How to get Thief 2 - The Metal Age working on new computers
Version 1.1 - Last Updated May 23rd 2009
Welcome. This guide will help you get Thief 2 running on your computer in less then 15 minutes.
Installing The Game
Installing The Patch
Thief2.exe and DromEd.exe files
Modifying INSTALL.CFG and DARKINST.CFG
CRF Files
Processor Affinity (Stops Thief 2 freezing when playing)
Enabling EAX
Enabling EAX in Windows Vista (Realtek Onboard Sound)
Enabling EAX in Windows Vista (Creative Sound Card)
DDFix
Dark Widescreen Mod
Modifying CAM.CFG
Changing Resolution
Safe Texture Manager
In Game Movies Not Playing
Thief 2 Video Patch
 
Installing The Game Top
First of all. You need the Thief 2 CDs. Pirated Versions are NOT supported by this guide. If you really value the game, you'd go out and buy it!
Pop the install CD in your CD drive, Open up Windows Explorer. Go into your CD and click on Setup.exe to start installing the game.
This tutorial will assume that you are installing to "C:\Games\Thief 2 - The Metal Age" but you can install it wherever you like, just substitute the directory above for your own directory. Do a FULL INSTALL of the game.
Now, with Thief 2 installed. Open CD1 again in Explorer. go into EDITOR and find DROMED.ZIP


Extract the Contents of this Zip file into your Thief 2 installation overwriting any files it finds.
All is going well, now Thief 2 should be installed successfully.

 
Installing The Patch Top
OK, You have Thief 2 version 1.07 installed. The last patch to be released for Thief 2 was 1.18.
Please note if you either have the Original 'Big Box' version or the 'Sold Out' version of the game.
Thief 2 - 1.18 Patch ('Big Box' version)
Thief 2 - 1.18 Patch ('Sold Out' version)
Once you have the right patch for you're version of Thief 2. Go ahead and install it and upgrade Thief 2 to 1.18
 
Thief2.exe and DromEd.exe files Top
Next, we need to overwrite the Thief2.exe and DromEd.exe files that are in the Thief 2 installation.
Thief 2 New EXE - DromEd New EXE
Put these files into your Thief 2 directory overwriting the old ones. These help correct errors on newer computers with ATI and nVidia cards.
 
Modifying INSTALL.CFG and DARKINST.CFG Top
Open your Install.cfg file with Notepad located in the Thief 2 directory (Right Click on the file and click Open With... Select Notepad and click OK). It should look something like this:

cd_path F:\
install_path C:\Games\Thief 2 - The Metal Age
language english
resname_base C:\Games\Thief 2 - The Metal Age\res+F:\thief2
load_path C:\Games\Thief 2 - The Metal Age+F:\thief2
script_module_path C:\Games\Thief 2 - The Metal Age+F:\thief2
movie_path C:\Games\Thief 2 - The Metal Age\movies+F:\thief2\movies


Change it so that it looks like something a long the lines of the following:

install_path C:\Games\Thief 2 - The Metal Age
language english
resname_base C:\Games\Thief 2 - The Metal Age\res
load_path C:\Games\Thief 2 - The Metal Age
script_module_path C:\Games\Thief 2 - The Metal Age
movie_path C:\Games\Thief 2 - The Metal Age\movies


