Dahenjo on 3/3/2011 at 22:55

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I have what seems like the same problem with Thief Gold & Thief 2 on Win7 64-bit using DDFix, and those are also Dark Engine games. Using a dual-boot with XP Pro/SP3 32-bit, with both games installed on a separate non-system drive, they look perfect when run under XP. Under Win7 the in-game and menu-screen text is fuzzy or degraded, also in-game the edges of things are jagged as in your SS2 shot and some of the textures appear off too. Here are shots of mine:

(http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125853&p=2044911&viewfull=1#post2044911) http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125853&p=2044911&viewfull=1#post2044911
(http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125853&p=2045286&viewfull=1#post2045286) http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125853&p=2045286&viewfull=1#post2045286

I've tried several DDFix versions from 1.44 to 1.5.11, changing DDFix.ini & Compatibility Tab settings, other test installs of Thief, old & current video drivers, various BIOS/chipset/memory settings, two different 24" monitors using all cable types (VGA/DVI/HDMI), two different late-model video cards, and nothing makes any difference. There's also a several second delay with the mouse frozen when changing from a menu-screen back to in-game, same with in-game readables, while in XP it's a half-second or less.

It's definitely a Win7 thing, though I don't know if it's with 64-bit only. I also have a Vista 32-bit laptop on which both games look good/normal. I know the graphics architecture was changed significantly for Win7, though MS began these changes under Vista. There's a whole new layer to integrate the graphics with non-GPU/system resources that DirectX 11 implements much more than DX 10 did in Vista, so my hunch is this issue has something to do with that. For any intrepid geeks who may be interested, here's a 'Windows 7 Graphics Overview' in 3 parts with a MS senior graphics architect:
(http://channel9.msdn.com/blogs/yochay/windows-7-graphics-architecture-overview-part-1) http://channel9.msdn.com/blogs/yochay/windows-7-graphics-architecture-overview-part-1

Dahenjo on 4/3/2011 at 17:12

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I think many here who use Win7 have the 64-bit version, so we would hear more about it if everyone was getting this. I'd like to hear from others who don't and could post their system specs, which might lead to a possible solution or at least a reason why this happens to some of us. It relates to DDFix too in that the issue doesn't occur until after that is installed, but without it the low resolution sucks.

I don't think it's a software conflict because I've also tried installing Win7 on a single bare drive (no dual-boot, no other hard drives connected), added only motherboard & video card drivers to get all hardware recognized (all latest versions supporting Win7), then installed a fresh copy of Thief & DDFix (tried several versions) and the same problem was there. Maybe it's only with certain motherboards or chipsets or their drivers since the Win7 graphics sub-structure interacts a lot more with these resources than Vista or XP did. There are some very knowledgeable folks around here so I'm hoping someone will help solve this.

Current specs w/new monitor & video card since my earlier posts:
Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3 Rev1, AMD Phenom II X4 940 ~3GHz, 2x2GB OCZ Platinum Series PC-8500 DDR2 RAM, EVGA NVIDIA Geforce GTX 460, Asus VE248H 24" LCD/LED monitor (fully Plug 'n Play, native 1920x1080 resolution recognized), dual-boot XP Pro SP3 32-bit/Win7 HP OEM SP1 64-bit, all stock/no OC.

BrecMadak on 15/3/2011 at 19:34

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i have not seen any windows x86 technical issues. So i feel the need to ask about it. Got a sold out version Thief Gold, using windows 7 x86 ultimate, and a clean installation. Things going very soon as only the first 2-3 seconds of the sounds of engine from intro, it immediately throws me back to desktop. Whether i use another .exe, even checked with start as a 2k o/s or not this does not stop.

i got a GeForce GTS 250 gpu.

Any solution or any other members had lived this prboem before welcomes.

AluminumHaste on 15/3/2011 at 21:54

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Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit , Intel Core 2 Quad user here. Using DDFix 1.6 (or whatever the latest one is) and no issues. Thief 2 runs like it used to, except that the up and down movement of the mouse is too sensitive, but that could be just the way the game is coded as I'm running 16:10 aspect ratio which didn't really exist back then, so just getting the sensitivity up for the widescreen is probably screwing with the vertical sensitivity.

Albert on 16/3/2011 at 02:22

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I think I saw this starfield through the environment bug on my game w/ Windows 7 x64, as well. Do you have ATI? As that may be an ATI bug.