Lyril on 19/2/2008 at 20:15
Thank you. I haven't removed Darkloader yet but I guess I'd better make a clean sweep.
Thanks for your help.
Nitocris on 19/2/2008 at 20:21
I sometimes have a problem with readables where I try to open one and have a black screen, I hit esc to leave, alt + tab the game to the desktop, go back to the game, and can now view the readable material. Is this the same kind of problem you're having?
Telliamed on 19/2/2008 at 21:38
Darkloader doesn't use the registry. Just 'DarkLoader.ini' in the folder DL is installed in, and 'DarkLoader.Current' in the Thief folder.
Black screens usually mean flaky video drivers. A common occurrence in Win9x, as I recall. You can try changing the drivers, and "most recent" doesn't always mean "better".
Lyril on 20/2/2008 at 00:14
Nitocris: no black screen for readables - just the damned scroll/book/note sitting there doing nothing at all while I flail uselessly at it with right-mouse. With the sound of page-turning just to make me really mad! Usually it opens eventually, but not always. Some I have not been able to read at all. I hadn't thought about alt-tabbing out.
Telliamed, - I was careful to get what I thought was the 'right' driver for what I thought was the best card for the Dell (I think I was trying to reproduce my first, - and best - computer for Thief which had a Voodoo card I think). It's a Geforce FX5200. It does do fog well.
The Magpie on 20/2/2008 at 01:28
I'll hazard a guess and say it's a case of the graphics card not handling the resolution change between the game world and the book properly. Since it has gotten worse, I theorize that there might be a hardware error, possibly in your card. (Probably not your monitor.)
You can test it by rightclicking once at a book or scroll, and when nothing happens, try moving your mouse and see if the mouselook is there at all. Try alt-tabbing out and in again.
You might want to look into running dxdiag.exe or graphics benchmarking to see if your card is all right, too.
Good luck.
--
Larris
Nitocris on 20/2/2008 at 16:26
Quote Posted by Lyril
Nitocris: no black screen for readables - just the damned scroll/book/note sitting there doing nothing at all while I flail uselessly at it with right-mouse. With the sound of page-turning just to make me
really mad! Usually it opens eventually, but not always. Some I have not been able to read at all. I hadn't thought about alt-tabbing out.
That is so strange.
What resolution are you running the game at? Does your windows resolution match it? If not, change it so that they match and see if that does anything. You may have already tried that, I dunno, but it's worth a shot.
nickie on 21/2/2008 at 12:55
Quote Posted by Yandros
Good point, nickie. While Thief itself doesn't store anything in the registry, I hadn't thought about Darkloader. I wasn't aware it did either, but sounds like you are. :)
Not at all, it was just a suggestion for a bit of searching/cleaning. I had no idea either till reading Telliamed's post and I actually meant RegSeeker rather than RegCleaner. I do know there were several old Darkloader entries all over the place (sloppy housekeeping) which CCleaner removed for me. And after searching also for any references and deleting them, a squeaky clean Darkloader install did the trick in my case.
Lyril on 23/2/2008 at 05:59
With far too many interruptions, and consequent failures, I eventually got everything reinstalled and tested, as far as I knew how.
Same bloody problems.
So out of curiosity I altered the screen to 1280x1024x16. I have always played the games in 640x480, assuning that was what they had been designed for.
Now everything works properly. No black screen on death, no swearing at unopenable readables, and I can even access the map, options and pause screens without major problems. For the first time in absolutely ages.
Life actually means something again!! I'm reliving the joys of Calendra's Legacy and Burgomaster with great delight. Sheer bliss. (well, maybe a tiny bit of exaggeration there)
.............now if I can reinstall Soundblaster and get a few more speakers working........
Thanks for all your help. But I would really love to know - why would the screen resolution make so much difference?
jtr7 on 23/2/2008 at 06:05
I assume it has to do with the fact that the lower resolutions are mostly obsolete, and so, that corner is being cut somewhere.
theBlackman on 24/2/2008 at 00:13
Another reason to stick with my Hitachi Superscan Elite.
I only have a max of 1920 X 1440, but that's a hell of a lot more than I need.
I use 1280 X 1024 which is good enough.
