Thief 2 Fix Guide - Saleck.net

Welcome.
This guide will help you to get Thief 2 running on your computer.

Installing The Game
First of all, you'll need the Thief 2 CDs. Pirated versions are NOT supported by this guide. If you really value the game, please go out and buy it! Insert the Install CD 1 in the Drive and run Setup.exe to start the installation.

This guide will assume that you are installing to "C:\Games\Thief 2" but you can install it wherever you like, just substitute the directory for your own directory. Do a FULL INSTALL of the game.

When the installer asks you to install DirectX 7.0, Select NO. You should have DirectX 9.0 already installed. If you don't or are unsure, feel free to grab the DirectX Web Installer. This will grab all the latest DirectX files you need from Microsoft directly.

When the Thief 2 launch window appears, click Close at the bottom of the window as the game is not in any sort of condition to be started yet.

Now, with Thief 2 installed, you might want to install the editor for the game (called DromEd). If you want to skip this part then feel free to as this isn't a necessary step to getting Thief 2 running on your machine.

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 1.18 Patch
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 your version of Thief 2. Go ahead and install it and upgrade Thief 2 to 1.18

Thief2.exe and DromEd.exe files
Next, we need to overwrite the Thief2.exe and (If you have the editor installed) DromEd.exe files that are in the Thief 2 directory.
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
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 E:\
install_path C:\Games\Thief 2
language english
resname_base C:\Games\Thief 2\res+E:\thief2
load_path C:\Games\Thief 2+E:\thief2
script_module_path C:\Games\Thief 2+E:\thief2
movie_path C:\Games\Thief 2\movies+E:\thief2\movies

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

install_path C:\Games\Thief 2
language english
resname_base C:\Games\Thief 2\res
load_path C:\Games\Thief 2
script_module_path C:\Games\Thief 2
movie_path C:\Games\Thief 2\movies

Save the file and close it.

CRF Files
This is NOT a necessary step for getting Thief 2 to work.
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 can combine these files into 1 bigger file.

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 BOOKS.crf in the /res folder with the contents of the BOOKS.crf in the Thief 2 directory.

Once 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.

Enabling EAX
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! (If you are on Windows XP or lower)

For Windows Vista/Windows 7 users with Realtek Onboard Sound.
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.

For Windows Vista/Windows 7 users with a Creative Sound Card.
First, grab the files in the Enabling EAX section above and put them in the Thief 2 directory. Windows Vista/Windows 7 handles sound differently. Old games will not have the ability to have EAX enabled because Microsoft removed DirectSound from Vista/7. 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 the audio!

DDFix
Now, things become a little more advanced from here on in.
You will need to download DDFix from one of the two links below.
TTLG Official Forum -- 1.5.11
My Website -- 1.5.11
Extract all files into your Thief 2 installation. Open DDFIX.INI in Notepad and you'll be faced with a number of options. These options are very fragile: Altering ANYTHING you don't understand may mess up your entire game and may even, though not likely, cause some kind of system damage.

Nowadays, this file has been configured to be at its most effective on most computers so a lot of the settings in here don't actually need changing or altering. People have been digging deeper and have unearthed so many configurable options that the DDFix.ini is full of customizable settings.

Here is how you do it. Simply remove the ; from before the line below the setting in which you want to enable. For example.

;Prevent multicore related crash. Boolean.
;MultiCoreFix=1

becomes

;Prevent multicore related crash. Boolean.
MultiCoreFix=1

Note the missing ; before the line MultiCoreFix=1. This is how you enable them for use!

Booleans are simple On/Off settings like a lightswitch. 1 is On, 0 is Off.
Integers are whole numbers. You don't put anything like 98.3 or 62.6 in these.

In DDFix.ini, you NEED to enable the following settings in the following settings to get a smooth playing experience.

;Prevent multicore related crash. Boolean.
;MultiCoreFix=1

;Register lgvid.ax every time game is started. Boolean.
;VideoFix=1

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you remove the ; from the beginning of these two commands. The Multi-Core fix will allow you to run Thief 2 on any computer that contains a CPU that processes using more than 1 CPU thread (In other words, If you are running Thief 2 on a Dual Core, Quad Core, i3, i5 or i7 machine).

