KOTOR 2 crashing after text crawl

[darthacerbus 1]

Hi,

I've been grappling with trying to get KOTOR 2 to work recently. I'm trying to get the legacypc Steam version to run at 1440p, and while it loads into the main menu, through character creation, and the text crawl movie without issue, upon attempting to load in to the Ebon Hawk prologue after the movie, it crashes immediately. Movies otherwise play through the main menu movie viewer without causing a crash.

I've patched the editable exe with UniWS, using the upscaled cutscenes, I'm pretty sure I did the hex editing right, and I'm making sure to launch directly from the exe rather than Steam. I've tried compatibility mode for XP Service Pack 2 and 3 (on Windows 10), disabling high DPI settings, tried Windowed mode, soft shadows and frame buffer are disabled, disabling movies in the ini, and deleting them entirely. Nothing fixes the crash. Only mod I have installed is RCM 1.8.6.

Any idea where I'm going wrong, or what I can do to fix this?

[Thor110 566]

2 hours ago, darthacerbus said:

Hi,

I've been grappling with trying to get KOTOR 2 to work recently. I'm trying to get the legacypc Steam version to run at 1440p, and while it loads into the main menu, through character creation, and the text crawl movie without issue, upon attempting to load in to the Ebon Hawk prologue after the movie, it crashes immediately. Movies otherwise play through the main menu movie viewer without causing a crash.

I've patched the editable exe with UniWS, using the upscaled cutscenes, I'm pretty sure I did the hex editing right, and I'm making sure to launch directly from the exe rather than Steam. I've tried compatibility mode for XP Service Pack 2 and 3 (on Windows 10), disabling high DPI settings, tried Windowed mode, soft shadows and frame buffer are disabled, disabling movies in the ini, and deleting them entirely. Nothing fixes the crash. Only mod I have installed is RCM 1.8.6.

Any idea where I'm going wrong, or what I can do to fix this?

As far as I remember from back when I used it, UniWS does the hex editing itself when the game launches and you don't need to hex edit it at the same time.

IE : hex editing it is one way to apply the resolution changes and UniWS is another way.

Though I only used it once for KotOR1 many years back and I don't have it installed anymore as there are better ways to make the changes.

[DarthParametric 3,862]

53 minutes ago, Thor110 said:

UniWS does the hex editing itself when the game launches

You're thinking of Flawless Widescreen, which patches the game in memory. You should never use it, precisely because it causes crashes.

UniWS permanently edits the exe, the same as manually hex editing it.

[Thor110 566]

3 hours ago, DarthParametric said:

You're thinking of Flawless Widescreen, which patches the game in memory. You should never use it, precisely because it causes crashes.

That would be the one, from what I recall it worked fine for me though I didn't play it for long, but going by the OP it still sounds as if they might have done both.

6 hours ago, darthacerbus said:

I've patched the editable exe with UniWS, using the upscaled cutscenes, I'm pretty sure I did the hex editing right,

I did however forget to add the obligatory advice of try again.

 

[darthacerbus 1]

3 hours ago, Thor110 said:

That would be the one, from what I recall it worked fine for me though I didn't play it for long, but going by the OP it still sounds as if they might have done both.

I did however forget to add the obligatory advice of try again.

 

I'm only using UniWS and the widescreen movies fix from Xuul's guide. I've tried this from a completely fresh install (deleting the whole folder after uninstall) three times at this point, not sure what's going wrong.

[Spectrometer 23]

I had those exact same issue but with an old CD copy of the game I had, I also tried everything and it wasn't working, until I tried this patch:

I installed it before installing any mods (as it replaces the Override) and it worked! It even seems to have a built-in widescreen patch.

[DarthParametric 3,862]

That's not a patch, it's a cracked exe. Presumably the Aspyr version.

[darthacerbus 1]

After some further testing, it seems like the problem is related to the editable executable itself. Even completely untouched, the crash happens on attempting to load any save. The default legacypc exe from Steam loads without issue. Is the download from https://deadlystream.com/files/file/1321-kotor-2-editable-executable/  not updated properly? Is there another exe out there that works?

[PoopaPapaPalpatine 28]

On 11/30/2024 at 4:31 PM, darthacerbus said:

After some further testing, it seems like the problem is related to the editable executable itself. Even completely untouched, the crash happens on attempting to load any save. The default legacypc exe from Steam loads without issue. Is the download from https://deadlystream.com/files/file/1321-kotor-2-editable-executable/  not updated properly? Is there another exe out there that works?

I'm bumping this thread because I've run into this issue before and thought it was just changing to an AMD graphics card that did it. I'm running into this issue again trying to play a mod build of KOTOR2 and can't make it past the title crawl.

[DarthParametric 3,862]

Disable movies. If it doesn't happen after that then make sure your exe is widescreen patched and additionally edited to render movies at your display res. Re-enable movies and see what happens. What you do next depends on what you have installed. If you have upscaled movies, delete them and restore the originals. If it still happens after that then - assuming you're running Windows - you can try right clicking on the exe, going to the Compatibility tab, setting it to run in Win 7 compatibility mode and ticking the Disable full-screen optimisations option. It it still crashes after that, you can try driver lottery. Keep rolling back until you get a winner.

Your final alternative is to just permanently disable movies. Or, if you have an AMD card, then buy an nVidia card.

[PoopaPapaPalpatine 28]

8 hours ago, DarthParametric said:

Or, if you have an AMD card, then buy an nVidia card.

This is ultimately my issue, it seems.