Ostriig on 28/2/2010 at 19:19
Windows 7 Professional, 64bit
Installed in DX10 compatibility, customised package consisting of all the options offered, except for DromEd and the ATI mesh fix, with codec registration enabled. The game works right off the bat, with videos playing and textures displaying properly.
I'll report anything that I get during play, but this will likely be a while, as I have Heavy Rain and STALKER ongoing. As a general thing, though, this will be my first play through Thief II, so I'll only be able to report things that are obviously not working, not stuff that isn't working as it should but to a newcomer will seem in order (such as missing fog in various places, for instance).
A couple of bug notes:
- Using the Tafferpatcher to install the game will not add it to the installed programs listing, neither in the Windows menu, nor in the Programs And Features listing in the Control Panel. Also, the game can only be started from its own executable, on the HDD, as the autorun on the CD will not detect it as being installed.
- I don't know if this is an issue with the game itself or something resulting from your patcher, but attempting to run the game with no CD whatsoever in the optical drive will result in a cyclical error - first a "No disc in drive" message, followed by a "Please insert game disc", then back to "No disc" and so forth - regardless of the options (Continue, Retry, Cancel) clicked on either message box. The only solution seems to be to kill the thief2 process from the Task Manager. Attempting to start the game with a CD in the drive, but not the correct one, will properly result in a "Please insert game disc" error, which can be quit from with Cancel.
But, anyway, game works superbly and for that you have my thanks! I tried once before to install it on a Windows XP machine, the old fashioned way, without your patcher, and I quickly hit a brick wall that nothing in the FAQ and no one in Legacy Gaming could help me with. Again, thank you, DJ Riff!
P.S. I assume there's no harm in asking - I'm guessing, however, that seeing as your patcher applies the multi-core fix to the .exe, I'm stuck with that annoying CD check and I can't overwrite it with a No-CD one without having to re-apply the fix afterwards, right? Are there any other operations that your patcher performs on the .exe which would have to be done again if it were replaced with a No-CD one?
Malleus on 1/3/2010 at 02:18
Quote Posted by DJ Riff
— ddfix beta 1.4.4 with optional fog fix for Vista. Thorough testing needed, is if there be any side-effects even with fog fix turned off, I'll have to include older version of ddfix too. Note that the patch won't turn on the fog automatically, so check the game options if you still have no fog
Is the new ddfix backward compatible? I mean I had no fog problems with the old one (1.3.11b) - is it safe to install the new one? I'm using WinXP and a sufficiently old video card. :)
Albert on 1/3/2010 at 04:18
Quote Posted by Malleus
Is the new ddfix backward compatible? I mean I had no fog problems with the old one (1.3.11b) - is it safe to install the new one? I'm using WinXP and a sufficiently old video card. :)
It's not a radical new version, it simply adds better fog rendering to the old DDFIX, so no, your not at any risk by installing it. However, if you already have Thief 2 installed, why bother?
Jah on 1/3/2010 at 08:48
Quote Posted by Beleg Cúthalion
Did anyone mention the infamous German SAT1 version of TMA? I believe it needs a different patch but I'm not too much into these technical issues.
What about the Sold Out edition? I believe it also uses a different version of the patch.
fibanocci on 1/3/2010 at 09:23
Ostriig, you need to edit darkinst.cfg and install.cfg (put ";" in front of the first line, that should do it)
Quote:
What about the Sold Out edition?
I tried TafferPatcher with that version, worked like a charm :)
The german version I tried had this "english" entry in darkinst.cfg and install.cfg. So I had to change that into "german".
DJ Riff on 1/3/2010 at 11:02
I suppose it's not too difficult to implement, I just need language-dependent files from the patch to be added and some taffing around to detect that the source CD
is the German version. I'll do some research on that.
So far I tried to avoid modifying anything inside system folders or registry etc. Will that work if I put that DLL into the Thief folder, not Windows'? The problem is that I don't have a rig that actually
has problems with EAX in Thief.
Quote Posted by Ostriig
- Using the Tafferpatcher to install the game will not add it to the installed programs listing, neither in the Windows menu, nor in the Programs And Features listing in the Control Panel. Also, the game can only be started from its own executable, on the HDD, as the autorun on the CD will not detect it as being installed.
Well, I thought the desktop shortcut (which you can copy/move anywhere you want) is enough. If it isn't, I can add optionally all that registry, Start Menu and uninstall setings, but it still will work only for the last installed copy of the game.
Quote Posted by Ostriig
- I don't know if this is an issue with the game itself or something resulting from your patcher, but attempting to run the game with no CD whatsoever in the optical drive will result in a cyclical error - first a "No disc in drive" message, followed by a "Please insert game disc", then back to "No disc" and so forth - regardless of the options (Continue, Retry, Cancel) clicked on either message box. The only solution seems to be to kill the thief2 process from the Task Manager. Attempting to start the game with a CD in the drive, but not the correct one, will properly result in a "Please insert game disc" error, which can be quit from with Cancel.
