Thief 2 no longer working

ballast on 29/7/2011 at 20:11

The past few weeks I've been playing Thief 1 and Thief 2. I followed all the steps to get both games running and I finished playing Thief 1 and moved on to Thief 2.

I've gone through all the stickied walkthroughs on these forums and elsewhere on how to properly install it with ddfix, cam.cfg., ddfix.ini, processor.bat, and etc. Thief 2 played well until a few days ago when I got a "Your video card is not compatible with Thief 2."

Nothing has changed on my system except a Windows update that updated MS Security Essentials. I hadn't updated any drivers or anything between the day that Thief 2 worked, and the day it didn't.

I don't understand why I keep getting that error when it previously was fine. I've uninstalled and reinstalled Thief 2 multiple times, following the stickied thread here step by step, as well as this alternate site: (http://www.johnanthonycurran.com/thief.html) http://www.johnanthonycurran.com/thief.html. I've Google multiple fixes and yet I keep getting the same error.

I was wondering if someone can copy and paste a copy of their ddfix.ini, cam.cfg, and user.cfg files because I think it may be related to the settings in one or more of those.

I can't for the life of me figure out what's wrong and it's driving me crazy because it was playing great one day, and then no longer a few days later. Maybe Thief 2 has reached it's end of life? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
--ballast

My specs for reference:
Windows 7 Professional 64 bit
Intel Core 2 Quad 9550
NVidia GTX 260
8 GB RAM

Nathan on 29/7/2011 at 23:57

I have a some questions about your setup which may help to narrow down the problem:

1. Can you still play Thief 1 without the video card error? (problem is only with Thief 2, Thief 1 still works fine)
2. What version of ddfix are you using with both Thief 1 and Thief 2?
3. What resolution are you trying to run on both games?
4. Does Thief 2 work with a regular install without ddfix applied?
5. Are you manually editing config files (cam.cfg, ddfix.ini etc.) and if so, what exactly are you editing?
6. Are you trying to run Thief 2 in compatibility mode (Windows 2000, XP etc)?
7. How are you installing and setting up Thief 2? (are you just manually installing from CD's then applying fixes manually or are you using the tool tafferpatcher?) Also, what is your install location?

The good news is that if Thief 1 is still working fine then it is probably an issue with one of the steps used after Thief 2 is installed. I would suggest downloading tafferpatcher if you don't have it already. You can find it (http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=131106) here.

If you don't have and don't want to use Tafferpatcher that's fine. You might be able to get it to work manually but in that case it will help to know what exact steps you are taking to do it from install to the end.

ballast on 31/7/2011 at 19:12

Quote Posted by Nathan

1. Yes, I can play Thief 1 without hitches.
2. Using the latest version ddfix v1.5.11
3. Thief 1 has been in 1024 x 768. I used to run Thief 2 at the same resolution as well.
4. No, Thief 2 does not. I get the DirectX error and originally fixed that with ddfix. Interestingly, Thief 1 works without ddfix, although the game screen is shrunk down to a small resolution.

5. Yes, I am manually editing config files, specifically:
user.cfg - removing the colon before the safe_texture_manager
cam.cfg - adding game_screen_size 1024 768, for resolution. If I don't add that, I get a "Invalid resolution in cam.cfg" error.
ddfix.ini - I actually didn't touch before when the game was working, but have since tried fixes in there to get it to work again.

6. Yes, I'm trying to run it in various compatibility modes, to no avail. I think that when I was originally playing it, I didn't even have to run it in a compatibility mode. Thief 1 runs without any compatibility modes.

7. I'm installing via CDs and manually copying/changing files as listed.

I've never heard of tafferpatcher, since I haven't needed to use it. I'll check it out now.

In terms of steps to install Thief 2, i pretty much follow this to the T : (http://www.johnanthonycurran.com/thief.html) http://www.johnanthonycurran.com/thief.html

Thanks for your help.
-ballast

ballast on 31/7/2011 at 20:38

So I tried out the Taffer Patcher, which I have to admit is very convenient and easy to use. But I unfortunately, Thief 2 still doesn't work. I get the same error/crash that I've always been getting, which is:

Quote:

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: thief2.exe
Application Version: 1.9.0.0
Application Timestamp: 31313931
Fault Module Name: ddfix.dll
Fault Module Version: 1.5.11.0
Fault Module Timestamp: 4d249226
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 000137f5
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.48
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: dc18
Additional Information 2: dc18b7cca9442ac24168f8b29956fa03
Additional Information 3: 197d
Additional Information 4: 197da20bb06f9472bf0604df8759a097

Nathan on 1/8/2011 at 04:16

Ok a few more questions\suggestions: :cheeky:
1. When adding the line game_screen_size 1024 768 to cam.cfg where are you putting it in the file? If you add this line to the end of the file make sure you hit enter after the last character to make sure there is an empty line after it.
2. Try putting the colon back before safe_texture_manager. I think from my experience this may cause a problem with ddfix if it is not needed.
3. Are you running Thief 2 in administrator mode?

