Kotor 1 Problem

[jedikrem 0]

Alrighty, so I'm just wondering if perhaps anyone here may have some ideas on how I can get this game to run correctly on my computer. This is for the Steam version, but I do also have the GoG version as well. I bought the GoG one to see if I could get that one to work as well, as I've heard some things are a little different with the files and such. Anyways.

 

First off, I'll attach a dxdiag of my system so you all know what I have. Running Windows 10 (I couldn't get this game to work on 8.1 with this laptop, either) with a GTX 860M graphics card.

 

I've tried a large number of things. Here goes:

 

First, the only way I can get the game to even launch is by running it in Compatibility Mode for WIndows 98/ME. For some reason, none of the other options, including XP (the usual one to use) work. At all.

 

The swconfig.exe file, when opened, does not have ANY listings of resolutions in the resolution drop down. It's just blank. When I launch the game, however, I do have the normal 3 options, the best being 1280X1024 I think it is.

 

I can go through character creation just fine. Upon hitting play, the loading screen appears with the bar. Sometimes this can be relatively quick to load, sometimes it takes quite a while. I have noticed the sound gets really choppy here. I've tried disabling sound, as I've heard sometimes that can cause issues. No go.

 

Upon loading, my character is simply standing in his room on the Endar Spire, the sound is very choppy, and the graphics are very choppy as well, so to speak. Normally, upon starting, your character will be laying on the bed having a dream/force vision, and then Trask walks in. That doesn't happen. My character is simply standing there. No dream, no Trask coming in. On top of that, I can very slowly turn the screen towards the door that Trask walks through, and the door simply isn't there. You can see the T4 unit on the other side of where the door would be, fixing whatever, but there is no Trask anywhere.

 

I've tried reinstalling, I've verified the game cache, everything. I have no idea what else I can do to get this wonderful game to work, and I'm at my wit's end.

 

Do ANY of you have any insight perhaps to what is happening here? Any advice, or perhaps know of a fix or workaround?

Update posted Today, 02:46 PM

 

Here's a picture of what I see when I load the game and finally turn to look in the direction of the door Trask is supposed to come through.

DxDiag.txt

[DarthParametric 3,782]

Could be a DirectX12 issue. While Microsoft has always espoused the notion that DirectX is fully backwards compatible, it's really not in practice. The game needs DirectX9, so try installing it from here - http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35 It won't affect DX12, it will install alongside it.

 

If you have Steam, there are probably DX redestributables already in one of your game folders.

[DrMcCoy 40]

Could be a DirectX12 issue

KotOR doesn't use Direct3D, though, it renders using OpenGL. It does however call DirectInput8Create, so I guess uses DirectInput to read mouse/keyboard events.

 

But the rendering is all OpenGL. You should check if you can get appropriate graphics drivers for your hardware; the ones coming with Windows might have no OpenGL implementation.

[DarthParametric 3,782]

Oh yeah, whoops, keep forgetting it's only Jade Empire that uses DX.

[jedikrem 0]

Well I found a solution.  A strange solution, and I'm not sure why.

 

My laptop is a 4k laptop (I'm not a big fan of 4k, it has mostly just caused problems with most things, which is why I just keep my resolution at 1920x1080 all the time).  I do happen to have a 27 inch monitor that runs at a native 1920x1080.  So just for kicks, I tried plugging in my laptop into the monitor and tried playing the game that way.

 

Strange thing?  It plays fine!  No problem starting the game at all. Plays movies, everything.  Using the GoG version of the game, I don't even have to bother using compatibility mode or anything, the game just runs fine using the monitor.  Once I unplug the monitor and try starting just using my laptop and it's 4k display?  Game won't launch at all; or after fiddling around with stuff, I get the problems from my first post here.

 

So for now?  I'll just be using my separate monitor to play Kotor.

 

Thanks for the advice though, everyone!

[DrMcCoy 40]

To me, that sounds like the OpenGL path of your graphics driver doesn't like the high native resolution of your 4k monitor. It fails creating an accelerated OpenGL context, and then just creates a software one, or lets Windows create a compatibility one that maps to Direct3D, or something like that. Those then often lack a lot of the features, leading to weird graphical glitches and bugs.

One thing you could try is to enable windowed mode in KotOR. For that, you need to edit the "swkotor.ini" file in the installation directory of the game. In the "[Graphics Options]" section, there should be a "FullScreen=1" line. Change it to "FullScreen=0" and add a new line with "AllowWindowedMode=1" below that as well. Also, you can set "Width" and "Height" (a couple of lines above), but try 800x600 or something like that for a start.