The Video Fix will register a unique codec every time Thief 2 is launched so the videos for the game will play properly instead of not being played at all.

Here are some settings you might want to change in the DDFix.ini (Open it with Notepad and Save once you are done. Be sure to remove the ; from the beginning of the command in order to enable it to be read by DDFix.DLL):

;Disable the Windows key. Boolean.
;DisableWindowsKey=1

This allows you to 'window key' out of the game to maybe answer an e-mail or annoy someone on MSN. Change it to 0 or 1 to toggle this setting (Remember, 1 is ON, 0 is OFF)

;Use vsync. Boolean.
;FlipVSync=1

If you find the game running too fast on your machine, then enable VSync. This restricts the number of frames per second the game runs at to your monitors refresh rate and Thief 2 will no longer run fast.

;Enable fog fix. Fog must also be enabled in the game options. Boolean.
;Enable=1

This is down to personal opinion. Many people claim Fog adds to the atmosphere in the game by restricting the view and adding an overall murky feeling to the environment. Give it a go if you want. Just remove the ; to enable fog. To turn it off, set the number to 0. Fog is not present on all levels however.

Here are some comparison screenshots so see which one you would prefer.

No Fog Fog

;Bloom intensity. 0-255. (0 = disable all bloom processing.)
;Bloom=255

If you like that sort of thing, Thief 2 has Bloom now. Remove the ; to enable. There are a lot of Bloom settings further down the page and they all do many different things.

Once you have changed all the settings you like, move on to the next step.

Modifying CAM.CFG
Open CAM.CFG with Notepad (Just like you did with INSTALL.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:

Don't worry about all these extra lines that might not be in yours. They'll be added to the file by the game once it starts.

Other optional lines include:
ObjTextures16
MeshTextures16
If you install any mods that improve graphics, models, textures etc. then these two lines will enable them to appear in game. If they are not present, textures will simply not work and those items will appear all white!

Changing Resolution
One will you might see however, is game_screen_size 640 480 or some variation of that. Change the 640 480 to what resolution you want Thief 2 to run at. I personally have mine set as 1680 1050 because that's my max screen resolution. If you don't have this line, just add it above the edits that were made previously.

If you don't have a game_screen_size line, feel free to add the following line to the end of the file.

So now my game_screen_size line looks like the following:

game_screen_size 1680 1050

Feel free to add your resolution here. As long as it's a valid 4:3, 16:9 or 16:10 screen resolution, it will work just fine.

Safe Texture Manager
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
If the in-game videos and cutscenes aren't playing for you, you should 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).

Thief 2 Video Patch
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

Map Fixes
Unfortunately, the 1.18 Patch caused a few problems to crop up which were never fixed (or maybe would've been if Thief 2 Gold ever saw the light of day)
Running Interferance Loot Fix - This fixes 20 loot being stuck in a wall on the first level of the game. Unzip the miss1.mis file and move it to your Thief 2 directory.
Kidnap Loot Fix - Made by BMX, this fixes 50 loot in the form of a gold bottle being lodged to far underground to reach. Unzip the miss15.mis file and move it to your Thief 2 directory.

Other Issues: Mono Sound
If you find that, when testing the sound and speakers inside the Thief Audio menu, the Left/Right speaker test sounds to be coming from the front, you need to turn down the number of Audio Channels. Not in Thief 2, but on your audio/sound device.

Obviously, I cannot cover every single device out there so you will have to look at your audio software on contact your audio software/hardware manufacturer for more information.

If you can, set the number of Audio Channels on your sound device to 4. Any number higher then 4 will not work.

The number of Audio Channels in the Thief 2 Audio menu can be set to whatever number you prefer. I prefer 24 as it sounds to produce the clearest sound of all the settings.

That's it!
OK, you should now have a fully working copy of Thief 2. It should now be playable on Windows XP/Vista/7 in glorious widescreen!
Here are some pictures of the first mission in 1680x1050 I took after following my own guide.

Big props go to the guys and girls at Through The Looking Glass. They found a lot of this stuff, a huge guide just needed to be made to make sense of it all :)

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 :)