58 replies to this topic

[Jonathan Bloom]

I was looking to play this game again on my Mac, but didn't want to use GameAgent's limited download/install DRM. I'm glad to see it's now available on the Mac App Store! This game is an amazing one and if you want an RPG with good story and lightsabers then look no further!

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

[Jeyl]

Jonathan Bloom, on 18 February 2011 - 08:30 AM, said:

I was looking to play this game again on my Mac, but didn't want to use GameAgent's limited download/install DRM. I'm glad to see it's now available on the Mac App Store! This game is an amazing one and if you want an RPG with good story and lightsabers then look no further!

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

I'm curious to see if the sound issues still persist. The one I got always cuts out certain sound effects about about 5-10 minutes of play, and the only way to get them back is to quit the game and open it again. Not good.

How about you? You notice any issues?

[Jonathan Bloom]

I've so far had no issues with my sound. I'll let you know after I keep playing it.

[AussieMacGamer]

Nice. Was looking to have another play though of this. Will get it when i have a job again

[Mister Mumbles]

Hmm. According to the app store page this ought to be a newer version: 1.3.7 instead of the 1.03 Intel patch I have (disc version). As far as I know, Aspyr hasn't made any other patch publicly available after that. So I wonder if this fixed the issues I've had.

Thing is, performance is frequently utterly horrible with 1.03: lots of slowdown where there should be none (framerate drops, etc.) no matter how low or high the game is set; also some sound oddities here and there. I tried playing the game again a couple of weeks back on my latest Mac and the crippled state of the game just had me frustrated enough that I stopped playing altogether very early into the game.

So I am curious? Does everything appear to run smoothly with this version? What Mac do you have it running on?

[Jeyl]

Mister Mumbles, on 18 February 2011 - 08:20 PM, said:

So I am curious? Does everything appear to run smoothly with this version? What Mac do you have it running on?

Processor: 2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Memory: 14 GB 800 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM
Vid Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285
OS: 10.6.6

I have not purchased it yet. If I can get one more "everything runs fine" review, I'll buy it again... for the third time. Argh!

[Jonathan Bloom]

Do not take my review as a definite runs fine, for me it seems to run fine-BUT your issue may be one I am not seeing or even noticing.

[Jeyl]

Jonathan Bloom, on 19 February 2011 - 07:44 AM, said:

Do not take my review as a definite runs fine, for me it seems to run fine-BUT your issue may be one I am not seeing or even noticing.

It's not something you see. As you play the game, certain sound effects will just not work anymore. One minute you're blasting Sith Troopers, the next you're blasting them again, but with no blaster sounds at all. Every other sound effect remains like the grunts and music, but not the blasters. Soon, the dialogue won't even be heard as well.

It's like the game is telling itself to cease playing certain sound effects after a certain time. So just keep your ears open for anything that's missing.

[Jonathan Bloom]

I will. I'll play some more, right now I'm deeply involved in Dragon Age: Origins, but I'll be returning to KoTOR to do some more damage! Nothing beats lightsaber RPGs!

[Janichsan]

Oooh, very nice. I guess we'll see some more of Aspyr's back catalog in the next time on the App Store.

[Brad Oliver]

Mister Mumbles, on 18 February 2011 - 08:20 PM, said:

Thing is, performance is frequently utterly horrible with 1.03: lots of slowdown where there should be none (framerate drops, etc.) no matter how low or high the game is set; also some sound oddities here and there. I tried playing the game again a couple of weeks back on my latest Mac and the crippled state of the game just had me frustrated enough that I stopped playing altogether very early into the game.

I recall working on a fixed Intel KOTOR patch before I left Aspyr, because it relied on some OpenGL extensions which Apple removed. The behavior was as you describe - performance went in the toilet because it was falling back to some wacky non-shader GeForce 2 path from the turn of the century. I suspect if Aspyr is shipping KOTOR nowadays, they're likely doing so with those fixes in place.

My notes show that 1.03e was the patch with those fixes. I grabbed the 1.03e patch from their site and the date on the build (11-Sep-2009) matches roughly with when I finished before I left for Feral. Is that the build you're using?

I should add that the patch I linked to has an unfortunate "localization" of the Get Info string that will report it as 1.03fc3, so to see the real version you must right-click on the app bundle, choose "Show Package Contents" and navigate to Contents/Info.plist and open that in a text editor - it should say 1.03e (v92562).

