New to series - Can't get Thief 1 to play :(

Ice Thief on 3/3/2009 at 13:30

Hi all,

I know there are quite a few topics about getting Thief 1 to work (I have read them), but I just can't get it to play, it locks up in the same place each time.

My system:

AMD X2
4870 Ati
2gb
winxp

I have the 'Sold Out' DVD version, after installing I have used the DDFIX (gui version) and applied the patch. But as soon as I start a mission (after watching the into trailer) the game locks on a black screen and I have to 'Ctrl + Alt + Del' to exit the app.

I have herd a lot about the thief series and wanted to start at the beginning, I hope that will be possible?

Any help much appreciated,

Thanks

Brian The Dog on 3/3/2009 at 13:43

I also have the Sold Out version, and installed & fixed it with DDFix this last weekend. I had to do the DDFix Manual installation version though, the GUI version didn't seem to work, so I did the Hex editing myself.

If you don't have a hex editor, then the freeware one I used was PSPad.

Ice Thief on 3/3/2009 at 14:27

Quote Posted by Brian The Dog

Thanks for reply,

Just downloaded PSPAD and tried doing the manual version but still no luck :(
If you have chance, please can you talk me through exactly how you did it.

Also, the readme says I should open up cam.cfg and set the resolution but I can't find the relevant line to mod, it look's like this:

Code:

Really would love to get this running but I don't think it's going to be possible on my computer :(

Brian The Dog on 3/3/2009 at 15:22

Here's what I did:

1) Download (http://timeslip.chorrol.com/ddfix.html) DDFix GUI version.
2) Copy all files to the Thief directory (e.g. C:\Games\Thief).
3) Make a copy of Thief.exe (for backup purposes!)
4) Open PSPad.
5) In PSPad, go to File -> Open in Hex editor
6) In the pop-up Window, navigate to your thief directory, and open Thief.exe
7) Hit CTRL+F to find text. Enter "ddraw" (without quotes), and hit enter. You may find a few instances shown on the right-hand side of the screen. You want the FIRST that is DDRAW.DLL
8) Change that text to be DDFIX.DLL
9) Save Thief.exe
10) Exit PSPad.
11) Run Thief.exe

If it DDFix gives you a pop-up messagebox saying that the 2 settings for the resolutions are different, then make sure they agree.

Timeslip's instructions are for Thief 2, so the resolution data may not be in cam.cfg for Thief 1 (or it may be added by the program when first run).

Ice Thief on 3/3/2009 at 15:47

A huge thanks for your help Brian The Dog :)

Just tried exactly that and still no luck, freezes at exactly the same point. I can see the GUI version is working correctly too, if I look at it in the hex editor (on a fresh .exe) the correct change is made. So i don't think it is a problem with not updating the correct line.

Would you mind posing what is written in your user.cfg?

Kind regards and thanks again,

Brian The Dog on 3/3/2009 at 23:30

My User.cfg is blank. My cam.cfg contains the following:

Code:

; $Header: r:/prj/cam/src/RCS/cam.cfg 1.14 1998/09/23 20:00:41 mahk Exp $

; hey, which game is this
game dark

; general configs
include_user_cfg user.cfg
editor_include_dromed_cfg dromed.cfg

; game specific paths/configs
dark_include_install_cfg install.cfg

shock_resname_base r:\prj\shock\art\finals

; set trait cache to include concretes
trait_cache_flags 2
skip_intro
sfx_device 1
game_screen_depth 16
game_hardware 1
game_screen_size 1280 1024
sfx_channels 8
game_screen_flags 13
game_full_screen 1
master_volume -1
character_detail 1
gamma 0.75

skip_starting_checks

It seems you're missing quite a bit of my the stuff in mine! Try copying them into your cam.cfg file. If that doesn't work, I'm all out of ideas. Sorry!

