NewDark - Thief 2 V1.19 & System Shock 2 V2.4

sea on 28/9/2012 at 18:11

Quote Posted by Ryu Connor

These were buried in the var config list documents. Apologies if you've seen them before, but I get the impression they might help.

Thanks. If I add in the disable_oal_eax_reverb line, it sounds as it should. Without it, I get absolutely no reverb effects when using Hardware OpenAL. Can anyone confirm if this is just me, a bug, or related to hardware? I'm using an X-Fi Titanium, for the record.

Lockpicker on 28/9/2012 at 18:27

I'm having trouble getting excited like you guys about this patch. I installed it and fired up Thief 2 and I don't really notice any difference. Is there anything I need to do to get the new eye-candy happening?

ToxicFrog on 28/9/2012 at 18:31

Quote Posted by MoroseTroll

3DNow! - yes, it has been depricated in the modern Bobcat and Bulldozer-based AMD CPUs. But MMX is still available on every CPUs released since 1997.
Well, AVX is a relatively new instruction set (and it requires WinVista SP2 or Win7 SP1), so yes, it's quite clear for me why the new exe-files do not support it. But SSE1-4 are much more widespread instruction sets, so I suppose the author(s) just had no time to implement them.
Maybe.

Assuming the author(s) based this on the T2 source code - which seems plausible - and not on cunning assembler hacks, it's not a matter of "not having time to implement them" - you don't use these instructions directly, you tell the compiler to use them when optimizing.

That said, this is generally not the default; most compilers default to maximum compatibility and will emit code for the i386 or, in some cases, the i586 (ie, the Pentium I) - which means no SSE (which wasn't introduced until the P3) or MMX (which showed up halfway through the P1's lifetime) at all. If you want the compiler to use those features, you have to explicitly tell it that you don't care about compatibility with older processors. If 1.19/2.4 isn't using MMX or SSE instructions, it's likely that they just built it with the default settings and ended up with an executable designed to be compatible all the way back to the P1 or even the i386.

voodoo47 on 28/9/2012 at 18:36

Quote Posted by Lockpicker

it's because you (apparently) haven't been running the old version (for quite some time, at least). this is the entire point of these patches, you install them, launch the game, and will not notice anything - because everything that was broken has been fixed.

but yeah, if you want more eyecandy, you will have to install mods, especially for SS2.

sNeaksieGarrett on 28/9/2012 at 18:36

Quote Posted by Lockpicker

That's because not everything about this patch is "eye candy" related. The main difference from what I can tell is better shadows, higher resolution (which you're going to need to change in-game yourself), and enhanced lighting among other tweaks. Also, not everything has been activated, you have to manually go into .cfg files and tweak things as you want to achieve the desired results. Also, ditto what voodoo47 said.

DrK on 28/9/2012 at 19:09

HOLY CRAP, Le Corbeau connected back on Ariane4ever !!!!

He posted this (roughly translated) :

The Raven is the messenger. From his perch, he watches the shadows who found themselves back.

DromEd.exe @ 0x14A701 change 02 to 01
ShockEd.exe @ 0x18EC11 change 02 to 01

What would it do ?

(http://ariane4ever.free.fr/ariane4ever/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4287&start=45)

Vae on 28/9/2012 at 19:22

How delightful...and he returns with offerings.

DrK on 28/9/2012 at 19:24

I have to say, I wasn't expecting this at all. In the previous post, I wrote "I'm sure he'll never come back".

Garrett on 28/9/2012 at 19:26

that is really creepy. :wot:

LarryG on 28/9/2012 at 19:26

Quote Posted by Lockpicker

Until someone releases a mission which takes advantage of all the new capabilities or relights and revises existing missions (including OMs), if you are not a DromEd user, no, I don't think you'll see much difference outside of the demos which were fixed and relit to show off some of the "eye candy". As a DromEd user, I am both excited, dismayed, and cautiously optimistic. Excited because DromEd finally seems to be a stable mission development tool with LOTS of new capabilities. Dismayed because there is so much to relearn and so much new to learn about for the first time. Cautiously optimistic because it will now be easier to make missions with Garrett which don't have the "right" look and feel for a true Thief mission. Mission developers will have to use great aesthetic judgement in deciding how much of the new possibilities are Thief appropriate. I also think you may see more wonderfully non-Thief type missions by some very creative types now that we all have a much bigger box of crayons. I also expect that we will see some new missions which will fall short despite it all.