6800xx + Knights of the Old Republic = WTF?!

[FesterSilently]

So - with a whim of nostalgia (and boredom, until the newest batch of Q1 games comes out) I decided to reinstall this excellent game. Actually, this will have been the FIRST time I'd installed this since moving up from my 9800XT/3.2 P4 days...I couldn't WAIT to see how well/gorgeous this would run on my new rig.

Not.

With seemingly ANY large/busy exterior area, I get an absolutely HORRENDOUS slowdown. I'm talkin' <1 frame per second. And either: a) when the game catches up to itself, my character is stuck in a corner, doing the running man, or b) the friggin' game'll get caught in an infinite loop and NOT catch up to itself. Hard reboot follows.

I'm using all the latest official drivers for EVERYTHING and my rig absolutely BURIES any recommended specs for the game. I've alternatively tried unofficial beta/WHQL/non-WHQL/tweaked video drivers all week long. Same crappy results.

So I ask: WTF?!

Here are my specs:

AMD64 3500+ @ 2.625 Ghz
HTTx800/250fsb/mem 2:1
A8V rev 2 - 1009 final BIOS
2x512Mb OCZ 3200 Platinum rev 2 @2.5-3-3-8
BFG 6800GT @ 400/1060 (love it!!)
2x WD 740 Raptor (SATA)
2x MAXLine 3 (SATA)
PCP&C 510 Express
WinXP+SP2

Stewing Quietly,
Fester

P.S.

Here's a related thread at the BioWare forums: http://swforums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=398932&forum=80&sp=0

At the end of the post, the mod suggests going back to a previous official nVidia driver release. Did it work? In a word...

...no.

[MrBored]

Are you running with any FSAA or AF on? I can't think why this should be happening.

[REBEL_AU]

wow, that sucks.

[FesterSilently]

...I'm running with 4xAA/8xAF. And do you know why?

Because I paid lots of frigging MONEY to be able to run that pretty shit in my games!

(FYI - the ranting is aimed towards the game/video card; not you, my friend)

Sheesh, this shite pisses me off. It's always ONE friggin' game that rains on your parade, man...ONE goddamned game.

*grumble-grumble-grumble*

[Yian]

6800 GT isn't designed to run 4x AA with a game like KOTOR, but I can't believe your game's performence is normal, either. You should still be able to play the game at decend frame rate, if not superb. There is something seriously wrong with either the game or your system, setup or driver related.

This could be a sound card issue like in that BioWare thread said. I know some people expriencing crap like this when they have EAX enabled.

And give us more details on what you have done recently to your system. I know you did something to the BIOS a while ago... Changing the voltage to OC your memory or something, I think? Anythiung else?

[FesterSilently]

...erm, no. I'm just running the highest stock voltage (2.8) to my mem sticks, 'cause that's what OCZ asks for.

Furthermore, on ye olde 9800XT/P4 3.2 setup, the game ran like gangbusters, at the same friggin' settings! (That's 1600x1200 with all the bling turned on) And the Audigy 2 is the same one I've had since back then.

:mad:

[MrBored]

Create a profile for the game in your nvidia control panel thing. Then drop the AF down to 4x and put the image quality on Quality, not High quality. That might solve your problem. Disable all AF and AA in the game and let the control panel handle it.

Edit: This is not because the graphics card can't handle it, just some games and AF on nvidia cards don't go well together. Putting the mode to Quality not High Quality just enables some texture filtering techniques that help speed it up.