Question about the graphical setting: Frame Buffer Obects.

[Zanatar]

I was not sure where to post this. Either here on gamers forum, or technical.. or could be software. But I figured gamers might know the answer to this.

I own the PC version of Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic 1. I have Win XP , not vista.

I am having a technical problem that doesn't seem to have a solution. It has to do with the force powers in the game. When you use a force power called "Burst of Speed" , the effect texture for the burst of speed effect is somehow being slapped over my entire screen. Sometimes it is a series of light blue bands with multi-colored dots that extend across the entire monitor vertically. There are even breaks in this band, and you can see through it. Other times the bands are gone and it's just a whole light blue background that covered with multi-colored dots.

This effect appears to only happen when I use the "burst of speed" power and then run. It stops when I stop running, and then returns when I start to run again and continues until the power expires. It also happens across all characters.

I did quite a bit of research via google. I've found several others having the same problem. I have not really seen any solution though. It all seems to be related to the ATI Catalyst drivers. This game is not friendly with ATI cards. I do have the latest ATI Catalyst drivers, but this game is old now and I doubt ATI is fixing old problems in old games by now, which is why I don't think there will be a solution to this.

The problem has to do with the Frame Buffer Objects setting. This is what controls the special effects for Blur. When you turn this off, the problem is of course gone.

I have an ATI Radeon 9800XT card. Apparently the ATI cards don't do the Blur effect all that well. I don't think there is a solution.

I'd like to know if anyone can tell me what *else* I'd be losing by taking off Frame Buffer Objects? Besides just the motion blur effect that is, am I losing anything else? Am I going to be losing a lot of cool graphical special effects by having this off?

I hope not. I guess that's what I'm concerned about. I can live without the motion blur , but I'm concerned at what else I'm losing by having Frame Buffer Objects turned off.

Thanks,

Zanatar.

[monkey13]

I had some problems with KOTOR back when I had a 9800Pro. I remember they were fixed by using the OmegaDrivers. I generally found these to be much better that ATI's own ones.

However they are modded drivers so use with caution. I never had any problems with any of the releases but I'm not sure everyone was like this.

[Zanatar]

I had some problems with KOTOR back when I had a 9800Pro. I remember they were fixed by using the OmegaDrivers. I generally found these to be much better that ATI's own ones.

However they are modded drivers so use with caution. I never had any problems with any of the releases but I'm not sure everyone was like this.

Well I just tried your solution. I just finished un-installing the CCC control panel and downloaded and installed the latest Omega Drivers. It unfortunately did not work.

By chance did you do anything else to resolve it? In your case was it just downloading and installing the Omega Drivers or did you tweak any settings for the Omega drivers, to get it to work?

In addition to that answer, I'd still like an answer from anyone, as to my original question for what *else* besides the blur effect , would I lose by turning off Frame Buffer Objects.

Thanks, Zanatar.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

I assume disabling Frame Buffer Objects would also disable most if not all of the post-processing effects in KOTOR. In short, it would really make the graphics look less pretty. You can always test it out though. Disable it and see for yourself. If you don't notice any drop in graphics quality, then there's no loss in disabling it.

[monkey13]

Sorry that didn't work out for you Zanatar. The only other thing I might have had to do is to turn off "Soft Shadows" in the graphics options.

I remember some people fixed it by replacing there openGL driver in the KOTOR directory. Try this taken from the Bioware forums.

1) Download the Catalyst 4.2

2) Open using Winzip - look for the file called atioglxx.dl_

3) Extract to your "KOTOR" Install Directory. (make sure "Use Folder Names" is turned off)

4) Start->Run "cmd" for a standard command prompt.

5) type: expand YOUR KOTOR PATH\atioglxx.dl_ atioglxx.dll

I think it has to be 4.2 as some problems were actually introduced in latter driver versions.

If neither of those work I'm afraid I'm all out of advice on this one.

[Zanatar]

Sorry that didn't work out for you Zanatar. The only other thing I might have had to do is to turn off "Soft Shadows" in the graphics options.

