KOTOR - Is there a reason not to just play it on Xbox?

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Okay so with the new Star Wars out, I'm trying my hand at Knights of the Old Republic again.

Tried the Steam version. Crashed. Took about 2 hours worth of scanning the forums to find out I needed to download 2 or 3 3rd party applications and change a bunch of launch options just to get it to run in 800x600, with all graphical options set to either 'off' or 'low' and all movies/videos are disabled .

So that's shit.

Tried GOG. Crashed immediately. Took a further two hours to find a patch that does technically change my resolution to my natural 1920x1200, but it throws all the on-screen boxes, like items, health, character, options, all over the place. Didn't even have the entire options bar on screen.
And even then all graphical options have to be at low or off.

So that's slightly more runny shit.

Basically what I've learned is that there is no version better than the Xbox + compatibility out there. Anyone else found this? Or is there a 3rd distributor that somehow managed to patch a version that doesn't crash, and is actually updated to a modern era? Or is it all just 3rd party patches than fix 1/15+ problems?!

 

[The Madman]

For the original Kotor 1? Not really. There are mods available for it but nothing special that I've found save some neat but far from essential cut content that was added back into the game. I'm surprised you're having so much trouble with it as I've had little problem running Kotor on modern computers with minimal fiddling, but you're not missing out if you decide to play a console version.

Kotor 2 is the one that's drastically improved on the PC. Kotor 1 is fine wherever you can find to play it.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

For the original Kotor 1? Not really. There are mods available for it but nothing special that I've found save some neat but far from essential cut content that was added back into the game. I'm surprised you're having so much trouble with it as I've had little problem running Kotor on modern computers with minimal fiddling, but you're not missing out if you decide to play a console version.

Kotor 2 is the one that's drastically improved on the PC. Kotor 1 is fine wherever you can find to play it.

did you not play the "brotherhood of shadow" mod for kotor 1? maybe not the best thing ever, but for a free mod that was a damn nice piece of work that i'd recommend people playthrough once for a nice fanfic to give background to kotor 1, hell it takes *hours* to complete what the mod adds in.

otherwise there are tons of little mods here and there that I used, such as sherruk's lightsabers, or even recruitable kay is a pretty decent mod.

not that the console version is bad, I don't mind the vanilla game, but pretty much any time I run either game now I load up a solid ~30ish mods to really give the game a better experience.

hell, skip taris is even a relief sometimes to download.

OT: not sure what your problem is there OP, I've played both the steam and GoG versions multiple times across multiple pc's (including a laptop) and I've never had that problem...sure I've fiddled with the settings multiple times to fit my native 1920x1080 monitor, but never had a problem like that before, besides the videos not playing, but that wasn't a big issue seeing as how I'd seen them about 900 times in my previous playthroughs.

 

[Elfgore]

KOTOR 1 and 2 are like the most random ass games I've seen when it comes to running on modern systems. Vista fucking hates the games and you have to jump through about a dozen hoops to get it to run and then pray to the dark gods it doesn't crash.

Yet on my windows 8 laptop, game runs like a charm. Not a single crash on the playthroughs of both games, only issue was with KOTOR 2 skipping dialogue if I played too long at once.

Granted, those played on Vista were disk versions and Windows 8 was Steam.

 

[The Madman]

did you not play the "brotherhood of shadow" mod for kotor 1? maybe not the best thing ever, but for a free mod that was a damn nice piece of work that i'd recommend people playthrough once for a nice fanfic to give background to kotor 1, hell it takes *hours* to complete what the mod adds in.

otherwise there are tons of little mods here and there that I used, such as sherruk's lightsabers, or even recruitable kay is a pretty decent mod.

No, I haven't tried that one. Next time I decide to replay Kotor I'll have to look into it if you say it's worthwhile.

I didn't meant to imply that Kotor 1 was without worthwhile mods by the way, just that as compared to Kotor 2 it's a fine experience just played out of the box whereas 2 pretty much requires some modding to reach it's potential as a game.

 

[Ambient_Malice]

Your first mistake is trying to run KOTOR in a 16:9 resolution instead of a 4:3 one. Don't go down that messy road. Play the game at a 4:3 resolution and suck it up. KOTOR II is a different issue because the original developer released a new version. Also, I've never had any major issues getting the game to run that I can recall, and I've used several different OSes and hardware configurations. You may want to give more details.

edit:
Also, the PC versions was patched, while the Xbox version was not. The PC version also has a better UI.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

did you not play the "brotherhood of shadow" mod for kotor 1? maybe not the best thing ever, but for a free mod that was a damn nice piece of work that i'd recommend people playthrough once for a nice fanfic to give background to kotor 1, hell it takes *hours* to complete what the mod adds in.

otherwise there are tons of little mods here and there that I used, such as sherruk's lightsabers, or even recruitable kay is a pretty decent mod.

No, I haven't tried that one. Next time I decide to replay Kotor I'll have to look into it if you say it's worthwhile.

I didn't meant to imply that Kotor 1 was without worthwhile mods by the way, just that as compared to Kotor 2 it's a fine experience just played out of the box whereas 2 pretty much requires some modding to reach it's potential as a game.

the mod is still rough to look at, but it's a full blown story mod and I was pretty impressed with the length at a time, so I'd recommend it once for sure.

my mistake for misunderstanding, I completely agree with you then.

 

[KenAri]

The little DLC shop would be missing, and there are a few cool little mods on PC. Shame about the stability though. I always preferred the controls on XBox; the main benefit to the PC for me is access to the console. That, and the ability to turn off the blurry screen effect from Force Speed.

 

[shrekfan246]

Your first mistake is trying to run KOTOR in a 16:9 resolution instead of a 4:3 one. Don't go down that messy road. Play the game at a 4:3 resolution and suck it up.

