Big KOTOR - UniWs problem

Sweetz · Post by **Sweetz** » 27 Jul 2007, 03:59

I just picked up Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic in the "Best of PC" compilation pack.

I use a 1360x768 HDTV for my monitor. I used the UniWs patcher to allow that resolution using the 1024x768 interface. The game looks great at that resolution, but a major problem is that none of the text that normally shows up in the lower part when the game goes into letterbox mode appears. Text that normally appears in the top pane is fine.

This is a big deal since the lower pane is where conversation options appear. It makes the game impossible to play. When playing the game at 1024x768 the text appears fine.

For example in this scene there should be two conversation options visible in the lower pane. I can put the mouse down there and select them, but they're not visible:

Is there any solution for this problem? I know it's an old game, but is there any chance the UniWs patch can be updated to fix this - I'd really like to play this game and I can't tolerate it in 4:3.

Post by **skipclarke** » 28 Jul 2007, 13:42

Wogg hasn't been on the forum in a number of years. I don't know of anyone else with the skills to do this. I do know that someone else had brought this up previously, and there had been no resolution.

Sweetz · Post by **Sweetz** » 29 Jul 2007, 04:29

Darn. It's a pitty because otherwise the game looks really good in widescreen, but this problem renders it unplayable.

Since I'm using a 1360x768 HDTV I can play it in 1024x768 pillarboxed, but looks so terrible pillarboxed. Normally I can tolerate pillarboxing, but the problem is the game itself goes letterboxed so often - for any in game cutscene or conversation (like above) - so half the time it looks like the game is running in a tiny window in the middle of my TV.

Sucks that Bioware used such an inflexible rendering engine.

PerfectCr · Post by **PerfectCr** » 29 Jul 2007, 05:14

When you selected the "Interface resolution" with UNIWs what did you pick? Make sure it's lower than you game/monitor resolution and remove the patch and re-patch it.

Try that. I play KOTOR using the UNIWS at 1920x1080 and my Interface res within UNIWS is set to 1280x1024. All text and the interface appears fine.

Here's a couple of 1080p screenies (4xAA, 16xAF) - Click for full screen!

Sweetz · Post by **Sweetz** » 30 Jul 2007, 04:19

When you selected the "Interface resolution" with UNIWs what did you pick? Make sure it's lower than you game/monitor resolution and remove the patch and re-patch it.

Try that. I play KOTOR using the UNIWS at 1920x1080 and my Interface res within UNIWS is set to 1280x1024. All text and the interface appears fine.

I did actaully mention this in my original post. I was using the 1024x768 interface which should match with well with my resolution of 1360x768. The interface appears fine for me, it's just that text in the lower pane is missing.

Even so, I did try using the 800x600 interface and had the same problem.

-------UPDATE--------

I tried running the game at 1920x1080 (which runs it at 1080i on my tv) and the text actually showed up. Sadly the flickering and fuzziness due to it being interlaced wasn't tolerable (the flickering is really bad), but at least it demonstrates that whether or not the text shows up is somehow tied to the chosen resolution (and not the interface).

Man it's too bad Wogg isn't involved in the community anymore. I bet this is something that could be cleared up quickly if only one had the requisit knowldge.

PerfectCr · Post by **PerfectCr** » 30 Jul 2007, 04:35

[quote]When you selected the "Interface resolution" with UNIWs what did you pick? Make sure it's lower than you game/monitor resolution and remove the patch and re-patch it.

Try that. I play KOTOR using the UNIWS at 1920x1080 and my Interface res within UNIWS is set to 1280x1024. All text and the interface appears fine.

I did actaully mention this in my original post. I was using the 1024x768 interface which should match with well with my resolution of 1360x768. The interface appears fine for me, it's just that text in the lower pane is missing.

Even so, I did try using the 800x600 interface and had the same problem.

-------UPDATE--------

I tried running the game at 1920x1080 (which runs it at 1080i on my tv) and the text actually showed up. Sadly the flickering and fuzziness due to it being interlaced wasn't tolerable (the flickering is really bad), but at least it demonstrates that whether or not the text shows up is somehow tied to the chosen resolution (and not the interface).

Man it's too bad Wogg isn't involved in the community anymore. I bet this is something that could be cleared up quickly if only one had the requisit knowldge.

Oh sorry man, I didn't see that :( Damn, I don't know what to say. I am running a 8600GTS.

Sweetz · Post by **Sweetz** » 30 Jul 2007, 19:10

Off hand, I can't see why the text should show up at 1920x1080 and not 1360x768 other than an error in the hack. To that end I'm going to see if I can't figure out what's going on myself since I do have programming experience (though admittedly almost no hex editing/exe hacking experience). I've opened this thread: http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/node/ to try and learn more about the edits UniWS makes to the exe.

-------UPDATE--------

Well nevermind, looks like it's not a problem with UniWS, but rather something with the game.

I used ArtMoney to change the game's resolution while it was running. The results were the same; no text at 1360x768, while 1920x1080 display text fine.

Snaptrap · Post by **Snaptrap** » 07 Oct 2007, 21:47

LucasArts should've had this problem solved since they went on to release KotOR in a new compilation. Many people are now running WS monitors. I think they're just trying to milk it for what it's worth without having to apply more patch support.

I've recently blacklisted NCSoft and ArenaNet because the support team at PlayNC were too lazy to solve my account issue with Guild Wars. I'm going to add LucasArts to that list as well.

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