Table of Contents
If you’re just wanting to get started speedrunning KotOR, this is the place to start! This guide covers the basics of KotOR speedruns, from how to actually get KotOR running and the appropriate settings, to how to use these guides to answer the questions you have.
If there’s something that isn’t covered here or in a different guide, feel free to join the KotOR Speedrunning Discord. The community is pretty friendly and always willing to help!
On a broad level, speedrunning is the act of attempting to accomplish a goal as quickly as possible. The goal of most speedruns includes beating the game, which are sometimes referred to as Full Game speedruns. Sometimes, a speedrun is just to complete part of the game as quickly as possible. These are usually called Individual Level (or IL) speedruns. There are even more complicated goals in speedrunning, such as Bingo runs or beating every Pazaak player. KotOR speedrunning has a little bit of everything!
KotOR speedruns are nearly always done on PC. PC speedruns have the widest variety of glitches and the smoothest gameplay, once you have your settings correct. Because differences in hardware can affect loading times, nearly all KotOR speedruns are timed with loads removed, frequently called Load Removed Time (LRT) or loadless. We also sometimes call this In-Game Time (or IGT) because we did that back in the day and the term stuck, even though it’s a misnomer.
It is possible to speedrun KotOR on consoles, and full game speedruns have been done on both XBox and Switch versions. Mobile speedruns are also possible, but thus far only a swoop racing IL has been submitted on mobile. All of the guides in this repository, unless specifically noted, apply to PC speedruns.
Full game KotOR speedrunning is divided into three categories and three rulesets. A Category represents the goal of the speedrun, with the three choices being:
Note that every Category defeats Malak at the end. In addition to Category, every KotOR speedrun is done under a Ruleset which governs which glitches are allowed. The three rulesets to choose from are:
So every full game speedrun will choose one Category and one Ruleset, leading to seven possible full game speedruns:
| Category | Ruleset | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Unrestricted | NMG | Glitchless | |
| Any% | Any% Unrestricted | Any% NMG | Any% Glitchless |
| All Quests | All Quests Unrestricted | All Quests NMG | All Quests Glitchless |
| All Star Maps | All Star Maps Unrestricted | – | – |
For All Star Maps, the only ruleset that can skip a Star Map is Unrestricted. So there would be no difference between All Star Maps NMG and Any% NMG, or All Star Maps Glitchless and Any% Glitchless. Thus we usually omit the Unrestricted when talking about All Star Maps.
KotOR also has a wide variety of IL speedruns, including the Endar Spire, Swoops, Pazaak, and others.
The guides are organized into sections as follows:
Route guides are split into two types:
Glitches in KotOR are classified into two types:
Finally, there are also Miscellaneous guides, which cover either niche speedruns such as bingo or IL runs, or have general information useful for speedruns.
The different pages have links to the other relevant pages; so if you’re just looking to jump into a category, you can start with the Written Guide for that category, and then follow the links to see the descriptions of individual tricks from that run.
Q: Can I speedrun KotOR?
A: Yes! Anyone can speedrun this game, as long as they enjoy it and are willing to learn a new way to play the game. Speedrunning KotOR is very different from any casual playthrough you’ve done; as one simple example, we mash through all dialogue as fast as possible.
Q: Are there any glitches in KotOR speedrunning?
A: Most definitely. Some glitches are very useful, while others must be avoided. KotOR speedrunning is split into two categories and three rulesets (plus the All Star Maps category which is Unrestricted only). Different rulesets allow different amounts of glitches; Unrestricted has no restrictions (duh), Glitchless does not allow any glitches, and No Major Glitches is a middle ground.
Q: What category and ruleset should I learn first?
A: The easiest category to start with would be Any% under either the Glitchless or No Major Glitches rulesets. Any% Glitchless is easy to pick up and provides good menuing practice, but doesn’t introduce any of the tricks that are staples of KotOR speedrunning. Any% No Major Glitches is a good category for beginners, as it uses Save Buffers and other common glitches, but the harder/more complicated tricks such as Hotshots, DLZs and the Routine are banned. Any% is the preferred starting category versus All Quests because it’s significantly more straightforward (and shorter).
Q: What is this about In-Game Time?
A: Because different computers have different hardware, load times for many PC games varies from system to system. In order to remove this complication, we remove load times from the timing for KotOR speedruns. This is achieved through a load-removal tool in Livesplit, thanks to glasnonck. For any runs except races, In-Game Time (IGT) is what matters.
Q: How long is this speedrun?
A: This depends on the category you choose to run. The approximate “good” times for the most common speedruns are:
Q: What should I focus on to improve my time most quickly?
A: I would give you three things (plus a bonus!) to focus on, in order of importance:
1. Learn the route. As in any RPG run, knowing where to go is what saves the most time, as then you’re not having to stop and figure things out mid run. As far as RPGs go, KotOR is pretty short; but it’s still fairly complex.
2. Figure out the keyboard hotkeys. KotOR lets you customize hotkeys, so get a setup that you like and then go with it. You should have comfortable hotkeys for all of the following, roughly in order of use:
While you can do all this with the mouse, learning the hotkeys will improve your efficiency, especially in the next point. Many runners also recommend rebinding the movement keys to WASD (strafe controls) from WZSC (tank controls).
2.5: Similar to the above, learn to move efficiently. Holding both mouse buttons will run you forward, and you can turn the mouse to turn your character. Or, hold the right mouse button to fix the camera and use WASD to run diagonally/forward/backward. Get a method of movement you like and practice it until you’re comfortable.
3. Practice the menus. Again, like most RPG runs KotOR has a fair amount of menuing. This is actually where most of the execution in this run happens. Learn the menus with all the relevant hotkeys and practice them if you really want to get good times.
But most importantly of all:
4. Patience. It takes time to learn a run like this, and the combat in KotOR is based on D&D’s d20 system, so it’s inherently luck-based. We do what we can to mitigate the RNG, but sometimes you get good rolls and sometimes you won’t. Even apart from that, KotOR is a glitchy game (in both good and bad ways). Even though we try to break it in the right ways, it can and will throw odd behavior at you, softlock you for fun, and sometimes just plain crash. Just stick with it and you’ll improve!
There are several settings you should set up ahead of time so you’re not losing time to the game doing things you don’t want.
Gameplay:
Feedback:
Autopause:
Graphics:
Outside the game, find the swconfig.exe file in your KotOR installation folder, and check Disable Movies; this disables all the prerendered cutscenes inside the game, including the intro ones.
Depending on your setup, you may wish to run KotOR in Windowed Mode. In order to do this, you’ll need to open the swkotor.ini file in the game’s installation folder using a standard text editor (I use Notepad). Do the following:
In both cases, omit the quotes and be sure to capitalize correctly. This should cause the game to open in a window the next time you run it. Sometimes you may need to press “ALT+Enter” to force the game to switch views after this setting is in place.
If you’re having trouble getting KotOR to run on Windows 10, you can try using this guide.