In case you're interested.. Thief will work on latest nVidia drivers !!

Cary L. Brown on 20/11/2007 at 03:27

Quote Posted by WET

That being said, I decided to make a concerted effort to get T1G working. Long story short, I think I may have been able to cook up a generic solution using the Application Compatibility Toolkit. The main issues seem to involve - unsurprisingly - processor affinity and DX thread safety. I *think* that the resulting patch ought to work on XP SP1, SP2, and Vista but I have no means of testing anything other than SP2. It applies equally to T2 so if anyone is unable to run T2 for any reason, this should help them too.

I'm using the Compatibility Toolkit 5, and in Administrator I looked through my whole list of fixes. Either I'm missing it somehow, or you're calling this "fix" something different than what MS calls it.

"SingleProcAffinity" is easy enough... I use it on almost everything except for stuff released within the last two years (sad, but true). But I'm stumped by this "DX Thread Safety" you mention.

Where should I be looking, and what's the actual fix name?

Thanks in advance!

WET on 23/11/2007 at 21:00

Quote Posted by Cary L. Brown

Sorry for the delay (real life intruding as it does).

EmulateDirectDrawSync is what I was referring to.

smithpd on 15/12/2007 at 08:23

I just downloaded the 163.75 drivers from Nvidia, and they play Thief Gold fine using my 7950 GT (XP SP 2), just like 163.71 did. I did a complete de-install, reboot, and install. I found that was necessary to get 163.71 to work in the first place.

I don't understand these posts about the need for special compatibility tweaks to play Thief TDP or Gold. Why worry about this when the latest drivers (the subject of this thread) work? What am I missing? Do these drivers not work for some people?

So far as I know, when you get TDP or Gold working with the drivers, the graphics looks the same as they always did. The main problem for me is with T2, which has crappy rendering with the latest Nvidia cards, unless you use timeslip's patch, which has limitations, such as no fog. T2 is the one that needs work, IMO.

bob_doe_nz on 15/12/2007 at 09:59

I decided to go back to the old Nvidia drivers. I was lucky enough to have done a backup of my OS two months earlier so nothing was lost.

Now I have no problems what so ever.

smithpd on 15/12/2007 at 19:50

Quote Posted by bob_doe_nz

I decided to go back to the old Nvidia drivers. I was lucky enough to have done a backup of my OS two months earlier so nothing was lost.

Now I have no problems what so ever.

Could you be more specific? What driver version did you revert to? Did the 163.71, and now 163.75, not work for you?

Nothing should be lost by switching driver versions. If you deinstall, reboot, install the version you want, either forward or backward in version number, it should go smoothly. That procedure is necessary to clean out old files and make the new version works properly. Did you do that? I have used that procedure countless times and never had to resort to a backup of the OS.

TBE on 16/12/2007 at 02:35

163.71 drivers and XP DO work for Thief Gold.
I've got a BFG 7800 GS, and it seems a lot of you other taffers have a similar video card and have been annoyed at not being able to play without a lot of messing around with drivers.

Here's proof of my exploits below. Sorry about resolution, I exported the pretty video I took to an e-mail setting.
(Also, sorry about the sound on the video. Trust me, it sounded ok for real.)

(http://s84.photobucket.com/albums/k8/TafferBoyElvis/?action=view&current=ThiefWorks.flv)

So how did I arrive at this solution?
Well, I got the Fixed .exe file. (See FAQ)
Then I did the hyperthread fix. (See FAQ)
Then I went to CONTROL PANEL - NVIDIA CONTROL PANEL.
I clicked on ADVANCED SETTINGS.
Then MANAGE 3D SETTINGS.
Click on the PROGRAM SETTINGS TAB.
Then click on the ADD button.
I explored until I found the Thief.exe. (Remember to rename the fixed .exe file to Thief.exe and save your old Thief.exe as Thief.bak or something.)
Then on all the settings, I picked OFF or application controlled. Yes, EVERY setting to OFF.

Game looks as good as playing it on a P2 System I had that ran at 450 MHz!

edit- oh yeah, don't forget to do the scrooge movie fix as well. (See FAQ) seems the movies stop after applying all these fixes.

bob_doe_nz on 16/12/2007 at 05:56

Quote Posted by smithpd

Could you be more specific? What driver version did you revert to? Did the 163.71, and now 163.75, not work for you?

I had Powerquest Drive Image do a backup of my OS partition a while back. I restored my partition to that.
And no, they did not. I had constant issues with it not working. Even after restarting the computer, using a fresh unmodified Thief 2 executable. Etc.

Garret,Master Thief on 14/9/2008 at 21:11

Lol,i sound like the n00best guy around.I want some help,i have original Thief 1,an old cd,Thief 2,promotion Eidos pack and Thief Gold(Bought a few years ago).I'm not very good at programs on computers,so if you could give me a step by step installation thingy,ill be mighty grateful!Later taffers!
:thumb:

Garret,Master Thief on 14/9/2008 at 21:13

Any help will be good for me!And don't forget to...

Garret,Master Thief on 14/9/2008 at 21:15

The Thief games are the best in the world!Too bad they didn't make alot of copies!