Kotor 2 still not working on Vista

[Sierra]

Kotor 2 is an awesome game and I love it. I love the darker storyline, more stuff and more flexible than the first Kotor. Like just about everyone else, I'm having trouble getting it to work on Vista. I can get into the game, create a player, but Windows says "Knights of the Old Republic 2 has stopped working" right after the first cutscene of the (Ebon Hawk drifting to Peragus). The details says it's an APPCRASH. And nothing's worked, not disabling sound/movies or anything.

 

I've tried running Kotor 2 as Administrator and using Windows 2000 or Windows XP SP2 compatibility, but it still didn't work. And even replacing the mss32.dll doesn't work either.

 

It's a great game, but ruined by Vista's incompatibility. I've even tried to run a dual-boot of XP but it wouldn't let me downgrade. And why doesn't Obsidian or Lucasarts just make a Vista patch?

 

Computer:

 

Windows Vista Home Premium 32bit

Toshiba Satellite A205 S5810 notebook

1.6 Ghz Intel Dual-Core Processor

3 gb memory

120 gb hard drive

Intel 965 Chipset graphics

 

I know all drivers and Direct X are up to date. The graphics card is the factory built Intel 965. It's not NVIDIA but I've ran a lot of other games well with it. Games like the Star Wars Best of PC (Kotor 1, Republic Commando, Jedi Outcast 2), Halo, Grand Theft Auto San Andreas... And these games have much more demanding graphics than Kotor.

[cogadh]

None of those games have much more demanding graphics than KotOR 2, at best they are equal to KotOR 2 (Halo and Rep. Commando might be a little more demanding). The problem is still very likely is your graphics "card". It only just barely meets the game's minimum requirements, so you could try reducing all of the game's graphics settings as low as possible to see if it allows it to run. One thing you really should try is setting the resolution as low as 640X480. The pre-rendered cutscenes run at that resolution and some underpowered machines have trouble re-setting the resolution from that to whatever you might be trying to run the game at.

 

BTW - In regards to a Vista "patch" for the game, it is really no longer supported (it is over 4 years old now), so you really shouldn't expect any official fixes from Obsidian or LucasArts.

Edited March 24, 2009 by cogadh

[Sierra]

I would've thought the other games would have higher graphics.

 

When running the hardware check, the graphics card and processor speed were the only two in yellow as minimum acceptable, so I thought it would still be okay.

 

 

But I think you're right about the graphics card. When I tried 1024x768 the stopped working message came up right after the making a character part and not even the Star Wars text crawl. 800 x 600 was the lowest setting it can go to, and that was what it was set to at default.

[Philistine]

Well, your graphics chip is pretty terrible - but I don't think that's the problem in this case. KotOR2 is not perfectly happy to play under Vista, and never has been. You might be in luck, though - I had a similar problem, and found a solution that fixed it on a fansite.

[Sierra]

What am I looking for? The mss32.ll fix I've tried already and didn't work.

 

The Intel 965 graphics (and the computer itself) isn't designed for gaming at all. But it's just enough to run some games. If it can run all the other games, I thought Kotor2 would be easier on it.

[refuse]

I can run both KotOR and TSL on an Intel 945GM Express, which is pretty much the same card you have, but with Windows XP.

[mr_raider]

Both Kotor I and II run fine under Ubuntu with Wine. Oh the irony!

[Sierra]

Now that is ironic...

Edited March 31, 2009 by Sierra

[Vora]

Hi Guys

 

I have manged to get Kotor 2 working with vista.

 

Heres the back story (every1 loves a story) After installing the full game and then updating the game to 1.0b (manually not using the update option in game menu) i fired up the game, after a few seconds i get a window stating the game is not working and get the option to close it down thats it. After 'right click>Properties then compatibility tab i set it to run as windows XP and run as Admin but no luck i got the same window.

 

After that failed i unchecked the run as windows XP compatibilty mode and i checked the following in the Compatibility Tab:

 

Disable visual themes,

Disable desktop compostion,

Disable display scaling on high DPI settings

 

After checking all of those i started the game and it worked fine. The reason i think this works is 1 of the above settings (Visual Themes I think) disables Aero in Vista and i think that cuses alot of problems in games. Bottom line is i do the above action with every game i play and i rarely get any probs with them in vista.

 

Also to note on my config check all my components are green except my graphics which fails (red icon) due to the program thinking i have out of date drivers but i'm playing it on a GeForce Go 7900 GS.

 

Hope this helps.

[kmja]

i cant get the KOTOR to get it working on vista its frezze all the time but i can get the KOTOR 2 to work what am i doing wrong