4. If none of the above work I would suggest uninstalling your video card drivers and reinstalling (possibly updated) drivers. Your crash report indicates that ddfix is the culprit. Since you stated that your game worked fine before I can only guess that something however minor has changed.

ballast on 3/8/2011 at 02:56

Quote Posted by Nathan

Number 1 did it! (I think) In all my research, I never heard of making sure to put a blank line after the resolution. Once I did that, the game ran. Everything is still on, including safe texture manager, and in fact, the game looks 10x better than when I was originally playing.

Thank you very much Nathan! If I could +1 or rep you Nathan I would 100 times. :D

For future reference for everyone else:

* Running Windows 7 Pro, Core Quad 9550, Nvidia GTX 260
* Instead of installing in Program Files, I installed Thief 2 in the base C:/ directory.
* Running in Windows 2000 compatibility mode, but not administrator mode.
* It's running with safe texture manager 'on' and with a game resolution of 1920 x 1200.
* I used Taffer Patcher 1.0.0 (quick and convenient) to install the game and all the settings. (Taffer Patcher 1.0.0) http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=131106

Here's a copy of my ddfix.ini file, also for reference:

Quote:

;Sample initialization file for ddfix. The settings are the defaults and
;intentionally commented out. (Uncomment a setting only if you need to change
;the value.)

[Main]

;Set all options to safe values and ignore the rest of this file. In safe
;mode widescreen is not available. Set one of the originally supported
;display modes in cam.cfg. Boolean.
SafeMode=0

;Enable per-mission ini files. Boolean.
;For <name>.mis, the per-mission ini file name is <name>.ddfix.ini.
;A per-mission ini file may contain [PostProcessing] and [Fog] sections.
EnableMissionIni=1

;Prevent multicore related crash. Boolean.
MultiCoreFix=1

;Register lgvid.ax every time game is started. Boolean.
VideoFix=1

;Disable the Windows key. Boolean.
DisableWindowsKey=1

;Refresh rate. Integer. (0 = driver default.)
RefreshRate=0

;Use vsync. Boolean.
FlipVSync=1

;Number of vsyncs per flip. Increase this number to decrease frame rate. 1-4.
FlipInterval=1

;Frame rate limit in frames per second. Float. (0 = unlimited.)
FrameRateLimit=0

;Menu screen update delay in milliseconds. This is needed only if vsync is off.
;(0 = no delay.)
MenuUpdateDelay=0

;Menu/video screen aspect ratio. Float. (0 = fullscreen.)
MenuScreenAspect=1.33333

;Anisotropic filtering for the first texture stage. Boolean.
AnisotropicFiltering=1

;Triple buffering. Boolean.
TripleBuffer=1

;Number of bits for the Z buffer. 16 or 24.
ZBufferBitDepth=24

;Enable gamma correction. Boolean.
EnableGamma=1

;Field of view (FOV) in percent. Integer.
FovModification=100

;On-screen size (in percent of the screen size) of the selected item and weapon
;in Thief.
ItemSize=20

;Fix the variable water transparency problem in T2 by forcing opaque alpha.
WaterAlphaFix=1

;Multiply levels by 2**ModulateShift.
ModulateShift=0

;Fix the T2 limb rendering bug. Boolean.
;Turn this off for T2X and other FMs with custom reverse-Z limb models.
;Default for T2:
;LimbZBufferFix=1
;Default for others:
;LimbZBufferFix=0

LimbZBufferFix=1

;Place some surfaces in system memory instead of video memory. 0, 1 or 2.
;0 = all surfaces in video memory.
;1 = menu in system memory. In case of any menu screen corruption.
;2 = menu and overlay in system memory. In case of any in-game UI corruption.
UseSysMemOverlay=0

;Any 16-bit color that is _not_ used by the in-game overlay.
OverlayColourKey=0xffdf

;Blit the overlay to the backbuffer with each Unlock() call. Together with
;UseSysMemOverlay=2 this can result in a poor frame rate. Boolean.
LayeredOverlay=1

;Turns on the 32 bit texture loader and some other things such as global fog
;autodetection. Boolean.
TextureReplacement=1

;Replacement texture path. Must include the trailing backslash. Relative paths
;are relative to the game main directory.
TexturePath=res\ddfix\

;When TextureReplacement=1, the MemAddr section can be used to set the memory
;addresses to patch. The following executables are currently detected and memory
;patches applied:
;TG v1.37, T2 v1.18, SS2 v2.3, Dromed v1.37, Dromed2 v1.18, ShockEd v2.12.