Save the file and close it. Now, do the same for DARKINST.CFG
 
CRF Files Top
In the Thief 2 directory are 2 sets of CRF files. These contain information that the game uses such as Textures, Music, Sounds, Voices etc.
To make the game more 'Mod Friendly', we shall move these files into their own directory.
There is a folder called "res" in your Thief 2 install. In here are the CRF files the game needs to run.
After the Thief 2 1.18 patch has been applied. A smaller 2nd set of CRF files are placed in the Thief 2 directory. It would be best if these files were merged together with the ones in the res folder.
CRF files are basically ZIP files. The difference is their file extension. The file extension is the ".CRF" part at the end of the file name. You can change this file extension to any extension you want.You can change .CRF files into .ZIP files by changing their file extension, simply renaming something from BOOKS.CRF to BOOKS.ZIP will work fine.
With this in mind, you can extract the contents of both the BOOKS.CRF in the /res folder and the BOOKS.CRF in the Thief 2 directory into separate folders, overwrite the contents of the contents of BOOKS.CRF in the /res folder with the contents of the BOOKS.CRF in the Thief 2 directory.
One you have done this, you can repackage up the combined files as a .ZIP file, rename its extension back to .CRF and put the new BOOKS.CRF you've created into the /res folder AND delete the smaller BOOKS.CRF in your Thief 2 directory.
Now, you can repeat this process for all of the matching CRFs.

This is NOT a necessary step to getting Thief 2 to work.
 
Processor Affinity (Stops Thief 2 freezing when playing) Top
Chances are you are using a processor that has more then one Core inside it. If you were to launch Thief 2 now and run around. It would probably freeze after a few seconds or minutes of Game play.
There are 2 ways of dealing with this problem and they are easy to do.

Method 1
I have made this Process Affinity Changer which you can download below.
Processor Affinity Changer for Thief 2
All you need to do with it is put the contents of the 7Zip file into the Thief 2 installation and run the BAT file. When it's done, close the BAT window.

Method 2
Download and install GarrettLoader. This tool will automatically set processor affinities for all your Thief games once it finds them.

Method 3
DDFix allows you to set Processor Affinity for Thief 2. DDFix is discussed further down the page.
 
Enabling EAX Top
This part requires that you have a sound card or some sound device that can handle EAX effects in games.
EAX DLL files
Put these two files inside your Thief 2 directory. Later, in the main menu, you can enable EAX effects in the Options menu!
 
Enabling EAX in Windows Vista (Realtek Onboard Sound) Top
Software called Realtek SoundBack allows you to regain lost EAX functionality in Thief 2.
Realtek SoundBack Page
Install this and follow the instructions it gives you to get everything working.
 
Enabling EAX in Windows Vista (Creative Sound Card) Top
This part requires that you have a Creative Sound Card.
First, grab the files in the Enabling EAX section above and put them in the Thief 2 directory. Windows Vista handles sound differently. Old games will not have the ability to have EAX enabled because Microsoft removed DirectSound from Vista. DirectSound allowed EAX to work.
Fortunately, Creative have created software called Creative ALchemy. This software allows OpenGL sound to be translated back into DirectSound.
Creative ALchemy Homepage
Depending on what card you have, Download the relative software and add Thief2.exe to the list. Once you have done that, the software will automatically pick up on when you start the game and will begin translating!
 
DDFix Top
Now, things become a little more advanced from here on in.
You will need to download DDFixM.7z from one of the two links below.
Timeslip's Website -- 1.3.11,
 My Website -- 1.3.11.
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you get the Manual version. It's a lot easier to work with. My website hosts the Manual Version.
Extract all files into your Thief 2 installation. Open DDFIX.INI and you'll be faced with a number of options. These options are important to get the game working properly. I will run through my personal options because I found them the most reliable.

[Main]
;Screen resolution
;Must be 800x600 or greater
gWidth=800
gHeight=600

You can set this to whichever screen resolution. If you want a different resolution like 1024 x 768 then change the corresponding numbers after the =. However, make sure that your CAM.CFG says the same resolution as you put here. This will be explained in more depth later.

;Set to 1 to fix the duel core related crash
MultiCoreFix=1

This is the DDFix Method 3 for Multi core Machines. Best to have it on 1 for all Dark Engine Games.

;Set to 1 to automatically register lgvid.ax each time thief is started up
VideoFix=1

1 is recommended as it will register the codecs the game requires to play FMV's on startup.

;This can be set to zero to get a more accurate z-buffer
;Doesn't usually make a noticable difference to picture quality
UseCompatibleZBuffer=1

1 should be on by default. Personally, any other number crashes the game on starting a mission but it could be different for you.

