Problems running KotOR. After months, still no solution. Help! :(

[The Dude]

Alright, I'm getting really desperate here. The KotOR series are all time classics that my PC refuses to run properly.

First off, my specs:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+
nVidia GeForce 8800 GT
2 GB RAM
Windows XP SP2
Acer AL1951 monitor (4:3 dimension).

The problem:
The game's engine seems to run in overdrive. At the lowest possible settings (since that's how I approach problems; first set everything to base settings and then start increasing values accordingly) the following things happen;
- Game runs in hyperspeed. The slightest tap on my forward key will send my character dashing to the other side of the room in less than a milisecond.
- The screen flashes crazily.
- Two beams of visual distortion cross my screen horizontally. One at the top, one at the bottom.

When I set the game's settings as high as possible (16x AA, 16x anisotropy, V-Sync, Soft Shadows, 1280 x 1024 at 60 Hz refresh rate), the problems seemingly end. Mind you, I can increase that refresh rate even further to 75 Hz but I'm not sure what purpose it would serve.

However, what does happen is that objects randomly turn completely back. This seems to be a problem with shading as sometimes, under certain angles, their texture still appears to be vaguely visible. This mostly happens on doors, my character and surfaces around lightsources (which further indicates a shading problem).

What I suspect is that by pumping up the game's graphical settings as high as possible, I'm merely artificially slowing the engine down, and that this shading problem is simply one of the deeper symptoms that still manages to surface.

How can I solve this? Does anyone have any experience with the problem as described above?

[Freddie]

Are you having any problems with any other games or is it just KOTOR?

I seem to remember similar troubles like this once, I simple saved my saved games, uninstalled the game and reinstalled which fixed the problem and turning off V-Sync is almost a must with this game. I do have other issues such as unresponsive controls but this comes and goes and I've learnt to live with it.

[The Dude]

Are you having any problems with any other games or is it just KOTOR?

I seem to remember similar troubles like this once, I simple saved my saved games, uninstalled the game and reinstalled which fixed the problem and turning off V-Sync is almost a must with this game. I do have other issues such as unresponsive controls but this comes and goes and I've learnt to live with it.

No it seems to be a problem specifically with the engine KotOR uses. I just installed an AMD Processor speed control program which seems to make some difference, but now my problems have switched from visual overdrive to crashes. Crashes that, surprisingly enough, happen at exactly the same moments where bits of environment would otherwise have turned black.

I'll turn off V-Sync. Who knows, sometimes the simplest solutions help. XD

EDIT: Ok, turning off V-Sync made no different. Neither did turning everything down to the lowest setting. The game constantly crashes in the same room.

[Freddie]

Find the KOTOR.exe in the programmes folder, right click and set it to work under Windows 2000 compatibility, I've heard that can held. Honestly though I think your best bet is to uninstall the game and reinstall it.

[The Dude]

Find the KOTOR.exe in the programmes folder, right click and set it to work under Windows 2000 compatibility, I've heard that can held. Honestly though I think your best bet is to uninstall the game and reinstall it.

I'll change the compatibility and see how that helps. Reinstalling I've done about a million times, each time I felt I had made enough alterations to my system to warrant a fresh attempt at running the game.