Renault on 26/9/2012 at 17:53

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Edit: The following info applies to Thief version 1.19 and all updates to it (currently up to 1.27)

Hey -

Thought I'd start a separate thread on this, there appears to be a built-in FM loader (just like Darkloader or Garrettloader) in the new Thief patch that was released. All the details you will need are in a document called FMSel.pdf located in the \doc directory of the new_dark.zip file that comes with the patch. You should definitely read through that, but here's the short version:

1. Install the latest New Dark patch, either manually or by using <strike>Tafferpatcher</strike> T2Fix/Tfix.
2. In the directory where you installed Thief, find a file called "cam_mod.ini." Open it up with Notepad or any other text file editor.
3. Right below the line where it says "always start the FM selector", remove the semicolon in front of ;fm. It should look like this when you're done:



4. Save.

The FM selector will now open up whenever you start Thief. But, we have to tell it where to look for FMs. Start up Thief (which should open up the FM Selector automatically). At the bottom of the window, there's an icon of a gear (see the image below for reference). Click it, and go down to "FM Archive Path." Here you can specify where your FM zip files are located. The Selector should have no problem with sub-directories.

At this point, you can click the refresh button in the upper right corner of the window to update the display. All of your FMs will have an zip/archive icon to the left of them, that means they are not currently installed. You can just double click them to install, they must be installed before you can play them.

All installed FMs are stored in the the /fm directory of your Thief install directory by default. This location can be changed in the cam_mod.ini file if you choose to do so. In simple terms, this is where the FM Selector unzips all the mission files so Thief can access them. It's all transparent and behind the scenes, so you really don't have to worry about it if you don't want to.

There's a whole bunch of other options in the FMSel main window that we can mess with, so have fun. Post any questions or comments regarding the FM Selector in this thread. <strike>Of particular interest is a section in FMSel.pdf regarding conversion for missions containing MP3 files, I'll have to experiment with this later and report back.</strike>

Edit 1:

OK, so it seems you need a specific .dll in your Thief 2 installation directory in order to convert mp3s to .wav format for any missions that use them. For some reason it is not included in the patch package due to copyright issues (which seems strange to me, considering this is an anonymous, unofficial patch released to the public under cover of darkness with a hacked .exe but hey, what do I know). The file you need is libmp3lame.dll, and it needs to go into your Thief 2 installation directory.

Edit: It's been pointed out that the 64 bit version of libmp3lame does not work, likely because FM Selector is a 32 bit program. So even if you're running a 64 bit system, use the 32 bit version. (Thanks LarryG).

You can download a package from these sites that has the file you need. Just to be clear, these are freely available downloads, you are not stealing anything here or doing anything illegal:
(http://lame.sourceforge.net/links.php#Binaries)
(http://www.rarewares.org/mp3-lame-libraries.php)

Once this file is in place, and you "install" an FM using FM Selector, you'll see a notification on-screen that the mp3 is being converted.

FMSel Image:
(https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ox09-rpdZLFmMR7oiEtSHkINJB-FrEip/view?usp=sharing)

Renault on 26/9/2012 at 19:17

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I'm going to be doing some comparisons between the new FM Selector and Darkloader, but one simple thing I noticed right off the bat is that if you're playing several FMs at the same time, you can have all of them installed and there are no delays when starting up each mission. This is nice if you're playing, for example, Black Frog, which on my computer takes a couple of minutes to install all the files through Darkloader.

Now I can switch between (again by example) Black Frog, Reunion With Basso, and Finals At The Academy within a couple of seconds.

Yandros on 27/9/2012 at 03:09

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Mike, that sounds awesome! I guess the only disadvantage of leaving them installed is the disk space they take up uncompressed. I'l have to play with the FM loader once I've finished mucking around in Dromed.

Wizd3m on 27/9/2012 at 12:37

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Just to make sure, this works for both Thief Gold and Thief 2, correct? I'm currently using MLoader for FMs, is there any pressing advantage for using this new built-in loader, or is it simply a convenience for those with freshly installed Thief games?

Renault on 27/9/2012 at 14:30

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I still need to experiment a little bit with Thief 1 and Thief Gold, hopefully tonight. FYI though, I added a little bit to the first post about what you need to do to install and play FMs that contain mp3 files.