Is there any way I can make the KotOR II HQ movies patch work on a 1920x1080 monitor?

[RenegadeSniper7]

Hey everyone,

 

I started to replay KotOR II yet again, and among the many mods and patches I have installed is the official patch that makes all the game's cutscenes 1600x1200. I know this problem has come up many times, but I couldn't find a solution. Apparently, unless your monitor is able to support a resolution of 1600x1200 or higher, the movies default back to a resolution of 640x480. Since 1080 is obviously less than 1200, I, too, have to deal with horrible 640x480 cutscenes.

 

Has anyone found a way to fix this? Can I force the cutscenes to play in 1920x1080 somehow? Or even at a resolution that's lower than 1920x1080 as long as it's better than 640x480? Or can I convert the 1600x1200 files to 1920x1080? If anyone knows of a solution, it would be a huge improvement. The cutscenes are almost pointless at 640x480 on my monitor.

 

Edit: On a related note, whenever I play a cutscene, there's a noticeable delay wherein the game fades to black, causing me to miss the first couple of seconds of cutscenes. It also happens when the cutscene ends (i.e. fades to black, takes a couple seconds before I'm back in-game, so characters could start talking while I'm waiting for the black screen to end). Any ideas on causes and how to fix it?

 

Edit 2: I used the RAD Video Tools to convert a file (PerMov02.bik, originally in 1600x680 according to RADVT) to 1920x1080, played the cutscene in-game and it seemed to work. I'll just have to batch convert them now, which could take a couple hours, but when it's done all of the cutscenes will be in 1920x1080. I think this should work.

[Q]

I've tried exactly what you're talking about, and, in my experience, it doesn't work. I'm fairly certain that the engine will still down-convert them to 640x272, then back up to your native res. Try converting one of the high-quality movies to 640x272 and compare how it looks and plays in-game to the same movie up-converted to your native res. In my case, the down-scaled movie looked better and played more smoothly than the up-scaled one, even though the latter had been up-converted to my native res. It also looked and sounded better than the movies that shipped with the game.

 

Even the hex-monkeys over at the Widescreen Gaming Forum never figured out how to get the engine to properly scale the high-quality movies, so we're pretty much stuck with 640x272. I've never had the opportunity to personally test the high-quality movies on a monitor with a vertical resolution of 1200 or higher, so I don't know if they'll work properly in that case or not.

 

If you come to the same conclusion I did, just convert them all to 640x272 and replace the originals with them. You'll still end up with better movies in the end.

 

 

EDIT: You've figured out how to batch-convert with RVT? Would you mind telling me how?

[RenegadeSniper7]

EDIT: You've figured out how to batch-convert with RVT? Would you mind telling me how?

 

No problem, just select the movies you want to convert, click "Bink it!," and pick the settings you want.

[Q]

I should've guessed that it was as simple as highlighting all of the files, derp-derp.

 

Thanks.

 

I'll get my computer to work on this right away. It's a few years old, but it's still pretty uber for massively-multithreaded software like RVT. It shouldn't take too long.

[RenegadeSniper7]

I should've guessed that it was as simple as highlighting all of the files, derp-derp.

 

Thanks.

 

I'll get my computer to work on this right away. It's a few years old, but it's still pretty uber for massively-multithreaded software like RVT. It shouldn't take too long.

 

No problem! I've converted most of the files to 1920x1080 now, and testing them in-game, it's hard to tell the difference. It seems to be better quality than before, but I can't tell if that's just a placebo effect or not. There are still black bars above and below the cutscenes, so it's definitely not full-screen 1920x1080, though.

 

I'll try what you said about the 640x272 resolution.

 

Edit: You wouldn't have any ideas on my "fade to black" issue during cutscenes, would you?

[Q]

It could have something to do with the engine down- and then up-scaling the movies like I described. That causes all kinds of delays and other stuff like minimizing or even CTD.

 

With the movies at 640x272, there's a minimum of that kind of thing going on and, consequently, they just work better.

[RenegadeSniper7]

It could have something to do with the engine down- and then up-scaling the movies like I described. That causes all kinds of delays and other stuff like minimizing or even CTD.

 

With the movies at 640x272, there's a minimum of that kind of thing going on and, consequently, they just work better.

 

That's what I suspected. I might just use the 640x272 cutscenes, then. Hopefully, that conversion takes less time than the 1080p conversion, which is still going on right now as it finishes up the last six or so cutscenes -- I built my computer in July, but it's not designed for video conversion.

