WinME and I don't see any files by those names anywhere on my system.  Does anyone have suggestions on how to replicate this effect on WinME?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

You don't see the atioglxx.dll file or you don't see any .dll files? It may be that you have the system files hidden. If you are in Windows Explorer, go to the Tools->Folder Options and click on the View tab. In there you will see something similar to 'Show hidden files and folders' which you want. Then you'll be able to see the .dll files.

[Kiwegapa]

I've got a Radeon Mobility card, and I've tried every driver I can find.  Omega Drivers (for both Catalyst 5.2 and 4.1) and the Catalyst drivers themselves (using Patje's mobility modding program).  I haven't gotten any better performance.

 

Bad news, Skydude. KOTOR 2 was designed using OpenGL 1.3 (nVidia and OpenGL 1.4 (ATI) functions. This means you need hardware support of that OpenGL version, and most Radeon Mobility cards only support OpenGL 1.3 in hardware. Perhaps there's a way around this, but no one's posted a way yet. Some have apparently gotten the game to run on their laptops, but I don't know what their specs are or how they did it. I haven't talked to a successful laptop user yet.

 

Keep trying though. Cat 5.2 is a good start. Make sure you have no CD backup or copy programs installed. Try setting the game to force software sound or disable sound completely.

 

If there's a way to get Mobility chips to run the game, I'd love to hear it. I've got a laptop myself that would be nice to have the game on.

 

What version of the Mobility Radeon do you have?

[Skydude]

It just says "Mobility Radeon", and considering that's a choice in Patje's mobility modding program, I think that IS the name of the card.

[Kurotowa]

You don't see the atioglxx.dll file or you don't see any .dll files? It may be that you have the system files hidden. If you are in Windows Explorer, go to the Tools->Folder Options and click on the View tab. In there you will see something similar to 'Show hidden files and folders' which you want. Then you'll be able to see the .dll files.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Oh, I have hidden files shown, have for years. I mean I do not have a file by that specific name. The closest is in my extracted 4.11 folder, in the driver/9X_Inf/B_19048 folder, is things like atio9xxx and ati3duag (no file extensions, even clipped ones). I don't know if that's the DirectX9 folder or not, but the Driver folder itself has even less in it.

[Kiwegapa]

They do have extensions..they would be .dl_ and the reason you don't see the extension is likely because you have the option 'hide extensions for known file types' turned on.

 

With the folder open, go to the Tools menu, select Folder Options. Go to the View tab. Make sure you have both 'Hide extensions for known file types' and 'Hide protected operating system files' turned off.

[Kurotowa]

They do have extensions..they would be .dl_ and the reason you don't see the extension is likely because you have the option 'hide extensions for known file types' turned on.

 

With the folder open, go to the Tools menu, select Folder Options. Go to the View tab. Make sure you have both 'Hide extensions for known file types' and 'Hide protected operating system files'  turned off.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Thank you, that does show the .dl_ extensions now. However, I still lack an atioglxx file of any sort. I'm going to try using the atio9xXx file and see if that helps. If anyone has other suggestions I'd welcome them. I can post a file list of what's in the driver folder if someone wants it.

 

Edit: Sorry, it's atio9xxx, not atio9xx.

[Adraeus]

Latest Catalyst set works for me.

[Skydude]

My question is what your computer is. If this won't work for my laptop's Radeon Mobility, as it likely wouldn't, I'd rather not spend the time to do it, as I've already spent hours of fruitless efforts.

[Jalo Jago]

My question is what your computer is.  If this won't work for my laptop's Radeon Mobility, as it likely wouldn't, I'd rather not spend the time to do it, as I've already spent hours of fruitless efforts.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Using ATI Radeon Mobility 9700, I can get the game running. Not well enough though, but it's certainly better than it not running at all.

 

Right, so I had those BSOD issues, yep. Right where you said. Outraged, I storm onto this forum, and immediately here some gubbins about these 'Omega' drivers, and decide I should give that a try.

 

So I do, and hurrah! The game works. Pretty easy, I think. They were Omega 5.1 by the way.

 

I am running a 2.0GHz P-M, with 512 DDR RAM and nothing else relevant that I can remember off hand. I think with this game people only need to quote their card and drivers, though... most issues are related to those.

 

So if you got a RM 9700, I see no reason why this shouldn't work. I don't know enough to suggest a reason why this shouldn't work for any other RM card either, though.

 

BUT WAIT! To save you my weeks of tinkering and agitation, I can tell you the Omegas based on 4.1 Cats DO work A LITTLE better... but not much. Also, adding the line "Disable Vertex Buffer Objects=1" (which I expect you've already done, but haven't been able to see the benefits of, as it isn't a BSOD fix) improves performance A LITTLE. I am still hugely disappointed. My framerate is rubbish, and I'm off to post some new bugs now. Hope this helps.

[softnerd]

KOTOR2 was QA tested using the Catalyst 4.11 drivers for ATI Radeon cards. Newer and older versions of the drivers cause problems. Since it

[AlanC9]

Is this advice on dropping DLLs WinXP specific?  Because I'm using WinME and I don't see any files by those names anywhere on my system.  Does anyone have suggestions on how to replicate this effect on WinME?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Just to go back a bit, this is XP- specific. The DLLs in the 98/ME drivers are organized differently.

[Kiwegapa]

Organized differently, but the fix SHOULD be the same on both 9x/ME and 2K/XP. It's just different in where the necessary files are located and where they go.

 

Windows 98 and ME use the Windows/System directory for important DLLs. Windows 2000 and XP use the Windows/System32 directory. If you want a DLL to apply to every program you run, it goes there.

 

For the ATI drivers, they differ for each release, so I can't say exactly what the directory names are. But the default extract location is C:\ATI\SUPPORT and under that will be the driver dir itself, a long number. Under that will be either a 2KXP_INF folder or (if I remember right) a 9X_INF folder. Under that is a single folder with a short number that varies with every driver release. But inside there are the compressed DLL files including atioglxx.dl_

 

Kind of long-winded, I know..but I hope that's helpful.

[Kurotowa]

Organized differently, but the fix SHOULD be the same on both 9x/ME and 2K/XP. It's just different in where the necessary files are located and where they go.

 

Windows 98 and ME use the Windows/System directory for important DLLs. Windows 2000 and XP use the Windows/System32 directory. If you want a DLL to apply to every program you run, it goes there.

 

For the ATI drivers, they differ for each release, so I can't say exactly what the directory names are. But the default extract location is C:\ATI\SUPPORT and under that will be the driver dir itself, a long number. Under that will be either a 2KXP_INF folder or (if I remember right) a 9X_INF folder.  Under that is a single folder with a short number that varies with every driver release. But inside there are the compressed DLL files including atioglxx.dl_

 

I do have a 9X_INF/B_19048 folder, but I still don't see an atioglxx file in it. The list of .dl_ files I do see is:

 

ati2cqag.dl_

ati2edxx.dl_

ati2evxx.dl_

ati2i9ag.dl_

ati3d1ag.dl_

ati3d2ag.dl_

ati3duag.dl_

atiddc.dl_

atio9xxx.dl_

atipdlxx.dl_

atitvo32.dl_

ativ16xx.dl_

ativifxx.dl_

ativvaxx.dl_

oemdspif.dl_

 

Also, when I tried to experiment with the atio9xxx file, using the 'expand' command got me a 'bad command or file name' responce, while the 'extract' command told me 'ERROR: atio9xxx.dl_ is not a cabinet file'. So that's another area I'm not sure on.

 

Thanks for all your help so far, everyone.