As someone that has been playing Star Wars: The Old Republic since its release, me and the other guys at EoN have been working towards an actual review on the game. The problem is, I personally have ran into a few big issues with an otherwise incredible game. I have quite the gaming rig here that I use, one that can run any game flawlessly on full graphic settings, yet with SWTOR, I have to pull all my settings down and turn shadows off or I become infected with sudden and annoying drops in FPS. On-top of that, I have had problems on a specific planet called Balmorra that will make the game suddenly freeze for a couple of seconds, to a couple of minutes, all while in a battle. This seemed to happen most often at the end of Balmorra on the roof area where you fight NPC republic forces, once entering a story area, the problem lessens. I sadly had to rush through the last part of Balmorra and leave behind many quests just so I could continue playing.

*TIP: The Most Effective and Full-Proof Solution To Launcher Issues is #4, But It Requires Certain Things That Not Everyone Has Available*

I am of course not the only one experience optimization issues, as the FPS problem has been one that is talked about in all forums and in the games general chat. If you are having issues with the FPS or serious lag, the best thing to do is turn off shadows, drop textures, and drop all graphic settings until the problem lessens. SWTOR’s optimization issues have been well documented, and even people with good gaming rigs are going to have to sacrifice their pride and drop some settings. Outside of that though, there really isn’t anything else to do at the moment but wait for Bioware to fix the problem (which they have slowly been working on through patches).

I was not able to find a fix for the Balmorra issue, and I’m sorry to have to report that to any having similar problems there (as again, I’m not the only one, a quick search will pop-up a few threads). However, recently a bigger problem has reared its ugly head and after a quick search, it appears that it is a problem for quite a few players, and has been an issue since SWTOR was in beta.

The launcher and the patching system is a consistent thorn in the side of a great deal of players, and has been the cause of quite a few of them cancelling their subscription. I have not had an issue with patching the game until the 1.1 patch was released today. I am one of the lucky ones it may seem, since others have had large issues since the game launched. Bioware has directed players to either using a fixlauncher.exe located in the games folder:

• For 32 bit Operating Systems – C:Program FilesElectronic ArtsBioWareStar Wars – The Old Republic
• For 64 bit Operating Systems – C:Program Files (x86)Electronic ArtsBioWareStar Wars – The Old Republic

However, this fixlauncher does not work for anyone I can see, nor did it work for me. Some have even been forced to go through a repair process that ends with a 11GB download of the full game client, just to have the patching process still lock up (most commonly on the Main Asset 30 file, like it did for me). Bioware even has a troubleshooting guide, located: here that also doesn’t appear to work for most having the problem. Outside of that, there has been no support, but in my research of the issue I have compiled a few options for players having this problem to use if they still wish to continue playing.

1. Checking the log file

The launcher log file can be found in:

• For 32 bit Operating Systems – C:Program FilesElectronic ArtsBioWareStar Wars – The Old Republiclogs
• For 64 bit Operating Systems – C:Program Files (x86)Electronic ArtsBioWareStar Wars – The Old Republiclogs

If you go to the latest log on the day the problem is occurring it is possible to find the problem file that has become corrupted in the process. It will look something like this:

ERROR Corrupt Source detected in C:Program FilesElectronic ArtsBioWareStar Wars – The Old RepublicAssets/swtor_en-us_area_corellia_1.tor (http://manifest.swtor.com/patch/asse….patchmanifest)

The corrupted file may be different for you, but the possible solution is the same. What can be done from here is to find this file on the game disc or if you downloaded the client, do a Google search and try and locate the corrupted file to replace it (this will not always be easy, and may require some knowledge on how to use torrent to download only that file). Once this has been done, try running the launcher again to see if the update installs correctly. This fix has worked for quite a few players who are unable to do the one known solution that works 100% of the time, a fix that I will have here as the final solution in this article (a fix I was lucky enough to have the resources to do). Some have even had to do this fix for multiple files throughout the update as it would hang-up and corrupt more than once.

2. Complete and total clean install

Another solution some have used that has worked is to completely uninstall the game, and I don’t mean just a simple uninstall. I am talking a complete and total uninstall, here is how to do that.

Notation: Before uninstalling, copy log files and fixlauncher.exe to another directory separate from the SWTOR file.

Go through your control panel and to your programs and features (or through your start menu>programs>EA>uninstall Star Wars the Old Republic, I just prefer to use the control panel method) and uninstall the game. After it is done, make sure to delete all files from the games directory (if there are any left over in the folder) and the shortcut.

Next, defrag your computer to make sure to clean up any excess not easily gotten to (this may not be important, but thoroughness is not a bad idea).

Open up your command line window by hitting the start menu and typing in CMD. Once it is open, flush your DNS by typing in ipconfig/flushdns and release and renew the IP address by using ipconfig/release and ipconfig/renew. (again, may not be necessary, but erasing all trace is important, and thoroughness at this juncture hurts no one).

After that is done, restart your computer and reinstall SWTOR. Once the install is done, launch the game and try the patch again.

Notation: If just launching the game doesn’t work, you might want to run the fixlauncher.exe before you even start the launcher for the first time. This was a hang up for one player, and by just running the fixlauncher.exe after the clean install, it worked.

3. High-End computers are the problem for some reason.

If there is one common thread I have seen with people that are having this problem, it is that they all have good gaming rigs, or just good computers in general. Another fix that some have used, that I don’t like recommending, especially if you don’t know exactly what you are doing is to remove ram. Apparently by removing all but 1 to 2gbs of ram will allow the launcher to run fine and patch without issues.

Others have tested this by using their netbooks, or older computers to discover the patch installs without a problem. This leads me to the final and most successful solution for this issue.

4. Download the patch through another computer

The one solution that many have used to solve this problem is by having a spare computer around, typically it is a back-up computer, or just an older computer all together. Having a friend that lives nearby who plays the game might also be a big plus in your favor here too.

If you do have a laptop or another computer in the home, or one you can gain access to. Download the launcher onto that computer to simply run the update with, for some reason, on older systems (and older OS’s) the patch will download fine almost all the time. From there, transfer the entire SWTOR folder onto an external HDD and copy it onto the computer you play the game on. This is a long and tedious process, I know, but it works every time. It will replace all the files in your current installs with the patched files and be ready to launch. The file will be a large one, so make sure you HDD has more than 20gb of space.

Sadly, I understand not everyone will have access to this fix, but for those of you that do.  This is the one solution that works 100% of the time. 

For those of you without an extra computer, a very generous individual has started uploading the files needed to fix this problem at http://falconevo-blog.no-ip.org/ . Thank you to Novanear in the comments section on this page for pointing this site out.

It is a sad state that these sorts of messy and complicated work-arounds are the common solutions to an issue that should not have been affecting so many people. Patching is an important process to any MMO, and if the process is buggy, and the developer is unable to offer viable solutions, then we as players are forced to either find and use these work-arounds, or decide to stop playing.

The other bad news is, is that if you are experiencing this problem. It is likely this process will have to be repeated every single time a new patch comes out until Bioware either fixes the issue, or releases an official manual patching method.

 If you have found any other solutions, or have ran into issues with these. Comment below so this guide can be updated to help more people.

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