Trying to get Thief 1 (Gold) to work on my computer

Vic 2.0 on 25/2/2012 at 06:12

Trying to get Thief 1 (Gold) to work on my computer. It's the same ol' problem of the game running too fast. Here's what I've done so far:

Vertical sync is on
I've tried all the options for Antialiasing.
In fact, I've tried EVERY option under my NVIDIA Control Panel's "Manage 3D Settings"
The screen refresh rate is 60 Hertz
Priority is Realtime
Processor Affinity is set to CPU 0 only (just one CPU instead of two)
I've tried all the Screen Resolutions available in Display Properties from the desktop
I've tried all the compatibility modes available through the shortcut on my desktop
In the game's options, Hardware's Off and Character Detail is Low

YEAH! I've been hunting for more advice and can't seem to find any. Is there any hope? Or is it possible the answer is a complex combination of all these factors?

Thanks in advance for your help!

sNeaksieGarrett on 26/2/2012 at 00:50

First of all I would restore the game back to normal priority or whatever it is. Increasing that would make the game run faster* which is obviously the reverse of what you want.

My memory escapes me but I thought there was a way to limit the framerate of thief in addition to vsync as that isn't working for you anyway. Sorry I can't be of much help. I have heard of something called an "FPS limiter" that may help, or maybe even a CPU limiter but I'm not endorsing those methods just throwing them out there as possible solutions.

* I'm not really knowledgeable in this area so I may be wrong but I think this is the case.

Vic 2.0 on 26/2/2012 at 02:14

Well, I just got it to run on my computer... kinda. Everything's working now, except I keep getting the message "Requested screen mode could not be set" when I continue my game from any of the menus, maps, objectives, etc.

I've set the screen resolution at 800x600 in both the cam.cfg and ddfix.ini documents just as the DDFix ReadMe 1.3.11 file instructeed (It's supposed to be DDFix version 1.5.11, according to the ZIP folder). I've confirmed that in the Video options in the game itself, the resolution is 800x600x8.

Do you know how I might get rid of that?

Oh yeah, if it matters, my screen resolution for the computer in general is 1280x1024. If I switch it to 800x600, it makes it so the game only loads to the start screen and the cursor just shakes violently. I have to Ctrl+Alt+Del at that point.

Vic 2.0 on 26/2/2012 at 03:41

Update: Actually, there IS another problem. Turns out I can't play for longer than a few minutes without the game freezing. I can Ctrl+Alt+Del out and then return for a few more minutes of gameplay, but it always freezes again! :mad:

sNeaksieGarrett on 27/2/2012 at 03:04

Odd, that usually is a symptom of folks using a multi-core cpu with thief and the game crashes because of it. DDFIX is supposed to enable the multi-core fix by default, so unless for some reason your multicorefix in ddfix.ini is set to 0 instead of 1*, then I don't know why that is happening to you.:confused:

Not sure why your system is setting it to 800x600x8... That's like putting the game into software mode.:eww: You should set your res in cam.cfg to 1280x1024, and if there is any resolution setting in your 1.5.11 ddfix.ini, remove it. The newest version of ddfix doesn't need those lines (gwidth and gheight), as ddfix looks to cam.cfg anyway.

Also, check to make sure your cam.cfg has this:
game_screen_depth 16

DDFIX actually forces the game to run in 32-bit rendering, but in-game the thief 2 menu should show your res followed by 16.

*If for some reason your game is already set to use one core with ddfix, double-check that it is indeed running in one core by alt-tabbing out of your game and opening task manager, then right click on the thief process> set affinity> uncheck all but CPU 0

Vic 2.0 on 28/2/2012 at 02:42

Quote Posted by sNeaksieGarrett

Yeah, I confirmed it's set to 0. I'm using something called PriFinitty to force it on both Thief 1 and Thief 2 (oddly enough, Thief 2 is running perfectly).

Quote Posted by sNeaksieGarrett

Not sure why your system is setting it to 800x600x8... That's like putting the game into software mode.:eww: You should set your res in cam.cfg to 1280x1024, and if there is any resolution setting in your 1.5.11 ddfix.ini, remove it. The newest version of ddfix doesn't need those lines (gwidth and gheight), as ddfix looks to cam.cfg anyway.

Also, check to make sure your cam.cfg has this:
game_screen_depth 16

Okay, I changed the resolution in cam.cfg to 1280 1024, and removed the resolution setting from ddfix.ini. "game_screen_depth" was set to 8, so I changed it to 16 also.

*sigh* When I loaded the game with these settings, it was locked on the main menu (like it was in hyper drive, though, but I couldn't move the mouse). I think this is because there aren't any resolutions in the video options for 16 bit. You mentioned the Thief 2 menu; I'm playing Thief 1, so...

I changed the game_screen_depth back to 8 and resolution back to 800 600 (figured out it was the resolution change in cam that made it do that). Now I'm back where I started. Thanks for your efforts, though! I'm completely lost here, so anything is appreciated.

sNeaksieGarrett on 28/2/2012 at 19:04

First part of your response:

Ah, so you are relying on a third party app to force cores. Hmm, odd that you are getting a symptom that would suggest you are using more than one core... Even weirder that it works for thief 2 but not thief 1. Could you confirm that your game is actually running with one core? (Alt-tab out of game, open task manager, right click the thief.exe process> set affinity > CPU 0 checked, all others unchecked)

Second part:

Sorry, I thought we were talking about Thief 2 specifically. However, I'm using 16 bit on my thief gold and I have no issues with it. 8 bit is really...:eww:. Unless you like playing (or are willing to live with it because of the problems occuring) in 8bit rendering I'd suggest keeping it at 16.

Just thought of this, is your hardware set to On in thief options?

Vic 2.0 on 29/2/2012 at 02:37

Quote Posted by sNeaksieGarrett

Yep. Did that.

Quote Posted by sNeaksieGarrett

Second part:

Sorry, I thought we were talking about Thief 2 specifically. However, I'm using 16 bit on my thief gold and I have no issues with it. 8 bit is really...:eww:. Unless you like playing (or are willing to live with it because of the problems occuring) in 8bit rendering I'd suggest keeping it at 16.

Just thought of this, is your hardware set to On in thief options?

I'd probably rather run it on 16 bit, if I figure out a way to make it work.

Right now, Hardware is Off. When I turn it on, and then exit to game, I get a black screen (with only my health bar showing) and I hear rapid footsteps of the guy in the first room in training. So I figure it speeds up the game somehow.

sNeaksieGarrett on 1/3/2012 at 01:40

Aha! Bingo. That's why thief shows 8 next to your res in the menus. I thought this (hardware off) might be why, hence my question.

Hardware On tells the game to actually use the game's hardware renderer (that is, the 3d accelerated graphics and uses your gfx card) whereas if you turn it off it uses the software renderer, which is similar to what dromed looks like since it runs in software mode. This is why setting it back to 16 isn't working because you need hardware On for that.

To be honest I don't know all the technical details behind software mode versus hardware mode but I do know that the game runs in 8 bit with hardware off, and 16 bit with hardware on.

Hmm, as far as your black screen problem. Guess hardware mode is having an issue but I don't know what is going on. Seems like it might be a graphics card drivers issue. I know that thief running too fast or a black screen had to do with multi-core CPUs and all cores being activated while playing the game, except you've just told me that you made sure the game is running in one core.:confused: Afraid I'm stumped past this.