Has anyone had problems with KOTOR 1?

I have had repeated problems of slowness and lagging everytime i try to play KOTOR 1, so slow infact, i might as well trash it as soon as i buy it, i had to exchange the game for another copy of KOTOR 1 3 times already, and each copy is as slow as ever. Meaning that i can barely get my character moving around, the keyboard actions for movement are not working because the game is so damn slow, and plus everytime i run in to an enemy(at the beginning of the game), i can't seem to attack them at all, it seems like the game is too frozen up to let me do anything.

This is my computer: HP Pavilion PC

Intel pentium D 820 processor
2.80 GHz
1 Gig of RAM

I know for a fact my computer is more than enough recommended to hold games bigger than KOTOR 1

 

i have the top of the line new mac G5 with the intel processor - i bought KOTOR 1 and it was horrific. i mean utterly impossible to play

i ended up 'regifting' it to my friend saying "good luck"

however...
i bought a used xbox and the game on ebay - and it has to be the greatest game ever created!

i havent owned a game system since atari - and have never been interested - but this game almost makes mwe wanna dump my gir----

well, not quite - but close

 

Sounds like a video card issue. What video card are you using, and do you have the proper drivers?

 

I don't know much about what a video card is (Warning: Im Computer Retarted )

I guess since i got my new computer, it doesn't seem to have some things i need for the game, even though the game does operate.

 

I think a better question would be, "Has anyone NOT had a problem with KotOR 1? (and even more so 2)

However, I know for a fact that ATI cards and some of the latest driver versions totally conflict with this game. I played this game after it came out just fine (several times actually) then moved on. After a year or so and two driver updates later I reinstalled the game and promptly crashed every time I tried to play. Did some research and found out this was common with ATI cards. I found an older version of my video drivers and ran the game just fine (aside from the random game freeze, which is a known bug and just had to deal with it - still worth it and then some).

Not sure if this will apply in your case, but if you know your video card is an ATI card/chipset then you probably just need to find some old drivers. I think the one I used was from back in 2004, anything more recent may give you problems.

 

I had that problem too but I think it's been rectified in some updates since then. Anyways, to the original poster- right click on your desktop, select properties and go to settings. What does it say in the 'Display' box?

As an alternative, press Windows+Break, go to Hardware->Device Manager, and tell what it says under 'Display Adapters'.

 

Ok here is what i saw when i right clicked and selected settings:

1. (Multiple Monitors)on ATI RADEON EXPRESS 200 Series

Um....and i have my screen resolution at 800 by 600 pixels, and i am set at Medium (16 bits)

EDIT: My brother is playing the game Fatal Frame III for Ps2. Its a horror, supernatural based game, It scares the crap out of me, and thats why i like it...

 

Ah, that could be your problem. The ATI Express is a graphics chip built into your motherboard; integrated graphics such as those are usually not suitable for playing games as they're not powerful enough. However that set's fairly new so perhaps that's not the issue.

 

Then what should i buy to make sure the game will play properly?

 

That depends on whether you need an AGP or PCI-X video card. I don't know which one you would require.

 

If you haven't yet, make sure you download and install the KOTOR updates. Extreme slowness on older cards or integrated video is a known problem that was fixed in one of the updates.

 

Your main concern is FPS. This is frames per second. It means the speed at which your gfx card deals with frames. Higher end gfx cards yield higher fps which is good. Low fps is bad. FPS varies from game to game, gfx card to gfx card, map to map and area to area. For example wide open areas give u lower fps, for example the wide open grasslands of Dantooine. Enclosed areas like rooms give you higher (better) fps.

As we have found out you have integrated gfx which just sucks. I advise you get a gfx card no lower than 128 mb ddr. Also when your going into wide open areas which for KOTOR 1 is almost everywhere you drop your gfx to low. Sure it won't look as good but you can do without the headache. Also I advise you only update to v1.02 as the 1.03 patch has some problems with packets.

 

Hello, I'm not sure if this is of any help, but I had similar problems with KOTOR and also have an ATI RADEON. I downloaded and installed the updates, as others have suggested, and at one point when the game got to some very poorly lit areas I had to turn the shadows off. It ran fine after that, except for the random freezings that are apparently common.

 

I full recommend taking Darth_Ashraak's advice. But with that said, if you'd just get a copy of it for Xbox you could circumvent the entire problem and have a lot more fun with it.

 

My computer configuration is ok for playing both KOTOR 1 and 2, yet I still ahve these problems.

 

I will NEVER support or endorse console games at ANY time. PC FTW! If you have a problem you can just do a search on a tech forum for the answer. Something goes wrong they can release a path to d/l at once. You can do LOTS of other stuff at the same time on the PC. Plus with emulators you can play the same games you would on a console. Also you can tweak your PC for optimal performance. If you need further help the_unknowable_jedi make another post and I'll lay it on you.

 

There was quite a mess on the Lucasarts forums about this card not running the KOTOR games. There were several possible solutions presented, but none really worked for anybody. Here's the link.

 

Lets try this:Go into your swkotor.ini file and open it as a text file. The file is located by default in C:\program files\lucasarts\swkotor. Add the line Disable Vertex Buffer Objects=1 somewhere under the [graphics options] section.

At least it helped for me in laggy areas.