Thief 1 and 2

Overview

The Thief series is one of the best ever created, at least in my humble opinion. Great characters, story, and gameplay flexible enough to let you concoct your own solutions to the levels. The third game in series was designed for the xbox 1 and as a result it looks better on modern computers than the first two, but unfortunately the gameplay environment is not as rich. The first two games therefore offer better gameplay despite their more primitive graphics, but these days it can be incredibly difficult to get Thief 1 or Thief 2 to work properly. Those lucky enough to get them running often end up with graphics that are much uglier than they were originally, with big blocks of color where there should be smooth gradients of tone and light.

This is due to several factors:

The engine used for Thief, called the Dark Engine, was not designed to support multi-core processors.
The game was intended for the Windows 9x platform, there was no such thing as Windows XP. let alone Vista, Windows 7, or 64-bit.
Nvidia and ATI have shifted the focus of their driver development to 32-bit rendering, making older 8-bit and 16-bit games look terrible.

These problems can be fixed, though the process can drive even the technically inclined totally stark raving bonkers! To make it easier for people who've bought the game and want to play it, on this page I provide some "fixed" files and simple instructions.

Special Considerations

If you have a shiny new Vista/Windows 7 computer, you'll need to install DirectX 9 before you can play... Well, pretty much anything at all. So go and install it. It's included with lots of current games, but you can also find it in Microsoft's downloads section.

If you have an ATI graphics card, consider disabling Catalyst A.I. in your Catalyst Control Center. It's been known to cause problems with many games, particularly when using multi-core graphics cards or crossfire systems.

Where to get Thief

You can get the complete trilogy of Thief games way cheap, thanks to Mastertronic's www.sold-out.co.uk. The version of Thief: The Dark Project in the collection they offer is the expanded, 15-mission version that used to be known as Thief Gold. They have also included a bunch of tweaks and fixes, to make it install properly under Windows Vista and Windows 7. It's a great deal.

Thief: The Dark Project

Unfortunately, if you have the original 12-mission version of the first Thief game I can't help you because I don't have that version myself! It just doesn't seem to be for sale anymore. I advise you to buy the more recent 15-mission version as explained in the article above. It's longer, and has some fixes built-in. It even has a hidden blooper level.

Thief: The Dark Project (Gold)

Perform a full install of the game.
Download my handy Thief 1 patched exe. Use the thief.exe inside the zip to replace the one in the game folder. This version is fan-patched to support modern multicore processors, correct the texture manager issue, support the DDFix graphics fix, and resolve some CD check problems.
Right-click thief.exe, and select properties. Under the compatibility tab, set compatibility mode to Windows 2000.
Download ddfix. DDFix is a fan-created fix to allow the Dark Engine to still look good on modern video cards. If you want more information, check out this thread at TTLG.com.
Open the download zip file, and put the files in to the same directory as thief.exe. Close the zip file.
Optional: Edit the ddfix.ini and cam.cfg files to set the desired screen resolution. You can also set antistropic filtering to 1 in ddfix.ini to further improve the graphics rendering.
Test the game! It should run, and a briefing movie should play at the start of each mission.
Optional: Go to Thief-The Circle, and download Convict.osm for Thief Gold. Extract it from the zip and put it in your game folder. This file will allow you to play fan-created missions.

Thief II: The Metal Age

Perform a full install of the game. If setup.exe refuses to run, use -lgntforce as a parameter. For example, if D: is your CD drive: Start, Run, D:\setup -lgntforce
Go to Thief-The Circle, and download and install the Thief 2 Patch (v1.18). If you have the premier version of Thief II, get the premier version of the patch. If you have a more recent release of the game, the patch is already built-in.
Download my handy Thief 2 patched exe. Use the thief2.exe inside the zip to replace the one in the game folder. This version is fan-patched to support modern multicore processors, correct the texture manager issue, support the DDFix files, and resolves some CD check problems.
Right-click thief2.exe, and select properties. Under the compatibility tab, set compatibility mode to Windows 2000.
Edit the USER.CFG with notepad and and remove the semicolon from the line ;safe_texture_manager.
Download ddfix. DDFix is a fan-created fix to allow the Dark Engine to still look good on modern video cards. If you want more information, check out this thread at TTLG.com.
Open the zip file, and put the files in to the same directory as thief2.exe. Close the zip file.
Optional: Edit the ddfix.ini and cam.cfg files to set the desired screen resolution. You can also set antistropic filtering to 1 in ddfix.ini to further improve the graphics.
Open the MOVIES folder that's in your game folder. Double-click INTRO.AVI to see if if plays. If it doesn't, download and install the updated version of the Ligos Indeo Codec.
Test the game! It should run, and a briefing movie should play at the start of each mission.
If you find text appears corrupted in the game, edit ddfix.ini and read the section called Compatibility settings. It explains what settings to try.

Note: Switching on EAX sound may or may not work for your sound hardware. It generally works best if you DON'T have a Creative Labs sound card. (Another good reason not to have one of the things. These days you get pretty good sound built-in)

Thief Improvements

The first two thief games are very old by current standards, and Thief 1 looked a little primitive even when it was released waaaay back in 1998. Here are some techniques to improve the look of the games.

How to make Thief 1 characters look better:

For advanced users only! I haven't written instructions for this yet, so be sure to make a backup copy of your working game folder before starting!
Go to Thief-The Circle, and download Thief 2 Meshes in Thief Gold. Only useful if you also have Thief II, since it uses Thief 2 models in Thief 1.

How to make everything else in Thief 1 look better:

For advanced users only! I haven't written instructions for this yet, so be sure to make a backup copy of your working game folder before starting!
Go to Thief-The Circle, and download Thief Gold Texture Patch (Hardware Version). This delivers smoother textures.

Widescreen support for Thief 1 and Thief 2:

A Thief fan called weak-ling has released a widescreen mod creatively called DarkWidescreen. It works with all versions of the first two Thief games, and System Shock 2.
Go download V6R2 of the utility. Just extract it into the game folder, and run the DarkWidescreen.bat. Tell it what resolution you want, I find 1440x900 is pretty good. It works directly with DDFix, no file editing required!

Website designed by John Anthony Curran

Hosting provided by Andrew Smith.