Sticky Fingers on 11/4/2010 at 11:17
I've been meaning to ask for a while: am running a GeF 4 64Mb AGP (oh, stop laughing): would DDFix improve things noticeably for me? (I'm having no problems using whql-cert 93.71 Forceware drivers.)
jermi on 11/4/2010 at 17:20
t2skies means high-resolution textures, and ddfix provides support for those, so it is required, there's no way around that.
ddfix has been around for a while so my guess is that the majority of the FM crowd is already using it. Those that aren't, really ought to wake up.
Quote Posted by Dainem
And are you able to change the fact that some of the FMs like "in dubio pro Garrett" or "Ominous bequest" have this star problem? It would be great if only the sky of the OMs would be changed by your program.
Unfortunately the stars are the same for all missions. No way around that either.
Quote Posted by Sticky Fingers
would DDFix improve things noticeably for me?
Yes, definitely.
SiO2 on 11/4/2010 at 17:37
Got me a new desktop image! Thanks, jermi! Looks very very nice. :thumb:
As to the EnableLifeOfThePartyFogFix: I think what's happening is that the functionality this flag enables has an added side-effect that suits your purposes. I'll take a look at what's happening internally in DDFix that makes your skies work.
BTW I could have DDFix look for a text file called something like "ddfix_t2skies.txt" in the same folder as the ddfix dll and enable EnableLifeOfThePartyFogFix if this file is found. FM authors who use t2skies would then only need to add this file to their mission zip to get DDFix to use the EnableLifeOfThePartyFogFix flag without having to touch ddfix.ini.
Also, since we have control over graphics rendering (via DDFix) I guess it may be feasible to replace Thief2's sky rendering completely. You could then have whatever you needed within the limitations of DX6. If we used Timeslip's DX9 version of DDFix we could have skies as good as Thief4. :cheeky:
PsymH on 12/4/2010 at 09:54
Quote Posted by SiO2
Also, since we have control over graphics rendering (via DDFix) I guess it may be feasible to replace Thief2's sky rendering completely. You could then have whatever you needed within the limitations of DX6. If we used Timeslip's DX9 version of DDFix we could have skies as good as Thief4. :cheeky:
It would be very fantastic for a future mission from me, if it's possible to change the sky during the game, so I have two different skies in different locations. :erm:
SiO2 on 12/4/2010 at 17:16
Quote Posted by PsymH
It would be very fantastic for a future mission from me, if it's possible to change the sky during the game, so I have two different skies in different locations. :erm:
This may be a question for the FM author forums. For my part, I could put a function into DDFix that could control the DDFix flags - such as LOTPFogFix - if you could call it some way via a T2 trigger.
At the very least I can add code to DDFix to detect a text filename in your mission zip and enable LOTPFogFix for t2skies. This would mean that end-users would not need LOTPFogFix on all the time and DarkLoader would install/cleanup the text file.
BTW Your "Mirror Of Return" is a fantastic mission! :thumb:
SiO2 on 12/4/2010 at 21:05
Quote:
EnableLifeOfThePartyFogFix is for the "Life Of The Party" OM only. It may break fog in all other missons that use fog. Is EnableLifeOfThePartyFogFix=1 absolutely necessary?
Hmmm. I did a quick test with Ambush OM and I couldn't see any difference with LOTPFogFix on or off - the enhanced sky looked just as great with both settings.
Could you give me a repro case? Ideally, an OM savegame that shows a noticable difference between LOTPFogFix on and off, your ddfix.ini and your ddfix.dll.
jermi on 12/4/2010 at 21:37
Framed, Masks and of course LOTP are the only missions where LOTPFogFix makes any difference.
My ddfix.dll file version is 1.4.4.0. My ddfix.ini:
Code:
[Main]
;Screen resolution
;Must be 800x600 or greater
gWidth=1920
gHeight=1080
;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=E:\Games\Thief2Common\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
;XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
;XX SIO2: Fog fixes XX
;XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
;General fix for all Thief2 missions that use fog.
;Default value is 1 (enabled) so all mission that use fog can benefit.
EnableFogFix=1
;Special fog fixes for the Thief2 Original Mission "Life Of The Party".
;Enabling this for missions other than "Life Of The Party" may break other missions that use fog.
;Default value is 0 (disabled) because it breaks other fog missions (broken sky, etc)
EnableLifeOfThePartyFogFix=1
I'm glad you like the desktop background, I guess it's not bad considering it's just a byproduct, put together in one evening from the materials used in this mod. I should thank you, though. Fog in TMA now looks way better than it ever did on any hw+sw combination I've ever used to play it. Smog-filled Framed is now my favourite OM, thanks to LOTPFogFix.
Sounds like a good idea to allow FMs to explicitly override ddfix settings - why not make it so that it's just another ini file that would allow overriding any settings in ddfix.ini? t2skies could also have its own override file, and the FM override file would of course have to take precedence.
That wouldn't tackle all cases, though. An FM might consist of multiple missions requiring different ddfix settings (a bit of a stretch, maybe). Also some old FMs benefit greatly from having specific settings, such as LOTPFogFix. It's pretty awkward, someone would have to make a database of suitable settings for old FMs, and ddfix would have to detect the mission and apply the settings.
Completely replacing TMA's sky rendering - might be interesting to experiment with that, but I'm not sure I could do anything useful with it. TMA's sky rendering isn't too bad - of course there's some banding and clipping and z and alpha problems that would go away with full control of the rendering.
Albert on 12/4/2010 at 23:26
Quote Posted by SiO2
At the very least I can add code to DDFix to detect a text filename in your mission zip and enable LOTPFogFix for t2skies. This would mean that end-users would not need LOTPFogFix on all the time and DarkLoader would install/cleanup the text file.
This is exactly what I was talking about. And how about making a little patcher that adds the text files to the FM zips defining whether they work best with LOTPfix or not.
jermi on 14/4/2010 at 17:18
You're missing all the high-resolution replacement textures.
I trust ddfix is installed and working? Make sure you have the settings mentioned in the first post in your ddfix.ini. Then make sure that you have a "t2skies" directory (listing below) in the replacement texture location specified in ddfix.ini. For example, for me it's TexturePath=E:\Games\Thief2Common\res\ddfix\ (see my ddfix.ini two posts back).
Code:
Directory of e:\Games\Thief2Common\RES\ddfix\t2skies
10.04.2010 18:22 <DIR> .
10.04.2010 18:22 <DIR> ..
28.03.2010 23:05 1 398 236 citcoun.dds
20.02.2010 23:13 22 369 748 clouds75.dds
20.02.2010 23:13 22 369 748 clouds95.dds
27.03.2010 13:28 5 592 540 distcit.dds
08.01.2010 12:01 349 652 pmoon01.dds
08.01.2010 12:01 349 652 pmoon02.dds
08.01.2010 12:01 349 652 pmoon03.dds
08.01.2010 12:01 349 652 pmoon04.dds
08.01.2010 12:01 349 652 pmoon05.dds
08.01.2010 12:01 349 652 pmoon06.dds
08.01.2010 12:01 349 652 pmoon07.dds
08.01.2010 12:01 349 652 pmoon08.dds
08.01.2010 12:01 349 652 pmoon09.dds
08.01.2010 12:01 349 652 pmoon10.dds
08.01.2010 12:01 349 652 pmoon11.dds
08.01.2010 12:01 349 652 pmoon12.dds
08.01.2010 12:01 349 652 pmoonec.dds
08.01.2010 12:01 349 652 pmoonfr.dds
18 File(s) 56 625 400 bytes
