Disabling Movies - Especially Intro Movies

[Destrel]

Regretfully, I cannot run the Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. The game does not even start up. I have the SiS 650 integrated graphics card which is not supported by the game, but KOTOR I did run on my computer when I disabled movies. Prior to disabling movies I had the exactly same problem as I do now with KOTOR II - the game loads to the loading screen, but when a movie is supposed to begin it goes black, flashes several times and returns me to the desktop. Of course, there is a function in KOTOR II to disable movies as well... except that it does not work - the intro movie is still not disabled. Editing the swkotor2.ini file to disable movies and intro movies also apparently fails to disable them. This is confirmed by a walkthrough I downloaded which mentions that disabling movies in the swkotor2.ini file does not actually disable them and they still run. In order to run the game, however, I need to disable them due to my sub-par graphics card. I don't suppose anybody knows of another way to disable the intro movies and other movies? Thanks!

[alanschu]

any way to delete them?

 

Or are they on the CD?

[Destrel]

any way to delete them?

 

Or are they on the CD?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

They are installed on the hard drive in the Movies directory as .bik files, but I suspect simply deleting them would have unforseen effects on the game.

[alanschu]

Hmmm, try renaming them so that the game doesn't find them, and give it a try. If it doesn't work, you can at least put them back without having to reinstall.

 

It's possible the game may just overlook them not being there. Aside from that, I'm not sure how else to approach the problem.

[Destrel]

Hmmm, try renaming them so that the game doesn't find them, and give it a try.  If it doesn't work, you can at least put them back without having to reinstall.

 

It's possible the game may just overlook them not being there.  Aside from that, I'm not sure how else to approach the problem.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Not a bad idea - I will give it a try.

[Destrel]

Hmmm, try renaming them so that the game doesn't find them, and give it a try.  If it doesn't work, you can at least put them back without having to reinstall.

 

It's possible the game may just overlook them not being there.  Aside from that, I'm not sure how else to approach the problem.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Unfortunately, it did not work. I even tried removing the entire movies directory to no effect. Exactly the same thing kept on happening as before.

 

I should mention that I have everything on lowest settings - sound is disabled, all the graphics options in the swkotor2.ini file are disabled and so on.

[alanschu]

That sucks

 

I'll take a quick peek and see if I can see anything, but I'm not promising anything

[Destrel]

That sucks

 

I'll take a quick peek and see if I can see anything, but I'm not promising anything

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Thanks for the attempt anyway!

 

The strange thing is that KOTOR I did run without all that many problems (sometimes it was rather slow, but that is to be expected on my system), so the problem ought to be solvable somehow...

[jofra]

Have you found the solution of the problem?? I have the same problem... whit a SIS 661 Fx, and i can

[Destrel]

Have you found the solution of the problem?? I have the same problem... whit a SIS 661 Fx, and i can

[Frosty_V2.1]

Have you tried backing up/renaming the originals and creating dummy files (create a new (empty) txt file and just rename it to the video you want to replace) ?

This usually works with Bink(IIRC) vids but not necessarily for every video, sometimes a game just has to have a certain valid working video.

I did this for the KotOR intro videos but I think the the final intro vid (the Darth Malak "screen" with legal/dev/pub info) had to played for some reason ... I think ... can't really remember

[alanschu]

That was actually the suggestion I was thinking on making.

 

I haven't had a chance to try it out since I've been quite busy with work (and forum whoring).

[EnderAndrew]

I do that to remove intro videos from certain XBox games.

[Destrel]

Have you tried backing up/renaming the originals and creating dummy files (create a new (empty) txt file and just rename it to the video you want to replace) ?

 

Yes, I have tried this. I was not sure whether to keep the new files as .txt files or change even the extension to that of the movie files I was replacing but I tried both approaches and regretfully neither of them worked.

 

This usually works with Bink(IIRC) vids but not necessarily for every video, sometimes a game just has to have a certain valid working video.

I did this for the KotOR intro videos but I think the the final intro vid (the Darth Malak "screen" with legal/dev/pub info) had to played for some reason ... I think ... can't really remember

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I suspect this is why it did not work for me - my computer seems to be incapable of running any of the videos at all and automatically quits to desktop upon even attempting to do so. Any idea on how to disable this particular video if that is the one where replacing it with an empty text file does not suffice?