[MemAddr]
;CopyTex=
;MipMap=
;CreateVidTexture=
;TextureExists=
;CreateFile=
;BltPrimary=
;Resolution=
;VertResLimit=
;FovModification=
;AspectCorrection=
;ItemSize=
;OrbAspectCorrection=
;MaxSkyIntensity=

[Fog]

;Enable fog fix. Fog must also be enabled in the game options. Boolean.
Enable=1

;Global fog. 0 = no, 1 = autodetect (requires TextureReplacement=1), 2 = force.
Global=1

[PostProcessing]

;Enable postprocessing. Boolean.
Enable=0

;Modulation for the unbloomed frame buffer. 0xrrggbb.
Base=0xffffff

;Overall saturation. 0-255. (255 = full saturation, 0 = grayscale.)
Saturation=192

;Bloom intensity. 0-255. (0 = disable all bloom processing.)
Bloom=255

;Bloom also the user interface. BloomUI=0 only works with the game executables,
;not the editors. Boolean.
BloomUI=0

;Gain from bloom level to the next. 0xrrggbb. (0x404040 = zero gain.)
BloomPersistence=0x404040

;Bloom saturation. 0-255. (255 = full saturation, 0 = grayscale.)
BloomSaturation=192

;A per-level zoom-in factor. Integer. (0 = no spread.)
;This makes the bloom spread out (positive values) or in (negative values).
BloomSpread=0

;Colors below this will cause no bloom. 0xrrggbb.
BloomThreshold=0x202020

;Trailing and afterimages. 0xaarrggbb. (0 = no trailing.)
;The rgb components modulate the trail color, while the alpha component governs
;how much of the bloom from the last frame is blended into the current frame.
BloomTrail=0x80ffffff

;Shift left for the bloom source. Integer 0-8.
;The result of applying threshold (which is actually a subtraction), is
;multiplied by 2**BloomShift.
BloomShift=0

;After applying BloomShift, modulate the result with the original frame buffer.
;Boolean.
BloomShiftRemodulate=0

;Adjust gamma dynamically based on average intensity. EnableGamma must be 1.
;Float. Resulting gamma is DynamicGamma*(ln(averageIntensity)-3)+userGamma,
;clamped to [0.5, 1.5], where averageIntensity is sampled from the screen
;(range [0, 255]) and userGamma is set by the user from the keyboard or menu.
;The reasonable range for DynamicGamma is something like [0, 0.5].
DynamicGamma=0

;Adjust BloomThreshold dynamically based on average intensity. Boolean.
DynamicThreshold=0

;The rate of decay per second for average intensity. Affects both dynamic
;gamma and dynamic threshold. Float 0 - 0.99.
DynamicDecay=.5

;Resulting threshold is DynamicMult*averageIntensity+DynamicAdd. Float.
DynamicMult=1.5
DynamicAdd=8.0

Nathan on 3/8/2011 at 03:25

Glad I could help.

Quote:

I can't take credit for that fix. Someone had already figured that out. It was in the ddfix thread under a manual install of ddfix.

Oh, and I don't think you needed to post or edit your ddfix.ini. You only need to uncomment out a value if you are going to change it from it's initial value. For example uncommenting MultiCoreFix=1 does nothing because it is 1 by default. If you changed it to MultiCoreFix=0 however it would make a difference (turn it off).

ballast on 3/8/2011 at 03:53

Quote Posted by Nathan

Glad I could help.

I can't take credit for that fix. Someone had already figured that out. It was in the ddfix thread under a manual install of ddfix.

Oh, and I don't think you needed to post or edit your ddfix.ini. You only need to uncomment out a value if you are going to change it from it's initial value. For example uncommenting MultiCoreFix=1 does nothing because it is 1 by default. If you changed it to MultiCoreFix=0 however it would make a difference (turn it off).

I understand; I just wanted to put it out there for reference for other people. Prior to this, I was trying all manner of manual setting changes to get Thief 2 work. I have to admit that the Taffer Patcher is great and I highly recommend it for everyone to use.

Nathan on 3/8/2011 at 04:41

Quote:

Prior to this, I was trying all manner of manual setting changes to get Thief 2 work.

Yeah, sometimes these types of problems can be pretty frustrating. As George Carlin would say "How often the simple solution eludes us." when referring to his solution for getting rid of counterfeit money by putting it in the collection plate at church.