;Turns on the 32 bit texture loader and adds support for some unsupported screen resolutions
;Will cause a crash if used with an unsupported exe
; 0 - Disable
; 1 - Determine exe automatically
; 2 - Thief 2 v1.18
Thief2Extensions=2

For Thief 2. This should be set to 2.

;Set to 1 to disable the windows keys while thief is running
DisableWindowsKey=0

;Set to 1 to enable anisotropic filtering
AnisotropicFiltering=0

;If you want to share overriden textures between thief installations, uncomment the next line
;It should contain the absolute path to the equivilent of \res\ddfix, including the trailing \
;TexturePath=C:\Games\Thief2\res\ddfix\

I personally left the first at 0, AF to 1 and left the TexturePath option alone but, again, it's down to you to decide what you want.

;XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
;XX Compatibility settings XX
;XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

;Changes the way direct writes to the frontbuffer are handled
;SS2 players should set these options to '2' and '0xf81f' respectively
;Thief 2 players with corrupted in game text should use '2' and '0x0000'
;Players who experience slowdown with UseSysMemOverlay=2 should set both options to 0
UseSysMemOverlay=2
OverlayColourKey=0xf81f

I left this option alone from its default. Thief 2 seemed happy to run with these settings.
 
Dark Widescreen Mod Top
If you are one of those lucky punters with a Widescreen monitor. You would see that the screen, when playing the game, is very stretched. Recently, a mod was released that enables Widescreen support in Thief Gold, Thief 2 and System Shock 2. It is easily installable and removable.
There is a link below that will take you to the Dark Widescreen Modification.
Dark Widescreen (Version 6v3r3rc3 Latest)
My Website (Version 6v3r3rc3)
Extract the contents of this ZIP file into your Thief 2 installation and run the BAT file. The instructions are easy to follow and you'll be done with the process in under a minute or so. Make sure you set the resolution to the same numbers you entered into your DDFIX.INI file.
 
Modifying CAM.CFG Top
Open CAM.CFG with Notepad (Just like you did with INSTALL.CFG and DARKINST.CFG) and you will see something like this:


Add these two lines to the bottom of the document:
Always_Play_Intro
Skip_Starting_Checks
Now the document will look something like this:


Keep this document open for the final step.
 
Changing Resolution Top
If you haven't from the last step covered. Open CAM.CFG with Notepad and find a line called game_screen_size.
You'll see two numbers next to that line (default is 640 480). You can change these numbers to match what is in your DDFIX.INI file.
If you set DDFIX.INI up to look like this:
gWidth=1440
gHeight=900
Then change game_screen_size 640 480 to game_screen_size 1440 900.
 
Safe Texture Manager Top
Open your USER.CFG file in your Thief 2 directory with Notepad and find a line that looks like this:
;safe_texture_manager
Remove the ; from the beginning of the line so that it now reads:
safe_texture_manager
This will make Thief 2 run properly on new graphics cards.
 
In Game Movies Not Playing Top
Download the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack from CodecGuide.com
This is a pack of codecs that allow you to play movie files on your PC. This pack has something called ffdshow which handles the playback of Thief 2's AVI files which are encoded with Indeo codec technology (which is very old and unsupported nowadays)
 
Thief 2 Video Patch Top
This Patch is ONLY for the UK Big Box version of the game which has a flaw which is believed to be unfound in the USA version.
The flaw is in CS05.AVI where the video will stop playing around the 2:27-2:28 mark.
Download the file below, place it in your Thief 2 directory and double click on it to fix the video playback problem.
Thief 2 Video Correction Patch
 
That's It! Top
OK, you should now have a fully working copy of Thief 2. It can now be played on Windows XP/Windows Vista in glorious widescreen!
Here are some pictures of the first mission in 1680x1050 I took after following my own guide.
 
 
This guide is Copyrighted © Saleck. Feel free to print/repost this guide anywhere but please give credit where credit is due. That's all I ask :)