[Destrel]

You know... if the original KOTOR did not run just fine on my computer I would probably just give up by now, but since it did run without many problems (once the movies were disabled) I know there simply has to be a way to make KOTOR 2 work too. It does the exact same thing KOTOR 1 was doing when movies were not disabled... except that simply disabling the movies in the swkotor2.ini file or on the configuration screen seems to fail to disable them completely... If anybody can come up with some other ideas - particularly to disable the final intro movie Frosty_V2.1 mentioned that seems to be the culprit - I would be grateful.

[alanschu]

Hmmm, have you tried looking at this from a Bink perspective?

 

 

Do you have problems playing other Bink videos? And perhaps a google search could shed some light. Maybe someone has found a way to let you run Bink videos on a setup like yours...even if it's with crappy performance (since you don't seem to care about that anyways...it'd be moot).

[Cactus]

why not try downloading the bink codec to see if that fixes it? might be that the version that comes with kotor2 eludes something thats included in the normal download?

 

anyways, i would give the codec a try, might fix things.

 

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/RAD_Video_Tools.htm

[Destrel]

Ahh, thanks, these ideas seem to have potential! I have downloaded and installed the aforementioned the RAD Video tools. I must say that I am far from being a computer expert though and do not know how to use them to help the game run bink movies. Could somebody advise me as to how to do so? Thanks!

[alanschu]

I'm not 100% familiar with them, but you *should* in theory just be able to load them, and the next time you use Bink Video, you should automatically use the new codecs.

[Destrel]

I'm not 100% familiar with them, but you *should* in theory just be able to load them, and the next time you use Bink Video, you should automatically use the new codecs.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Interesting... I will reinstall the game when I get back home and try to run it with the new codec.

[Destrel]

Hmmm, have you tried looking at this from a Bink perspective?

 

Do you have problems playing other Bink videos?

 

I have downloaded a sample bink video and it played fine but this is after I have downloaded the RAD tools codec. I will have to wait till I get home and reinstall the game to see whether it works in the game too.

 

...even if it's with crappy performance (since you don't seem to care about that anyways...it'd be moot).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yep, I don't really care about performance as long as it runs and is playable.

[Frosty_V2.1]

That looks to be the best bet along with rolling back/forward drivers.

 

Well I reinstalled TSL to test it out and it looks like the ObsidianEnt intro video can't be disabled, caused TSL to hang for me.

The legal vid seems to play even when renamed/replaced/deleted, editing other ingame vids would cause it to hang as well from what I've tested.

Running some games windowed can cause the game to be less temperamental about things like this though (set FullScreen=0; see below).

 

You could try a couple of things with swkotor2.ini, like making sure "FullScreen" under the [Display Options] and [Graphics Options] headings are set to the same value (where 1=fullscreen, 0=windowed), that caused some problems for me with the patch/new drivers (started game windowed and hanging when clicked on the taskbar).

The game might work windowed (by setting both "FullScreen"s to "FullScreen=0"), could be a way to jump start it anyway.

[Destrel]

I have reinstalled KOTOR 2: The Sith Lords and tried to run it again (having installed the RAD Video Tools beforehand. It does exactly the same thing as before...

 

I will describe what happens during the start-up sequence more precisely, perhaps it will give you guys a better idea about the nature of the problem:

 

1) I start the game

2) The screen goes black for a brief instance

3) The screen flashes twice

4) A screen with a picture appears. The picture contains a guy in a mask in the forefront a veiled female on the right from our perspective (on the left from the perspective of the center guy) and a stone man on the left from our perspective (on the right from the perspective of the center guy). Below the picture is some legal information in white letters on black background.

5) The screen goes black for a brief instance

6) The screen flashes twice

7) I am returned back to desktop

[alanschu]

Heh, you can't just mash on escape like an absolute maniac can you?

[Frosty_V2.1]

hmmm, well the flashing should be from the resolution/refresh changing, strange that the legal video (part 4) plays but the other intros don't.

 

Apart from the swkotor2.ini thing a couple posts up, and using alternate video drivers (assuming you've got all the latest drivers for everything on your computer),

I got nothing