Virgil on 14/1/2011 at 09:07
Hi everybody! First, I'd like to say that I like your forum, since Deus Ex is one of my favourite games and recently I've discovered the Thief series. I used to dismiss it on the grounds of being a boring stealth game - turned out I was very wrong. And now, to my question.
The first time I've tried latest Thief game was around several years ago - if I remember correctly I've stopped playing because it was crashing in a transition area, but not sure. Several days ago I decided to try it again, after beating Thief 2 and encountered lot of problems.
I have my share of experience with making old software work on newer system, but this case is just exceptional and I even couldn't call a 2004 game "old". While game started fine and I was able to make my way through a tutorial mission, after debriefing the screen turned black and my PC rebooted without my consent. I've tried once more and the outcome stayed the same. After reading the forums I've tried to disable multi and that way I was able to play the second mission. But even after that game is very unstable, like it in alpha or beta stage: randomly rebooting the system, when quicksaving or going from one area to another.
Maybe, I've missed something in my searches, but is there a fix for that problem? I'd really like to play a game, but it doesn't want me to.
Here's my PC specs: Core2Duo e8400/2Gb DDR2 RAM/Sapphire Radeion 4850 1Gba(Catalyst 10.12 drivers) /Realtek HD on-board sound/Windows XP sp3. The game is patched to 1.1 version and includes a high-res texture pack.
lost_soul on 14/1/2011 at 21:37
It sounds like a video driver issue. Have you updated them? If this happens with other games, it could also be a hardware problem too.
Virgil on 15/1/2011 at 08:03
Yeah, I've changed from 10.10 to 10.12 (latest version) to see, if that problem is driver related. I don't have problems with any other games I've played lately, such as Anno 1404 and Civilization 5.
Virgil on 18/1/2011 at 13:42
Seems that it's a driver conflict problem, because when I enabled a BSOD notification it gave an error saying STOP 0x0000008 blah-blah ati3duag.dll. I've searched the web for that error code, but most solutions were out of date i.e. install a windows update from 2006 or get a newer driver pack. Guys, that's totally sucks. I'll try to do a clean install of a driver lately, but I don't think it'll help.
Renzatic on 18/1/2011 at 19:09
Have you tried turning off Catalyst AI? I've heard that can cause alot of problems with certain games.
Virgil on 20/1/2011 at 21:21
@Renzatic
Tried that, still getting the same error.
van HellSing on 20/1/2011 at 22:13
It's probably the power supply. I've had this happen to me before: first, one game will start causing reboots in specific situations (usually level changes), next the reboots will start happening more often, to the point where you won't be able to run the PC for more than a few minutes. Turning off multi reduced the strain on the psu a bit, so that's why you were able to progress.
Renzatic on 20/1/2011 at 23:07
Quote Posted by van HellSing
It's probably the power supply. I've had this happen to me before: first, one game will start causing reboots in specific situations (usually level changes), next the reboots will start happening more often, to the point where you won't be able to run the PC for more than a few minutes. Turning off multi reduced the strain on the psu a bit, so that's why you were able to progress.
Doubtful considering he isn't having any problems with Civ5 or Anno 1404. Both of those are more recent games, that make bigger demands on his system than Thief 3 does. If he was having hardware issues, it would've crashed during those games as well.
It's alot like the problems I had getting Gothic 1 & 2 running in Windows 7. I'd get to a certain point, and the graphics card would freak out, causing me to blue screen and reboot. On the surface, it looks like a hardware issue, what with the computer freaking out, making my speakers buzz and pop before BSODing and rebooting itself. What it ended up being was the game making an old DX call that hasn't been needed for years and years, and thus wasn't supported on the driver level.
He might be going through the something similar. If that's the case, what I'd suggest he do is downgrade to an earlier driver rev, and see how that works.
Virgil on 21/1/2011 at 00:27
@van HellSing
I got 550w PSU from Chieftec, much more than I currently need.
Quote:
If that's the case, what I'd suggest he do is downgrade to an earlier driver rev, and see how that works.
Theoretically, I could try that. But that means going through a hell lot of drivers using only a trial and error method, so that's time consuming. If there's a known version of a catalyst that works with Thief (since, I sincerely believe, I'm not the only user of ATI cards around here), I'd like to try.
