Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Buggy Siths?

Captain Trips

Am I missing something like a piece of hardware that fixes things or is Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords buggy as hell?

My system isn't top end spec (2800XP, 1GB RAM, 9700Pro) but it's enough to play just about anything reasonably. This game has crashed on me 3 times in the Prologue and again once landing.

There is a patch and I used that before even playing but - get this - the patch system is bugged and won't download it automatically and tells me to download it manually?

WTF is going on? This is ridiculous!! Is anyone else having this problem? I loved the first game but my patience for this is wearing thin. This is the first time I have had a game crash on me like this for at least a year if not two. My system is generally very stable with not a single WindowsXP crash in almost 2 years now so I can't blame that.

Any ideas? The crashes seem random and the screen goes blank, pssibly with distorted framebuffering across the screen. Is this an ATI problem?

dearg_doom

It's a very buggy game, so it could be that.

The game was supposedly rushed to market and is in a semi unfinished state,

There are reports of bugs all over the game from crashes if you walk to a certain part to some guys 'finding' the original ending!

linky

The Bollox

I see it as the next GTA, none of the GTA's after, and including 3 work as they should on the pc, but work great on the consoles, that time it was a problem with the engine, not sure what it is this time tho

dent

To be honest I've got an ATI X800XT and its running OK so I don't think its a brand issue.

I have noticed a few bugs including the really annoying swoop race one.

I know there was an language patch released but as of yet we are still waiting on the bug fix patch.

Check http://www.obsidianent.com/ for more info.

tSubh Dearg

I remember when COD was released it was in a pretty bad state too, at least on ATI cards, it crashed left right and centre on my pc. Its frustrating tho when you wait for a sequel to an excellent game like kotor only to find its been rushed out in a completely sh!t state to sell a few copies before the end of the fiscal year or something like that

^deadwing

Jim

Knights Of The Old Republic : Revenge Of The Bugs would have been a better thread name imo.
Just thought I'd mention it.

Maximilian

KOTOR2 is the buggiest game I've played since Hidden & Dangerous 1. Somehow managed to complete it by persevering through its myriad bugs. I would have thought LucasArts might have relw but I think all you can say to people having problems is save very, very often and wait for a patch.

Captain Trips

Maximilian wrote:

KOTOR2 is the buggiest game I've played since Hidden & Dangerous 1. Somehow managed to complete it by persevering through its myriad bugs. I would have thought LucasArts might have relw but I think all you can say to people having problems is save very, very often and wait for a patch.

So what's the verdict? Should I keep it and wait for a bug patch? I got the language patch already (version is now 2.01.420 English).

Cats 5.3 were out ysterday and there are some "known issues" listed for KOTOR 2. Might try them anyway.

Should I dip it in glue and then in broken glass before throwing at the shop assistants in HMV and demanding my money back?

I really do want to play it although I am beginning to think buying it was a mistake - everyone on the Obsidian forums is saying how th Dark Side ending was ripped out of it and the speech files which were made are still on the CDs even. Man this sucks.

At least Gran Turismo 4 is great but feck I was looking forward to KOTOR2.

Keep it for later or money back???

-oRnein9-

I don't think anywhere refunds PC games.

Maximilian

Its still a great game - more of the same if you like KOTOR. Bugs were a pain but I still played through it. Its playable though. Like I said, if you save often, you should be ok.

Deadwing

Sounds like the driv3l episode all over again tbh

ionapaul

Right, you fine folk have made my decision for me, I'm not buying this until it is properly patched / fixed / de-bugged. Was Driv3r ever fixed in the end?

monkeyfudge

Some people seem to have been more unlucky with it than others.

Mine only crashed twice on me. But I'd saved often so it wasn't a problem. And it is a really good game... well... up to about 2/3s of the way in... then the story all becomes very rushed.

I also had lots of strange bugs. Like at one stage Mandalore speaking with Atton's voice... I'm not sure how they managed to mess that one up.

