If you've got your PC shit together, read this, because I need your help.

About a year ago I bought a laptop for school and discovered, lo and behold, laptops suck for PC gaming. Whoops. I'm trying to make the most of what I have here, and while I've been able to get most of the old games I want to play running on it, I've occasionally run into issues. Months ago Deus Ex was acting up, and now it's Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic that's giving me problems.

I'm able to install the game just fine, but when I try to run the game, I get an image of a ship to show that the game is loading, and then... nothing happens. I did some investigating and realized that there could be two major problems: (a) I hadn't installed the latest KOTOR update, and (b) my video card driver was out of date. I solved both problems easily, first by downloading the game's latest update from BioWare's site, and second by looking up Nvidia's latest video driver for my laptop. Both installed flawlessly. But then when I went into the KOTOR setup menu to run a scan and see if the driver issue had been solved, I ran into this:

Now, first of all, how does a six-year-old game decide when my video card driver is out of date, and how could THAT be the problem anyway when my laptop isn't even a year old yet? But furthermore, I got this screen RIGHT AFTER I downloaded and installed the most recent video card driver for my system. It IS up to date. There is no questioning that. Hell, a game that hadn't been working on my computer for the exact same reason was running flawlessly now. But, just to be sure, I downloaded the exact driver recommended there, and installed it to my computer. And I still got the EXACT SAME MESSAGE, despite the fact that I had just gotten done installing it.

FUCK!

And now when I run the game I get an error message comprised entirely of indecipherable symbols:

And I keep getting the same issue, where I see the loading image but then nothing happens. What the fuck am I supposed to do? I've done exactly what it's told me and I've gotten nothing so far. If anybody has any suggestions on how to get around this, please run them by me. Thanks.

Comments 9

Genj Jul 23, 2009

Is your laptop running Vista? I'm pretty sure KOTOR 1 & 2 won't run on Vista.

Suskie Blogger Jul 23, 2009

Yes, but I forgot to mention: I switched to Windows XP Compatibility Mode. And actually the second KOTOR runs okay after I apply a few patches, but I can't seem to find a fix for the first one.

Halon Jul 23, 2009

Compatibility mode isn't always as good as it sounds. About 5 years ago I tried play Mechwarrior 2 and one other game that I can't remember with Windows 95 compatibility mode and still couldn't get it to run. Sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you don't.

Vista blows regarding compatibility and mega props to MS for still not working on this. why I'm glad I still have my older computers in storage with Windows XP and 98.

jerec Jul 23, 2009

This is why I bought an Xbox back in the day. PC gaming is such a headache these days.

It really is, and I actually own KOTOR for Xbox and would happily play that version if I were able to. Console games are great. You put them in the machine, and then you PLAY THEM, no questions asked.

zippdementia Jul 23, 2009

I second (third?) the notion that PC gaming is far too complicated. I'm actually taking a six month computer building class right now, so as to learn the delicate process behind making the damn things work.

I also second (third?) the professional opinion that Vista is your problem, Suskie. I've heard no end of trouble from KOTOR users who try to play on Vista.

To this day, the only game I've gotten to work on Vista is Starcraft. And that's because Blizzard was awesome about their games back then.

Haha, you can learn how to build a computer from scratch in about an hour by reading the motherboard manuals. Or at least that's how I did it.

It's best to keep your old computers because you never know when you'll want to bust out an old game. Obviously it's a downside to PC gaming and I agree with that but it doesn't bother me too much. If I purchase a 360 and want continue to play PS2 games I won't sell my PS2. Having to change plugs is annoying at first but I do it constantly and it takes like 15 seconds max so you get used to it.

In that case, I'll come out knowing more about computers than anyone on this planet ever will.

darketernal Jul 24, 2009

Young whipper snappers. It is complicated today? I remember the days of DoS when I had to squeeze every last bit of conventional memory to run a game. This involved making boot disks, disabling certain components in autoexec and config. sys, just to make it viable for games to even start.

Ahhh those were the days. I don't mind consoles, but PC's in those days with all of their problems, some charming and some not so much...wouldn't trade it for the world.

As for your problem, my suggestion is that you post on Bioware's forum this problem.

http://swforums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=668325&f...

Seems to be something similar to your issue, so who knows, maybe the solution is similar as well.