vorob on 4/11/2025 at 16:31
Friends, I’m facing a strange but age-old problem. So, I’m playing Thief Gold with the Black Parade mod on my Steam Deck. Naturally, I installed everything on Windows first and simply transferred the game folder to the Deck. Here’s the problem: every time a new (!) sound effect plays in the game, there’s a micro-stutter — the game lags for a moment. If the sound has played before, there’s no issue when it plays again. So, when I first start the game, everything stutters because dozens of new sounds are being triggered, but later it happens rarely, since new sounds are less frequent. What’s odd is that a year ago I played The Black Parade without any issues. So, it seems to me that something has changed since then. Also, I have Thief II set up the same way, and there are no such problems with new sounds there.
What could be causing this issue?
P.S. The reason I call this a problem “as old as time” is that I’ve always had lag on new sounds throughout my life, mostly on laptops. It’s a mystery. But sometimes it doesn’t happen at all, and I can’t figure out what it depends on.
vorob on 6/11/2025 at 19:21
I’ve tried playing the original Thief Gold using the same installation (just disabled Black Parade), and there’s no stuttering—it runs smoothly. Same game, same setup. I also tried moving the folder from the SD card to the SSD, but that didn’t help. Could the performance issue be because Black Parade keeps its sound files unpacked for some reason?
vfig on 6/11/2025 at 23:33
Quote Posted by vorob
Could the performance issue be because Black Parade keeps its sound files unpacked for some reason?
you could try packing the sound files into a .crf to see if it makes any difference. just pack everything inside the snd/ subfolder into a zip, then rename the zip to snd.crf — and move the snd/ subfolder elsewhere (or rename it to origsnd or something) so the game doesnt try to load the separate files.
no idea if it this will make any difference to the sound-loading hitches, but it doesnt hurt to try.
N. Rampone on 6/2/2026 at 19:16
Quote Posted by vfig
you could try packing the sound files into a .crf to see if it makes any difference. just pack everything inside the snd/ subfolder into a zip, then rename the zip to snd.crf — and move the snd/ subfolder elsewhere (or rename it to origsnd or something) so the game doesnt try to load the separate files.
no idea if it this will make any difference to the sound-loading hitches, but it doesnt hurt to try.
I have the same issue with TBP and your suggestion helped and fixed it! However I do have this issue with many other FMs as they also have custom sounds. But when I try the same trick here, the missions won't load the sounds anymore. There are only the standard sounds that will play. Does anybody know why this only works for TBP?
DuatDweller on 21/3/2026 at 02:51
Must be something to do with the multiple cores running at high speeds and then slow down again. Just a theory but this old games were designed with single core CPUs at a fixed speed in mind.
baeuchlein on 21/3/2026 at 14:21
Under Linux/Wine, I definitely had problems in "Thief"/"Thief II" if the CPU was allowed to have a higher "Turbo" frequency than "normally", although I had the whole game stutter and jerk every now and then, not only sound output. When I configured the Linux kernel to not go above standard speed, the problem vanished. Unfortunately, I don't know whether and where the user can tell Windows not to change CPU speed too often.