And there was also a scene with lots of dialogue in it that just sort of played out in fast forward. I couldn't follow what was going on. Fortunetly the game keeps a log of all the dialogue, so I was able to check back on what was said afterwards.

Dantoine was the buggiest place for me. My characters would suddenly jump from one side of the play area to the other. It was very annoying.

I haven't played the KOTOR 1. But it just arrived in the post this morning from play.com, so I'm looking forward to a bug free KOTOR experience now.

Captain Trips

monkeyfudge wrote:

I haven't played the KOTOR 1. But it just arrived in the post this morning from play.com, so I'm looking forward to a bug free KOTOR experience now.

You are lucky to have KOTOR1 to play - it is one of the truly superb games from recent years and I would rank it as one of the best games on PC in a long while. Great story arc and it feels like a Star Wars Final Fantasy VII, including unxpected plot twist!

ionapaul: I wouldn't bother getting it yet mate. I can't play it for 5 mins without a crash, usually when playing an ingame speech sequence it seems. I've tried several things like disable vertex image objects and other crap but no go. It's bugged to hell. Maybe on a vanilla Intel system + Nvidia it might be more stable? Seems a lot of probs are ATI related. Some people on forums saw they used the 4.12 Cats to test/compile against and that's why the latest are not working but OFFICIALLY Lucasarts are saying upgrade to the latest drivers.

Not worth it, I won't be playing until this very much due patch comes out. On the Obsidian forums the admins say they are "on final approach" for release. Wait until it happens IMHO.

Maximilian

Just remembered something from the readme file which shows how rushed it was - they state that there is an "issue" where the game crashes if you play on the same level for about 45mins without exiting/changing level- their solution: save often. FFS how lazy is that?

tman

monkeyfudge wrote:

Dantoine was the buggiest place for me. My characters would suddenly jump from one side of the play area to the other. It was very annoying.

the frame rate drops to about .1 fps on dantoine for me... which is fairly ****ing annoying as it seems like the most logical place to find a lightsaber :rolleyes:
10 hours in and i still haven't got all of the pieces needed to make one... (one piece left to find)

monkeyfudge

tman wrote:

the frame rate drops to about .1 fps on dantoine for me... which is fairly ****ing annoying as it seems like the most logical place to find a lightsaber :rolleyes:
10 hours in and i still haven't got all of the pieces needed to make one... (one piece left to find)

Actually I'm playing through the first one now and Dantooine is pretty much indentical and I have the same problem. I think it's only when that big main government building is on screen. It was smoke pumping out the side of it or something that seems to slow everything down.

Also, I was about 10 hours in when I got a lightsaber. So you should be almost there. I did get all the parts when I was almost at the end of Dantooine though. If you have built up a strong alignment to either side, you should head back to the Ebon Hawk for a surprise.

Kiith

i had a few problems with it. mostly just crashes to the desktop every 30min or so, but it was pretty quick to load back up, so i dint mind.

also, the patch they released was a joke. all it did was update the manual.

-oRnein9-

Kiith wrote:

i had a few problems with it. mostly just crashes to the desktop every 30min or so, but it was pretty quick to load back up, so i dint mind.

also, the patch they released was a joke. all it did was update the manual.

Yeah the fcuking patch was only 2mb's most patches are around a hundred megs atleast, lets just refere to it as the plaster for now.

Boro

Luckily i havent suffered from any crashes/bugs yet (apart from some cutscenes where characters attempt to walk through closed doors and end up hanging around like spare p***ks at a wedding).

Had the black screen bug after the first intro cutscene, but a quick driver upgrade sorted me out. Barton/9700pro and no issues so far (crossing appendages)

Captain Trips

Boro wrote:

Luckily i havent suffered from any crashes/bugs yet (apart from some cutscenes where characters attempt to walk through closed doors and end up hanging around like spare p***ks at a wedding).