It's not that hard getting it running in a 16:9 resolution. Also, pretty sure 1920x1200 is 16:10. The game is unstable on PC regardless of what resolution it's run at.

So with regards to the OP, I'd say no, not really, unless you want things like mouse control and higher resolutions or just prefer playing on PC. It can be a major hassle getting KOTOR up and running, but at least when I finally did most of the stability issues haven't returned. PCGamingWiki [http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Knights_of_the_Old_Republic] has a pretty comprehensive list of troubleshooting tips for getting it running, but one big basic thing is that running the executable as an administrator and in compatibility mode for an old version of Windows can dramatically increase the stability of the game.

 

[Doom972]

In my experience, the widescreen patch is all you really need. Can you list your specs?

As for a reason why you should play the PC version? Better graphics, better performance, and mods. If, however, you don't want to bother with it anymore, I recommend the mobile version. I play it on a Nexus 5 and it runs well. The Android version (not sure about iOS) even supports some of the mods. The same guys who made the mobile version also ported it to Linux and OSX. Since the ports are more recent, they might work better out of the box. If you still have your Steam copy, you also have it for these operating systems.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

In my experience, the widescreen patch is all you really need. Can you list your specs?

As for a reason why you should play the PC version? Better graphics, better performance, and mods. If, however, you don't want to bother with it anymore, I recommend the mobile version. I play it on a Nexus 5 and it runs well. The Android version (not sure about iOS) even supports some of the mods. The same guys who made the mobile version also ported it to Linux and OSX. Since the ports are more recent, they might work better out of the box. If you still have your Steam copy, you also have it for these operating systems.

I can post my specs if you want, but it really shouldn't matter should it? My laptop is about 3 years old now and KOTOR is what, 12? There's no reason I shouldn't be able to run it at max settings with all the bells and whistles I want.

 

[DEAD34345]

The Steam version worked perfectly fine for me, I believe, but you're not really missing out on anything important by playing it on the Xbox. It does have to be an original Xbox however, if you try running it on an Xbox 360 you'll have a bad time, trust me.

Kotor 2 on the other hand was only released on the PC, about 3 years ago. Those totally non-functional prototype versions floating around for the Xbox are just a cruel practical joke played on fans of the original/fans of Obsidian.

 

[Doom972]

In my experience, the widescreen patch is all you really need. Can you list your specs?

As for a reason why you should play the PC version? Better graphics, better performance, and mods. If, however, you don't want to bother with it anymore, I recommend the mobile version. I play it on a Nexus 5 and it runs well. The Android version (not sure about iOS) even supports some of the mods. The same guys who made the mobile version also ported it to Linux and OSX. Since the ports are more recent, they might work better out of the box. If you still have your Steam copy, you also have it for these operating systems.

I can post my specs if you want, but it really shouldn't matter should it? My laptop is about 3 years old now and KOTOR is what, 12? There's no reason I shouldn't be able to run it at max settings with all the bells and whistles I want.

I can't really say without seeing the specs. It might help and it might not, and there's only one way to know.

 

[Neverhoodian]

You'd be missing out on some cool mods like others have mentioned, though it's not as big of a deal breaker as KOTOR II and its practically essential Restored Content mod.

If you're planning on the console experience, try to make sure it's on the original Xbox. I tried playing KOTOR on the 360 a few years ago, and it was plagued with all sorts of technical hiccups.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

The Steam version worked perfectly fine for me, I believe, but you're not really missing out on anything important by playing it on the Xbox. It does have to be an original Xbox however, if you try running it on an Xbox 360 you'll have a bad time, trust me.

What's wrong with the 360 update? I've tried it before, and it seems to be working just fine.

 

[Spider RedNight]

I didn't have a problem playing mine on the 360 either and as someone who hasn't been spoiled by mods, there's nothing wrong with playing it on the console version.

I kinda agree with what everyone's saying about KotOR II though but we aren't talking about that one

 

[DEAD34345]

The Steam version worked perfectly fine for me, I believe, but you're not really missing out on anything important by playing it on the Xbox. It does have to be an original Xbox however, if you try running it on an Xbox 360 you'll have a bad time, trust me.

What's wrong with the 360 update? I've tried it before, and it seems to be working just fine.

Frame rate drops to a crawl at seemingly random moments, audio kept muting itself or muting some parts of itself, dialogue was often cut off mid sentence, and extremely frequent crashes. I got all of that just in the tutorial section on the Endar Spire, when I got down to Taris and the issues continued I just gave up. Microsoft really half-arsed their emulation with the 360, even of the few games it supposedly supports many are plagued with issues like these.

If the choice is between the 360 and the PC version I'd try my luck with the PC, at least then you can try to fix it when it doesn't work.

That said, Spider RedNight apparently ran it fine, so who knows? If you give it a shot you'll know soon enough if you're going to have problems like I did, they don't take long to manifest.

 

[distortedreality]

I've never had an issue running either KoToR game on any of my PC's - fairly certain I even did a play through of both on my Mac at some point as well. I think someone has a poorly configured system....

OT - go with whatever works. The base games (especially 1, 2 really shines with the extended mod) are still great and stand on their own.

 

[Zipa]

I think there are a couple of glitches on Xbox that aren't on PC, SFDebris did a review on KOTOR not that long ago and I can recall him mentioning it. It still might be easier than trying to get it to run on PC though.

KOTOR II is worth playing on PC though without a doubt, the new version of the game on Steam that has been patched to work on modern PCs is pretty awesome especially when combined with the restoration mod that puts the cut content back in.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

So I just tried my original xbox disk on my 360. Doesn't work anymore. Apparently the update needed to play it is no longer available on XBLA.

So I have bought three separate versions of a game and none of them work.

And then people on this Forum wonder why I have such a negative and pessimistic attitude!