It's not a game itself, it's an OS preventing the game to do proper CD check if CD-drive is empty. AFAIR, it can be dealt with by moving the
system "Continue-Retry-Cancel" dialog somewhere aside, clicking Cancel on
game's dialog, then click Cancel on that system dialog. But I may be wrong and in Win7 this workaround may be "fixed" already. BTW, you can "persuade" the game not to look for CD by adding a semicolon in front of
cd_path string in darkinst.cfg.
Quote Posted by Ostriig
P.S. I assume there's no harm in asking - I'm guessing, however, that seeing as your patcher applies the multi-core fix to the .exe, I'm stuck with that annoying CD check and I can't overwrite it with a No-CD one without having to re-apply the fix afterwards, right? Are there any other operations that your patcher performs on the .exe which would have to be done again if it were replaced with a No-CD one?
See above. The .exe file is rewritten from a common template every time you click 'Finish' in Tafferpatcher dialog. It's done that way to solve lots of dependencies between exe-modifying patches. So if you re-run Tafferpatcher without adding / removing anything, it's enough to discard any custom changes made to .exe and to form it according to the current set of patches. That's why there's an option not to apply any changes to dromed.exe — to leave custom Dromed executable as it is.
Quote Posted by Malleus
Is the new ddfix backward compatible? I mean I had no fog problems with the old one (1.3.11b) - is it safe to install the new one? I'm using WinXP and a sufficiently old video card. :)
It's completely safe as your old ddfix.dll if stored in thief2\tafferpatcher\backup folder. If you have any problems with the new ddfix, simply copy the old one to the thief2 folder. And please report about that, as in that case I should include the old version too.
Beleg Cúthalion on 1/3/2010 at 11:36
The reason why I brought the Sat1 thing up is that I wonder – since the patch content should be the same – if it's possible to apply this patch content according to the different game(version)s. If I understood this correctly then you're embedding those things anyway.
DJ Riff on 1/3/2010 at 11:53
Quote Posted by Beleg Cúthalion
The reason why I brought the Sat1 thing up is that I wonder – since the patch content should be the same – if it's possible to apply this patch content according to the different game(version)s. If I understood this correctly then you're embedding those things anyway.
The issue is
language string during installation and language-dependent files stored in
*.crf\german\* during updating to 1.18.
Malleus on 1/3/2010 at 14:16
Quote Posted by DJ Riff
It's completely safe as your old ddfix.dll if stored in thief2\tafferpatcher\backup folder. If you have any problems with the new ddfix, simply copy the old one to the thief2 folder. And please report about that, as in that case I should include the old version too.
I tried it, and tested the beginning of LotP and Precious Cargo, and there were no problems with the fog.
EDIT: Anyway, the patch itself installed fine. At the beginning it asked if I want to make my Thief2 install into a full install, but I have the dvd re-release version, so I had to choose no. Then it installed stuff, including the 1.18 patch, even though this verison is supposedly already 1.18. But none of these were problems in the end, the game works fine.
Ostriig on 1/3/2010 at 15:15
Quote Posted by fibanocci
Ostriig, you need to edit darkinst.cfg and install.cfg (put ";" in front of the first line, that should do it)
Quote Posted by DJ Riff
BTW, you can "persuade" the game not to look for CD by adding a semicolon in front of
cd_path string in darkinst.cfg.
Thanks, both of you, commenting out the cd path in darkinst.cfg solved it!
Quote Posted by DJ Riff
It's not a game itself, it's an OS preventing the game to do proper CD check if CD-drive is empty. AFAIR, it can be dealt with by moving the
system "Continue-Retry-Cancel" dialog somewhere aside, clicking Cancel on
game's dialog, then click Cancel on that system dialog. But I may be wrong and in Win7 this workaround may be "fixed" already.
Scratch my previous comment, I no longer get that error. At the time I made my previous post I had installed and run Thief 2 without restarting the computer, and I got that result. Now, though, the game has added itself a shortcut to the W7 Games folder, and running it even with no disk in drive (and copy protection active) will only result in the "insert game disc" message, which reacts properly to OK or Cancel - no more system "no disc in drive" and cyclical error check.
Quote:
Well, I thought the desktop shortcut (which you can copy/move anywhere you want) is enough. If it isn't, I can add optionally all that registry, Start Menu and uninstall setings, but it still will work only for the last installed copy of the game.
It's more than enough for me, don't get me wrong. And, like I said, Windows appears to recognise the game in its Games launch folder, though it's still not registered with the programs menu or the Programs and Features listing in Control Panel. The reason I pointed it out is that I imagine that, if you're trying to target average, less technical, users as well, some of them may freak out when they decide to uninstall the game and can't find it, since one of the first things you get taught as a newbie about working with Windows is to not delete applications forcefully, but to uninstall them. Some may not realise that the game doesn't register itself with the Programs listing and is safe to delete manually, then promptly proceed to spam your inbox about it. As for multiple installs, it's probably safe to assume that the average user will only have one.