Had the black screen bug after the first intro cutscene, but a quick driver upgrade sorted me out. Barton/9700pro and no issues so far (crossing appendages)

What drivers are you using? I am using 5.3 Cats and no change really. I've dropped back to 5.1 and I can go maybe 25mins and then crash. Seems to be that "you'd better make the engine reload different maps" bug.

dent

-oRnein9- wrote:

Yeah the fcuking patch was only 2mb's most patches are around a hundred megs atleast, lets just refere to it as the plaster for now.

That was just a language patch. The bug fix patch has yet to be released. There is even talk of a content patch.

dent

Captain Trips wrote:

What drivers are you using? I am using 5.3 Cats and no change really. I've dropped back to 5.1 and I can go maybe 25mins and then crash. Seems to be that "you'd better make the engine reload different maps" bug.

Try 4.11 cats. I think they are the ones the developers tested on.

Captain Trips

dent wrote:

Try 4.11 cats. I think they are the ones the developers tested on.

Yeah 4.11 was what the original engine for KOTOR 1 was built against BUT and this is the crazy part - they started KOTOR2 using the *unpatched* KOTOR engine which we all know took several patches to get stable.

Madness. I tried it and have also tried Omega-built 4.11s with no success.

dent

Captain Trips wrote:

Yeah 4.11 was what the original engine for KOTOR 1 was built against BUT and this is the crazy part - they started KOTOR2 using the *unpatched* KOTOR engine which we all know took several patches to get stable.

Madness. I tried it and have also tried Omega-built 4.11s with no success.

That is madness. Guess you will have to wait for the patch. They posted that it was coming out soon on their website three weeks ago. Just checked it today and still no luck. I'm thinking of not playing it until the patch comes out.

jaggeh

the game crashed on me many times until i used a NOCD, since then its crashed twice. ive finished the game once as lightside male, im currently 9 hours in on dantooine as darkside female. hopefully ill get the two characters i didnt get last time(one you need to be female, the other darkside).

the ending was ripped to shreds and should have been much longer, have a search on some of the kotor2 forums for the script and filenames and you can see what WAS supposed to happen, you will be surprised.

<edit>before anyone gets any ideas i HAVE a legit copy and dont advocate piracy, but CD checks are annoying and gamin designers need to find some other way of maintaining their copyright(its not like cd checks even work)

Boro

Captain Trips wrote:

What drivers are you using? I am using 5.3 Cats and no change really. I've dropped back to 5.1 and I can go maybe 25mins and then crash. Seems to be that "you'd better make the engine reload different maps" bug.

Sorry i never got back to this. Omega drivers 2.6.05a are the drivers im using from here. My card is a 9700 non pro (sapphire) flashed to pro and overclocked too if it makes a difference (wouldnt have thought so).

Kiith

ya the ending sucked ass. i'm playing through again as dark side, but i cant see the ending being any different. which is just pathetic. at least in kotor, they had two endings.

also, i too download nocd cracks any game i buy. the ones i dont buy, usually dont need one.

Khalim

there seems to be a patch out:

KotOR 2 Patch

but it says only for US version?

has anyone downloaded it?

I'm only going to buy this game if it is reliably stable *most* of the time.

danke.

Swifty

Anyone having fps issues in dantooine in either games, those can be sorted by adding a line in the config file.

Just add "Disable Vertex Buffer Objects=1" under [Graphics Options]

Its an issue with ATI cards I think. Was wondering why KOTOR1 was slowing to a crawl on a 9800 pro. I put that line in the config and it's lovely and smooth now. I think it's an issue in both games. Check out this thread and look for a reply from a guy called "Maniac".

http://swforums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=420688&forum=80

dent

Khalim wrote:

there seems to be a patch out:

KotOR 2 Patch

but it says only for US version?

has anyone downloaded it?

I'm only going to buy this game if it is reliably stable *most* of the time.

danke.

The game comes with a update utility that will patch your game to the "UK" version.

The lucasarts site should also have a separate link for it.