Here's my ddfix.ini file, if that helps:

Code:

[Main]
;Screen resolution
;Must be 800x600 or greater
gWidth=1280
gHeight=1024

;Refresh rate. 0 is default, anything else to override.
RefreshRate=0

;Set to 1 to fix the duel core related crash
MultiCoreFix=1

;Set to 1 to automatically register lgvid.ax each time thief is started up
VideoFix=1

;This can be set to zero to get a more accurate z-buffer
;Doesn't usually make a noticable difference to picture quality
UseCompatibleZBuffer=1

;Turns on the 32 bit texture loader and adds support for some unsupported screen resolutions
;Will cause a crash if used with an unsupported exe
; 0 - Disable
; 1 - Determine exe automatically
; 2 - Thief 2 v1.18
Thief2Extensions=1

;Set to 1 to disable the windows keys while thief is running
DisableWindowsKey=0

;Set to 1 to enable anisotropic filtering
AnisotropicFiltering=0

;If you want to share overriden textures between thief installations, uncomment the next line
;It should contain the absolute path to the equivilent of \res\ddfix, including the trailing \
;TexturePath=C:\Games\Thief2\res\ddfix\

;XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
;XX Compatibility settings XX
;XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

;Changes the way direct writes to the frontbuffer are handled
;SS2 players should set these options to '2' and '0xf81f' respectively
;Thief 2 players with corrupted in game text should use '2' and '0x0000'
;Players who experience slowdown with UseSysMemOverlay=2 should set both options to 0
UseSysMemOverlay=2
OverlayColourKey=0xf81f

I'm using DirectX v.9.0c November 2008 on XPx64, and my graphics card is a GeForce 7950GT.

Ice Thief on 4/3/2009 at 08:48

A huge thanks again Brian,

I just tried installing it on my laptop (completely different spec to my PC - Pentium Dual Core - Win Vista - Nvidia Graphics). It froze in exactly the same spot. So, I applied the GUI patch and made sure res was same in cam.cgf as ddfix.ini. I booted it and it worked!

With my better understanding of how the installation process worked I went back to my PC Thief install, made sure cam + dd fix res was the same, booted it,,,but still no luck. Locks up in exactly the same space.
I even tried copying exactly what you have in both your files and replacing it with mine - no joy.

I think there must be an incompatibility with the hardware I am using on my PC (AMD X2, 4870 Ati).

But at least i'll still get the chance to play it on the laptop.

Again, massive thanks for your help.

Brian The Dog on 4/3/2009 at 10:50

I think it's that DDFix only fixes for nVidia graphics cards (series 6 onwards). I assumed it would work as well for ATI graphics cards (since it replaces DirectX's DDRAW with it's own dll), but it doesn't look like that's the case.

Oh well, at least you've got it working on your laptop. You can always display on a seperate monitor with surround-sound speakers and get the same experience! :D

Ice Thief on 4/3/2009 at 14:52

You're right, the laptop plays it pretty well so I should be able to fully enjoy it. I'll keep reading and trying different tweaks to see if I can get it working on the PC also though, if you think of anything else that might be worth a shot at fixing please let me know.

Thanks again,

vertimyst on 5/3/2009 at 03:13

I'm having a similar problem.

At first, Thief (Gold) wouldn't start at all - I'd just get the standard Windows error report message.

I ran DDfix and the result was thief.exe would start, but all I would get was a black screen.

I modified my cam.cfg file to have both the correct resolution from ddfix.ini and the skip_intro line, and I also tried Brian The Dog's entire cam.cfg. Now I can get to the menus (which run smoothly unless I start moving the mouse - then the cursor starts to blink and the menu animations freeze, but I can still navigate the menus).

If I try starting the training or skipping it, the game just freezes and I have to kill it with the task manager.

I've tried various fixes/patches, reinstalled codecs, etc.

I'm running Windows XP Pro SP3 on a Toshiba Satellite Pro P100 laptop with an Integrated Intel GMA graphics chip.

Any ideas/suggestions/help would be appreciated.