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Save Buffering is a method of cancelling triggers, including cutscenes, conversations and fights. When Quick Saving, you will notice there’s a short fade-in from black after the game finishes saving. Triggers will not take effect during this fade in. By moving forward while Quick Saving, you can enter a trigger and delay it using the fade-in. You can then interrupt the trigger to cancel its effects.
In order to Save Buffer, stand in front of a trigger and hold both mouse buttons down to run forward. Before reaching the trigger, press the Quick Save hotkey (by default, F4). As the screen fades in, Quick Save again. Repeat this until the fade-in effect no longer occurs; this means you have activated the trigger. Continue Quick Saving until you are ready, then finish the buffer (see below). If done correctly, you’ll maintain control of your character and be able to continue normally.
In KotOR II, Hard Buffers are the only form of Save Buffer; Soft Buffers do not exist.
A Hard Buffer is done by buffering into a trigger, then loading your last Quick Save before the trigger executes.
The recommended way to do a Hard Buffer is to use Quick Saves to enter a trigger, then open the Options menu using the icon in the top right corner. You can then manually load the last Quick Save to cancel the trigger. This method has the same effect and is more consistent, but requires extra menuing and can be slower without sufficient practice.
Video Forthcoming
It can be tricky to open the menu while moving your character, so it’s recommended to buffer into the trigger, stop moving, then open the menu, all while still buffering.
This method can be inconsistent; depending on the cutscene and how long your Quick Saves take, the window for successfully Quick Loading can be quite small or even non-existent. This method requires practice and good timing (or good mashing).
Video Forthcoming
Save Buffers are used in all glitched speedruns to perform important skips, which will be listed here later.
Note that KotOR II does not suffer from the same Quick Save memory leak that KotOR I does, so you do not need to monitor memory usage during a KotOR II speedrun.
If you begin a Save Buffer and move past the trigger, but the fade-in doesn’t stop, you most likely Save Teleported over the trigger. This skips the trigger with the important difference that the trigger is still active. If you are going to pass by that area again, you will need to buffer the trigger again when you return. If you won’t revisit that area, you can continue without worrying.
If you miss a Save Buffer, you can Quick Load after the trigger executes to go back and skip the trigger. This is sometimes necessary or helpful; other times it’s better to just continue, even if you miss the Save Buffer. In other cases, it may be faster to use the T(r)ask Manager to kill the program, then reload the game and load the Quick Save.
As you progress in the game, Quick Saves take longer and longer to complete. While this has beneficial effects, such as Save Teleporting, it also makes Save Buffers much more difficult to perform. With a large enough save file, the window for canceling the trigger can be partly or entirely skipped by the Save screen. For any Save Buffer that is essential, disabling V-Sync will increase the frame rate of the game and thus decrease the time it takes to Quick Save, making late-game buffers much easier to perform.