[Q]

Depending on its CPU, it's probably still pretty quick.

 

Don't bother with the files that are 1600x1200 like Kreia's fall, the Khoonda battle, etc. Those are going to look like crap no matter what you do with them.

[RenegadeSniper7]

Depending on its CPU, it's probably still pretty quick.

 

Don't bother with the files that are 1600x1200 like Kreia's fall, the Khoonda battle, etc. Those are going to look like crap no matter what you do with them.

 

i5-3570k overclocked to 4GHz, but it's still been hours.

 

And why not? Won't it work if they're converted to 640x272?

[Q]

Take a look at them. They've already been upscaled from 640, but not all the way to 1600, and they're pixilated as hell. You'd have to cut the bars off the sides and trim the ones on the top and bottom to get the right aspect ratio and then downscale them. They might have better audio than the ones that shipped with the game, so it might be worth a try.

 

And, yeah, your CPU's pretty uber; it just lacks hyper-threading, which only helps with software designed to run on more than 4 cores. Excellent gaming CPU, though. Batch converting to 640 won't take nearly as long.

[RenegadeSniper7]

Take a look at them. They've already been upscaled from 640, but not all the way to 1600, and they're pixilated as hell. You'd have to cut the bars off the sides and trim the ones on the top and bottom to get the right aspect ratio and then downscale them. They might have better audio than the ones that shipped with the game, so it might be worth a try.

 

And, yeah, your CPU's pretty uber; it just lacks hyper-threading, which only helps with software designed to run on more than 4 cores. Excellent gaming CPU, though. Batch converting to 640 won't take nearly as long.

 

I just converted PerMov02.bik to 640x272, but in-game it still upscales it...

[Q]

It should.

 

PerMov02 was one of the ones that's 1600x680. What I'm talking about are the ones that are 1600x1200 like Visas's introduction that have obviously been scaled up from lower-res movies and are all pixily. Play those in the Bink player. You'll see what I mean. They don't even reach the borders of the player. There's black bars around them, even on the sides.

[RenegadeSniper7]

It should.

 

PerMov02 was one of the ones that's 1600x680. What I'm talking about are the ones that are 1600x1200 like Visas's introduction that have obviously been scaled up from lower-res movies and are all pixily.

 

Ah, I thought you meant convert them to 640x272 so that they don't upscale at all, and instead play without scaling, centred in the middle of the screen. I'm attempting to do this now; it'll be much smaller than my screen, but it'll be high quality. I think it's because I've used the widescreen patch, I'm trying a workaround now.

[Q]

If you convert them to 640x272, the game will still upconvert them, but they'll actually look better play more smoothly than the high-res movies because the engine won't down-convert them and then up-convert them again. That's why the high-res movies looked so bad and their playback in-game was so juddery.

[RenegadeSniper7]

If you convert them to 640x272, the game will still upconvert them, but they'll actually look better play more smoothly than the high-res movies because the engine won't down-convert them and then up-convert them again. That's why the high-res movies looked so bad and their playback in-game was so juddery.

 

Ah, well, I'm still getting the multi-second fade to black problem, so I'll keep trying to fix it.

 

Do you know of a way to do what I'm trying to do? Keep it at 640x272 without upscaling at all?

[Q]

Nope. That involves hex-editing the .exe, and, like I said, even the guys over at the Widescreen Gaming Forum couldn't figure out how to get the game to scale the movies correctly, so they deleted their instructions on which values to mess with because they weren't working.

 

If you could turn the scaling off, you could just convert the movies to 1920 like you were in the first place and they'd work just fine.

 

640x272 is pretty much what we're stuck with.

[RenegadeSniper7]

Nope. That involves hex-editing the .exe, and, like I said, even the guys over at the Widescreen Gaming Forum couldn't figure out how to get the game to scale the movies correctly, so they deleted their instructions on which values to mess with because they weren't working.

 

If you could turn the scaling off, you could just convert the movies to 1920 like you were in the first place and they'd work just fine.

 

640x272 is pretty much what we're stuck with.

 

Ah, damn, that makes sense. Is there anywhere to find those instructions still? I'd like to at least try screwing around.