I remember some people fixed it by replacing there openGL driver in the KOTOR directory. Try this taken from the Bioware forums.

1) Download the Catalyst 4.2

2) Open using Winzip - look for the file called atioglxx.dl_

3) Extract to your "KOTOR" Install Directory. (make sure "Use Folder Names" is turned off)

4) Start->Run "cmd" for a standard command prompt.

5) type: expand YOUR KOTOR PATH\atioglxx.dl_ atioglxx.dll

I think it has to be 4.2 as some problems were actually introduced in latter driver versions.

If neither of those work I'm afraid I'm all out of advice on this one.

Oh WOW.. I just tried this, and this actually *WORKED*!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH. I really really appreciate this!!!

Do you understand at all why this worked? I just don't see why copying that file to the KOTOR path would do anything at all. Yet it did! Thank you again!

Now I'm still using those Omega Drivers. Do you think I should keep using them? They are not quite up to date with the latest actual ATI Catalyst. The latest Omega drivers is a 2007 driver while ATI has had quite a few more recent ones. Granted at this point , now that this works, I don't know if I will chance changing anything. I'm just happy this finally works. :)

Thank you again,

Zanatar.

[monkey13]

Glad to help Zantar it's a great game.

Do you understand at all why this worked? I just don't see why copying that file to the KOTOR path would do anything at all. Yet it did! Thank you again!

Now I'm still using those Omega Drivers. Do you think I should keep using them? They are not quite up to date with the latest actual ATI Catalyst. The latest Omega drivers is a 2007 driver while ATI has had quite a few more recent ones. Granted at this point , now that this works, I don't know if I will chance changing anything. I'm just happy this finally works. :)

Basically it works by using the ati dll you placed in the game directory for the openGL driver instead of the one installed in system32. This means you can run the game on the older driver whilst still having the latest drivers installed for other games.

Personally I always used the Omega drives. Yes there usually a version or two behind but I found they fixed more problems than ATI's vanilla ones and gave a slight increase in performance. Also I'm not sure how much of the stuff that ATI adds to the drivers now will make any difference to a 9800.

[Zanatar]

Well the only real issue I have now though, is that I've noticed overall now what I think is a drop in the overall graphics quality. It's subtle but noticeably a bit worse. I'm noticing more random graphical glitches and oddities now, that I wasn't having before. I'm guessing this is due to it being a much older driver.

I guess I'm left with the decision of a) not using that file, and back to original dilemma of turning off Frame Buffer Objects .. or b) have my blur effects, but a more unstable graphical environment where I am not 100% sure if it's my imagination or not but possible lower graphical quality overall. Almost like if there would have been a Graphics Details option, that it was turned down a notch. It's weird. It's subtle but enough to leave a weird nagging effect that something is not quite right. hehe.

But , that's my own problem at this point. I thank you again for your help and your knowledge. :)

Take care,

Zanatar.

[Scirwode]

When I was playing KOTOR on my ATi Mobility Radeon 9200, the frame buffer effects was turned off as it doesn't really affect gameplay that much. However, if you turn it on, when you run, the background blurs and in KOTOR II, the Force Eye effect will allow you to see the Force alignment of your companions. Other than that, I turned it off as it was really taxing my system then.

Nowadays, I've got a better notebook, and I still play KOTOR II :p !

Scirwode

[monkey13]

I guess I'm left with the decision of a) not using that file, and back to original dilemma of turning off Frame Buffer Objects .. or b) have my blur effects, but a more unstable graphical environment where I am not 100% sure if it's my imagination or not but possible lower graphical quality overall. Almost like if there would have been a Graphics Details option, that it was turned down a notch. It's weird. It's subtle but enough to leave a weird nagging effect that something is not quite right. hehe.

You could try other versions of the Cat drivers in the game directory. 4.2 was just the one recommended in the bioware forum. Might just bring back the same frame buffer objects problem though.