Ricebug on 13/8/2026 at 23:17
Here I lay in the hospital, bored to tears with an iPad at my side. So here’s my question…
Can a creator today be more ambitious when bringing his or her vision to life on a high-end machine? IOW, twenty years ago, the average PC would choke on any FM with too many polygons, etc. But throw the same mathematical salad at today’s top-of-the-line machine and things should be a lot smoother, shouldn’t it?
If so, can I throw caution to the wind when building a level? Certain limitations such as line-of-sight will still be there, I would think. But I’m not a code monkey, which is why I bring up the point.
I do remember upgrading PCs in the past, anxious to replay an old game that performed poorly before. Sadly, there was hardly any noticeable difference. I believe this was because the software parameters were hard-wired (if that’s the term).
I leave it for those smarter than I to posit. :idea:
baeuchlein on 14/8/2026 at 08:17
There are some limits left. For example, I know of no method to use more than one CPU core for Thief/Thief 2. AFAIK, you still need a "Multi-core fix", but it seems to be embedded in the TFix and T2Fix packages nowadays. And yet this will only make the game run (or sneak, if the machine is overloaded:cheeky:), and not use all CPU cores. Thus, you might fare better with a CPU that is known for good single-core performance, not with a "core monster" with an incredible number of CPU cores, of which all but one are just fiddling their tumbs while you're trying to run Thief.
There also are some things/missions that are CPU limited, meaning that a faster CPU should make an improvement, while other missions may be limited by the graphics hardware. My "best" graphics core still is the Intel IGP in fourteen-year old notebook CPUs (Core i3/Core i5, 2nd generation, mobile versions), which translates to ISG (Intel Shitty Graphics) for players. I do not know how much better modern IGP's perform, or even how much one can squeeze out of high-end graphics cards when playing Thief.
Finally, there are also some engine limits. Wide-angle open views still bog down the game for me regardless of which machine I use, but what I sometimes read from other players seems to hint at that it's not the mediocre graphics cores which make such views a slideshow for me. And there may also be one or two missions which are not optimized well and don't perform well for that reason.
Wait for others to tell you more. When it comes to modern hardware, my knowledge is limited because I still run ancient hardware, and even need to do so with a Linux OS most of the time, so there's enough roadblocks here that prevent optimum performance. Other people's mileage may vary.
And apart from all this... Get better soon, so you can leave hospital again! It's usually not a funny place...:rolleyes:
