Boogalou on 24/8/2009 at 01:12

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I'm about to pull my hair out, been trying for nearly 8 hours now to get Thief 2 back up and running. If anyone would be so kind as to lend a hand I'd really appreciate it. At this point I'm basically thinking it simply won't run on my system.

WinXP - All drivers are current
Q9650
3 gigs ram
Radeon HD4870X2
Dell 3008WFP 30" monitor with native 2560x1600 -don't think this is the issue, tried widescreen fix, turning down res, everything

I'm aware of the hyperthreading, multi-core issues, the recommended fixes including the hacked thief 2 exe, ddfix, running in compatibility mode, making sure the resolution in game matches ddfix and cam file, etc.. I've literally tried every guide I could find on the net including those threads and sites recommended here. I've tried the "Getting Thief 2 To Work On Modern Pcs" guide at Edios. Even tried the ones at saleck and Johnanthonycurran. I've tried every variation of every guide I could find. Have re-installed the dumb thing about 30 times now.

Following all the recommended fixes results in a blank screen with sound (when alt out briefly see screen). Tried with and without Garretloader. The best luck I've had so far is using ddfix WITHOUT the hacked thief 2 exe (hacked exe results in blank screen). Anything else won't even load the menu. Using ddfix alone will load the menu and start the game. The game then runs fine until I bring up the objectives, map, or menu at which point I just get a blank screen. Alt-ing out will show the menu screen briefly and then goto desktop.

This is really frustrating. Am I correct in thinking it's impossible to run it on my system? I wonder if it has to do with my video card having 2 gpus?

If anyone has made it this far thank you for taking the time. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Boog

Sxerks on 24/8/2009 at 02:27

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Try a different monitor if you have one, that will narrow down the problem.

On my graphics card(nvidia), I can choose "Change Flat Panel Scaling" which would decide if the graphics card or the monitor does the video scaling, should be something similar for ATI.

Boogalou on 24/8/2009 at 09:39

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I sincerely appreciate the help guys.

Already tried a different monitor, same result. Using driver 9.8.

May have to build a Thief box just to run it :(

Dan on 24/8/2009 at 15:39

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Hi Boogalou,

It appears that you're using a dual core video card. I have two Sapphire HDs 4870 in crossfire and the game won't run properly in crossfire mode, so every time I want to play the game I have to disable it. The game runs fine on a single HD 4870. Still, I have no idea how the game behaves on a single multi-core video card.

This might be the problem itself!

There are lots of hacks to make Thief run on one CPU core, but I'm not aware of such for GPU multi-core systems. As a last resort you can try an old VGA or the on-board one if you have one.

Best of luck!

Dan on 24/8/2009 at 21:00

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You could be right. It just that I've never worked with a multi-core VGA so I have no idea if the catalyst has an option for disabling one core. If not he should try to disable catalyst A.I. as it effectively disables crossfire and may be a workaround for Thief 2.