Thief Series FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (Technical / Purchasing / Etc.) - 2012

Ancalagon on 5/6/2025 at 06:05

Quote Posted by voodoo47

hard to tell without knowing anything about your Thief install, but generally speaking, unless you already are (https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150989) fully patched and using (https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=152783) the latest mod/fan mission loaders, you probably will have to start from scratch/new install.

also wrong forum. and this topic should be cast into the fires of mt Doom.

I thank you regardless. Was hoping for an easy fix first. Ill go ahead and clean install + fixes first.

jackc1990 on 27/7/2025 at 23:17

Hello, I'm trying to get the Dark Engine trilogy working via DDFix (for research, historical, and archival purposes) and have hit a bit of a snag. I'm following Nameless Voice's guide (https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=121449) here and was able to find DDFix 1.5.11 without issue, but I'm unable to download the executables for each respective game due to the links being dead. The files in question were hosted on saleck.net:

DDFix-ThiefGold.zip
DDFix-Thief1.zip
DDFix-Thief2.zip
DDFix-Shock2.zip

From what I understand, I need these modified executables to point to the new ddfix.dll / ddfix.ini files instead of relying on DirectDraw. Nameless Voice says in the post "You can alternately manually modify the game's executable using a hex editor, but this is far more technical." which I guess if I can't get these files is the only option I'm left with, however I cannot find any instructions or resources to explain this process.

I have my retail backups of the trilogy (plus Thief Gold) and right now the one I'm particularly focused on is Thief TDP (not Gold), but I'd really like to get all four releases working on DDFix if at all possible. Again, I realize this is an antiquated method, but I'm hoping someone out there either still has these modified executables or know what to change via hexeditor to point them towards DDFix.

Thank you all!

snobel on 28/7/2025 at 06:14

From memory (and a (https://www.gog.com/forum/thief_series/step_by_step_installation_guide_to_avoid_problems) quick search) you just change every occurrence of "ddraw.dll" in the exe to "ddfix.dll".

jackc1990 on 28/7/2025 at 22:37

Quote Posted by snobel

From memory (and a (https://www.gog.com/forum/thief_series/step_by_step_installation_guide_to_avoid_problems) quick search) you just change every occurrence of "ddraw.dll" in the exe to "ddfix.dll".

Is this the only change made to the executable(s)? If so, I can do that myself. In fact I already did last night but was getting a "Invalid resolution in cam.cfg" error. Upon opening it, I noticed it was missing many lines, such as "game_screen_size", but even when added manually I'd get a crash to desktop. I don't see a similar line in ddfix.ini to match it to, but maybe this is where the issue lies. My cam.cfg file looks like this:

Quote:

; $Header: r:/prj/cam/src/RCS/cam.cfg 1.14 1998/09/23 20:00:41 mahk Exp $

; hey, which game is this
game dark

; general configs
include_user_cfg user.cfg
editor_include_dromed_cfg dromed.cfg

; game specific paths/configs
dark_include_install_cfg install.cfg

shock_resname_base r:\prj\shock\art\finals

; set trait cache to include concretes
trait_cache_flags 2

game_screen_size 1024 768

snobel on 29/7/2025 at 16:01

Quote Posted by jackc1990

Is this the only change made to the executable(s)?

As far as I know, yes.

Quote:

was getting a "Invalid resolution in cam.cfg" error. Upon opening it, I noticed it was missing many lines, such as "game_screen_size", but even when added manually I'd get a crash to desktop. I don't see a similar line in ddfix.ini to match it to, but maybe this is where the issue lies.

I don't remember any details, sorry...

jackc1990 on 29/7/2025 at 17:20

No worries, I realize it's been a long time since anyone really messed with it. Voodoo and Nameless Voice were able to get me on the right path and I'm now able to successfully boot into Thief Gold with DDFix. Everything appears to be working (including movies) and running around on the first level I've not really noticed anything out of the ordinary. No rendering issues, crashes, etc. I'll experiment more with getting TDP, SS2 and T2 working later today. Appreciate the input!

atarirob on 4/8/2025 at 09:27

Quote Posted by jackc1990

Hello, I'm trying to get the Dark Engine trilogy working via DDFix (for research, historical, and archival purposes)

Just an aside but, if archival is your goal and you already own the original CD-ROMs, you might be interested in (https://github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompat/releases) DDrawCompat.

It's a DLL wrapper that you can drag directly into the T1/TG/T2/SS2 directory and it will look for any compatible EXE files and allow them to run on Windows 10 x64 (should work on 11 too, haven't properly tested). Without it, the games won't open past the install.

This means you can play the games in their original unpatched state, 4:3 only, warts and all. It plays very well and makes for a good historical counterpart to a NewDark install with TFix, RoguePatcher or SS2Tool. Movies work so long as you open THIEF.EXE as administrator as the original CD-ROM installs rely on D: drive access.

Hopefully you find this useful :)

jackc1990 on 4/8/2025 at 15:38

Thank you for the tip, atarirob! I'll give it a shot tonight. I've been able to install them via a VM and copy the installation folders across to my host machine, and even outside of that there's the "-LGNTFORCE" trick on the installer. Appreciate it!