StealThisNick on 10/2/2009 at 02:58

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It's amazing that people get T2 and even T1/TG to work at all on hardware that didn't even exist on paper until years after T2 was released, but I get the impression that people manage to do it.

I do have an older machine (AMD Athlon XP) that has always happily run T1, TG, and T2, but I would rather play T2 and all the dozens of recently-produced fan missions on my newer machine. So far, however, it's been an exercise in frustration.

I do have the latest version of Garrettloader. It's worked wonderfully for playing T3 fan missions. However, T2 just doesn't want to work on the newer hardware.

Is there a FAQ or something somewhere for getting T2 to work on recent hardware? I looked but haven't found anything yet.

FWIW, vital stats of my newer system:

Asus P5E3 WS Pro motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 processor
4 GB RAM
GeForce 9800 GTX video card
Windows XP SP3
Audigy 2 ZS sound card

When I try to run the original Thief 2 missions through Garrettloader, all goes well until I'm actually in the first mission. Once the movie finishes (or I skip it), I find myself on the mansion grounds, with no sound other than my footsteps, and no ability to interact with the world. The world is frozen. No items or weapons appear, despite pressing the keys for them. Mechanical eye zooming does work.

I also tried to run "Gathering at the Inn," after installing it with Garrettloader. The game crashed as soon as the introductory movie ended.

Maybe I should try using Darkloader? I still have the installer, but I figured Garrettloader should work better since it's much newer. Also, it's convenient to be able to install & play T3 missions from the same application.

I would also like to make sure I have the most recent versions of any additional scripts or other files that are necessary to make T2 fan missions work. I did install "darkhooks.dlx" and "convict.osm" but the files are dated in 2003 and 2000, respectively. Is there a recent, all-inclusive pack of extras for T2 FM's available for download somewhere?

Thanks for any help you can provide.

deathshadow on 10/2/2009 at 04:37

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In addition to the FAQ which will point you at things like ddfix - I would ditch garretloader for dark engine games. For me under XP x64 it's been nothing but a buggy train wreck, and being I could give a flying **** about anything T3... Darkloader is the better choice.

Especially since it's not filled with acid trip playschool colors and doesn't break on large font/120dpi screen settings.

blow on 10/2/2009 at 09:33

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With my experience the problem is the geforce card, nvidia and thief don't mix. I tried all sorts of fixes and patches, to get thief 2 to run with my geforce card and in the end got an old ati radeon from my brother and away it went. Nvidia are aware of the problems with backwards compatibility but couldn't care less.

Yandros on 10/2/2009 at 11:34

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There's no problem with nVidia cards, I've had nothing but since I've played Thief, 8 years now. DDFix will take care of it, and look better than ever as northeast said.

Dia on 10/2/2009 at 13:55

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I have Nvidia as well as XP64 and neither T1 nor T2 have ever run worth a damn on it. :( Good thing my hd is partitioned and the other is ME. The only problem while using ME is that if I get stuck while playing FMs I have to restart & switch to XP64 to go to TTLG. Can't seem to incorporate my DSL connection from XP64 to ME. (DSL company wouldn't help since the hd is partitioned; they refused all responsibility and assistance. Bloody bastards!)

I'm also seriously hesitant to install SP3 since it's been kind of like a crapshoot with any XP64 updates.