I'm not about to pay $20 to see if Aspyr is shipping a later version in the Mac App Store, but if they are, you should definitely ask them to update the patch for the non-App store version.

[Mister Mumbles]

Doh! I feel a bit stupid now, though it may not be all my fault. 1.03e seems to be working splendidly. I had 1.03d, which was the last one listed on macgamefiles. I know I looked at the linked Aspyr page before but thought it was much of the same as it says 'This update will bring your version of KOTOR to 1.03D'. I may have been a bit confused about that bit. Oh, well. Guess I should have tried it at least.

Anyway, I'm very grateful you pointed it out. I'm looking forward to playing KotOR again after I finally best Dragon Age.

[AspyrRyan]

The version number on the App Store seems a bit off. I'll see what I can find out on Monday.
(Update: Since letters apparently aren't allowed in version numbers, the Mac App version is really 1.03g)

We did some more fixes before releasing the Mac Pack retail box last year.  The App Store version includes those fixes as well as a few more.  I'll poke around about that and asking about an updated patch. I can't make any guarantees though.
(Update: Currently no plans for an updated patch)

Edited by AspyrRyan, 21 February 2011 - 10:39 AM.

[Jan]

Got it through MAS. Played an hour on my 27" iMac, 1024 x 768, everything maxed. Performance is still dreadful, it's far from running smoothly. Quite pathetic for such an old game on my hardware. I've bought the game for the THIRD time now, just to have a cd-check less version. And it's still not running properly on modern hardware. Is that the way Aspyr treats loyal customers?

[AspyrRyan]

Jan, on 21 February 2011 - 07:30 AM, said:

Got it through MAS. Played an hour on my 27" iMac, 1024 x 768, everything maxed. Performance is still dreadful, it's far from running smoothly. Quite pathetic for such an old game on my hardware. I've bought the game for the THIRD time now, just to have a cd-check less version. And it's still not running properly on modern hardware. Is that the way Aspyr treats loyal customers?

Jan, as it happens, I have the same configuration iMac on the table in front of me.  We did a bit of testing on it before release, and took a look at it this morning based on your post. I didn't see any performance that I would consider "dreadful," even when moving to maximum resolution.  I assume that you mean low framerates. What areas of the games were you seeing problems with?  Were there any specific situations that seemed worse?

[Matt Diamond]

FWIW runs fine on my 2x2.8 Quad Core Mac Pro. I was using the default settings with a Radeon 2800; when I recently upgraded to Radeon 5770 I cranked some of the settings up. In neither case did I notice performance problems.

Edit: to be clear, this was the retail version, not the Mac App Store version.

[Jan]

AspyrRyan, on 21 February 2011 - 10:18 AM, said:

Jan, as it happens, I have the same configuration iMac on the table in front of me.  We did a bit of testing on it before release, and took a look at it this morning based on your post. I didn't see any performance that I would consider "dreadful," even when moving to maximum resolution.  I assume that you mean low framerates. What areas of the games were you seeing problems with?  Were there any specific situations that seemed worse?

Ryan, I didn't mean to be offensive. I'm just a bit frustrated that after all those 'patch years' KotOR's performance is still sub-par compared to other older titles (I have) running on Snow Leopard. I expected 'butter smooth' gameplay from the MAS release on my machine (as it far exceeds the system requirements). I remember a specific graphics driver problem on my old iMac 24" with the ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro. The game played pretty slow, like it would run through Rosetta (which wasn't the case), and it feels a bit like that now. Maybe 'dreadful' was a bit harsh, but it's just not as good as it should be. E. g.: At the beginning of the game, when you encounter the Sith troopers for the first time, there are explosions and stuff. And the game's simply lagging with low frame rates, not as bad as on my old iMac, but still noticeable. The same on Taris when you walk around in the upper city.

[Brad Oliver]

AspyrRyan, on 20 February 2011 - 01:33 AM, said:

(Update: Currently no plans for an updated patch)

So the only way for an existing customer to get the latest patch is to re-buy it through the Mac App Store for $20 - is that correct?

[Mister Mumbles]

How strange. It's not like it would be much effort since I assume it's just a newer executable/app like before.

[AspyrRyan]

Brad Oliver, on 21 February 2011 - 05:05 PM, said:

So the only way for an existing customer to get the latest patch is to re-buy it through the Mac App Store for $20 - is that correct?

At the moment, yes.