Kotor 1 breaks Kotor 2 and vice versa

[thedavid]

Ok, let me explain as simply as I can. I have a laptop that is pretty good. It is about two years old.

When I first got the laptop from NEC,(because I live in Japan) it had Vista on it with NEC provided drivers. The computer reported that it had Mobile Intel 4 series express chipset installed.

With this set up Kotor 1 (as well as many other games that I love from Oblivion to phantasy star) worked great. I could play the game with the graphics set on high and I never had a problem. I don't remember if I had to do anything special to get the game to work I just remember that it worked and my son was happy to cut down sand people with a lightsaber.

I brought a copy of Kotor 2 with me from America but I could never get it to work with Vista not matter how many times I reinstalled the game, moved dll files or what have you. It never worked.

Then I upgraded my computer to Windows 7 so that I could change the system language from Japanese to English. (Don't ever use a pc that is not in your language, it is a massive headache)

Of course with the new system still had the same hardware but now I was working with Windows 7 and a Microsoft provided graphics driver.

After I set the computer up I tried to install Kotor 2 and what do you know, it worked. It wasn't perfect but it did work. There were lots of random crashes and sometimes the computer forgot to render the world so my character was running around in empty space but the game did work. After a while I figured out that I couldn't play for longer than about an hour at a time or the game would glitch and I needed to switch between the game and another application about every ten minutes for some reason or the game would crash but once I knew the tricks I was able to get through the game.

After beating Kotor 2 a couple of time I decided to go back and play Kotor 1 again because some things HK said didn't seem to add up story wise and I wanted to check it out. But Kotor 1 would not work. I couldn't even get the game to start. It would install fine but I just couldn't get the game to run.

I tried compatibility installing, moving dll files, replacing the EXE file, but nothing worked. Then I decided to go to Intel's website and download an updated graphics driver. With that Kotor 1 worked and I could play the game with graphics on high. But there was a problem, now Kotor 2 won't work anymore. It crashes if I load one of my game saves. If I start a new character I can get through character creation but when it starts to load the prologue the game crashes.

So here is what I'm looking at with this machine:

Vista with NEC provided graphics driver: Kotor 1 works great, Kotor 2 won't

Windows 7 with Microsoft provided graphics driver: Kotor 1 won't work, Kotor 2 works with some problems but is playable, just don't use force sight, that crashes the game.

Windows 7 with Intel provided graphics driver: Kotor 1 works great, Kotor 2 crashes after character creation

The same machine is able to play both games but not at the same time apparently. I have done a lot of the suggestions here to get kotor 2 to work with the Intel driver but nothing works. I've reinstalled with compatibility mode, run as administrator, get a new EXE from securom but nothing works.

Please HELP, I am about to pull my hair out.

Now I have considered that this just might have to be the way things stay and in that case I am almost prepared to go out and buy a graphics card to update another computer I have so it can play both games but which of the currently marketed graphics cards will play them?

[Q]

You should reinstall the games according to the large-print instructions at the top of the second post in this thread.

[Qui-Gon Glenn]

Just one thought on this issue....

I recently installed TSL (again) on my XP rig. I had the BoPC version of K1 installed, as it stays in the HDD permanently.

I did normal XP installation, as in, uh, install it. Updated with patch and HQ's. Went to start up a game.... and it started up just fine?!?!?

I thought for sure that there would be a Securom issue, as there always is, thus why I keep several versions of that .exe archived from ones they have sent me over the years. However, not this time.

My point: Whatever securom version they use in BoPC does not get overwritten or touched by TSL installation, and then carries over to prevent Securom issues for the TSL install. Strange, but that seems to indeed be the case

XP has changed over time though... It is quirkier running this game than it used to be, especially at start-up: it always starts in Windowed mode now, even though I have not played with those options in the Graphics Settings.