[Q]

They took them down. Not really sure why, other than that they didn't work, of course. They took a lot of info out of the KotOR 2 thread, including all of Squizzy's entries. I'm guessing that they got some sort of C&D order because KotOR 2 requires a crack to get a patched game to run in widescreen, but that would be the first time I've ever seen anything like that happen over something as trivial as a widescreen mod.

[RenegadeSniper7]

I managed to find something.

 

http://www.wsgf.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=15446&start=90

[Q]

Wow, that's pretty recent. Last time I checked was a couple of months ago. Good work.

 

When I tried this, however, the engine still down- and then up-converted the movies and they ran like crap. You're certainly welcome to try it, of course. Maybe you'll see something I missed.

[RenegadeSniper7]

I'm unsure if his steps are for the movies or the game itself, though; if it's the latter, that would explain why it's not working for you.

 

Do you have a recommended hex editor? I remember using one for KotOR before, but I don't remember which.

 

Edit: I misread his steps, he DOES say they are for the cutscenes. So...

 

Edit 2: Success! I got it to work! I edited the hex strings to be 1920x1080, and the cutscenes play out in that resolution now. When I picked the first one, it switched to my desktop and I had to switch back to the game, but it still played perfectly fine. Then, I picked another cutscene, and it also played in 1920x1080, no delay, no switch to desktop. The black screen transition is gone, too. Perfect!

[Q]

Really? No scaling artifacts? Is this with the original 1600x680 movies or the ones that you upscaled to 1920?

[RenegadeSniper7]

Really? No scaling artifacts? Is this with the original 1600x680 movies or the ones that you upscaled to 1920?

 

As far as I can tell, it's working perfectly. It plays the movies in 1920x1080, full-screen, no black bars (except for the films that were in 1600x1200), and no fade-to-black issue. The only problem is the desktop switching thing I mentioned, but it's easily worth it to have good quality cutscenes.

 

I also tested using normal HQ movies without converting them to 1920x1080. When using them, the game correctly scales them up to 1920x1080 (with black bars), instead of scaling down to 640x272 and then back up again.

 

Honestly, using the normal HQ movies without converting them and then letting the game upscale for you might actually be better. You get the black bars across the top and bottom, but the cutscenes aren't upscaled to full-screen, meaning that the quality isn't noticeably degraded. Either way, though, it's infinitely better than how it was before.

 

Edit: I'd like to test all of the movies in-game, but right now, I only have 48/68 (with TSLRCM) unlocked. Do you know the .ini code necessary to unlock all the movies?

 

Currently:

 

[Movies Shown]

Movie10=0

Movie 9=0

Movie 8=0

Movie 7=11

Movie 6=191

Movie 5=223

Movie 4=240

Movie 3=127

Movie 2=255

Movie 1=254

Movie 0=236

 

As a warning, Kreia's Fall is terribly stretched to make it play in 1920x1080, and there are jagged edges all over the place. I assume the same goes for the other 4:3 movies. However, it seems that replacing the 4:3 files with converted 1920x1080 ones leads to better quality. So, I recommend letting most of the HQ movies be upscaled by the game, but converting the the 4:3 ones to 1920x1080.

[Q]

The movies are meant to be shown in 2.35:1 aspect ratio, like cinematic movies. There should be black bars when they play. When you upscaled them, did you keep that aspect ratio?

 

Once again, I followed the directions and got the same result: scaling artifacts with the high-quality movies. My resolution's 1680x150, BTW. It's OK, though. The 640x272 movies actually look better, and I can't hex-edit the .exe I'm using now anyway.

 

Here's the movie codes:

 

[Movies Shown]

Movie10=0

Movie 9=0

Movie 8=0

Movie 7=31

Movie 6=255

Movie 5=255

Movie 4=255

Movie 3=255

Movie 2=255

Movie 1=255

Movie 0=255

[RenegadeSniper7]

The movies are meant to be shown in 2.35:1 aspect ratio, like cinematic movies. There should be black bars when they play. When you upscaled them, did you keep that aspect ratio?

 

Oh, I know. But when I converted them, I upscaled them to full-screen 1920x1080, removing the black bars entirely. If you want to upscale and keep that aspect ratio, you could convert them to 1920x816.

 

Once again, I followed the directions and got the same result: scaling artifacts with the high-quality movies. My resolution's 1680x1050, BTW.

 

There's definitely some fuzziness, but it plays in the resolution it's supposed to and the quality is better than before. It doesn't seem to be as good as when it's played using RVT, but it's improved.