Synchro Posted August 17 Posted August 17 View File K1 Modern Driver Compatibility Patch Restores Knights of the Old Republic's full lighting on current graphics drivers, and stops the grass from stretching into the sky. See every fix side by side: https://synchro.codeberg.page/kotor-modern-driver-compatibility/what-it-fixes.html Why the game looks wrong KOTOR shades its world with one of two methods from 2003, one from ATI and one from NVIDIA. AMD's and Intel's Windows drivers offer neither, so the game falls back to a path meant for cards without per-pixel shading, and the grass bug comes from that same path. The patch rebuilds the game's lighting on a method every current driver supports, and runs every card on it. What it restores Grass that stays on the ground Light from the room on lightmapped walls and floors Reflections on metal, armour and water, including cube map reflections on Intel cards Fog, where the game meant to have it Soft shadows, glow, motion blur, film grain and Force power distortion Bump lighting on creatures, which the game only drew on NVIDIA cards Glow and soft shadows that hold still as the camera moves A brightness slider that works, including in cutscenes For modders: normal maps, bump lighting on lightmapped surfaces, and reflective skins with a flat reflection map, which the game never drew on any card The Cube Map Fix and Soft Shadows Fix are included. Uninstall them before installing this. Requirements KotOR version 1.03: GOG, Steam, or a CD copy with the common 1.03 no-CD executable KotOR Patch Manager 0.7.2 or later: https://github.com/LaneDibello/Kotor-Patch-Manager Install guide: https://synchro.codeberg.page/kotor-modern-driver-compatibility/installing.html If the Patch Manager won't accept your swkotor.exe because another tool has modified it, use the standalone download instead: https://synchro.codeberg.page/kotor-modern-driver-compatibility/installing-standalone.html Settings You don't need any to play. K1DriverCompat.ini, beside the game, lists every setting with an explanation. With the Mod Options patch installed, the game's options screen has menus for them. Settings: https://synchro.codeberg.page/kotor-modern-driver-compatibility/settings.html The patch can draw the game as a GeForce card of the time did, which is the default, or as an ATI Radeon did. The look setting chooses between them, and in the game's own content the two differ only a little. The two looks: https://synchro.codeberg.page/kotor-modern-driver-compatibility/looks.html Replacement Shaders Modders can replace any of the patch's shading programs with their own, with nothing to rebuild. Put a plain text ARB fragment program in override/shaders/, named after the program it replaces, and the patch uses it in place of its own. The log records each replacement it loads, and warns about any file that matches no program. Guide: https://synchro.codeberg.page/kotor-modern-driver-compatibility/replacement-shaders.html Reporting issues Open an issue at https://codeberg.org/Synchro/kotor-modern-driver-compatibility/issues or post in the comments here, and attach logs/K1DriverCompat.log from your game folder. Thanks @Lane and @J, who tested this on cards and installs I do not own. Nearly everything here is a claim about how some particular driver behaves, and a claim like that is worth nothing until somebody with that hardware runs it and reports back. This would not have been finishable without them. Lane also wrote the KotOR Patch Manager, which this patch is built for. @Vriff, Who took reference screenshots on period-correct hardware. They show what the game looked like on the cards it was written for, which is what the patch strives to match. Full documentation: https://synchro.codeberg.page/kotor-modern-driver-compatibility/ Source: https://codeberg.org/Synchro/kotor-modern-driver-compatibility LLM Disclosure This project made use of an LLM during development, in the following capacities: - Brainstorming: exploring possible approaches and design directions - Decompilation assistance: help interpreting and structuring reverse-engineered code - Code comments: refining and clarifying existing comments - Skeletons and fixes: generating initial code scaffolding and minor fixes All LLM-assisted output was modified and reviewed by a human before being committed. Submitter Synchro Submitted 08/16/2026 Category Mods K1R Compatible Yes Quote
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