Thief Gold wouldn't install properly on my XP Home even with Compatibility, so I installed VPC2004 with Win98 and installed the game there. At first the game went OK, not perfect graphics, but definitely playable. Now the mouse control seems to have gone haywire. I have moved the "mouse sensitivity" slider in the game from one side to the other and all points in between but nothing helps. The mouse is very erratic and keeps pointing at the floor, then not moving. I even tried reinstalling but no luck. Any suggestions?

I guess you could try uninstalling the driver for the mouse in Device Manager and then rebooting the Virtual Machine to let Windows 98 redetect it.

Do you have Virtual PC tools installed?

Thanks for the suggestion, Jenny. I'll try that immediately. What are vpc tools?

Actually they may be called "Virtual Machine Additions" and not Virtual PC Tools.

Here's a website about them that tells how to install them
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/887790

Yes, I have VM Additions installed. I tried your trick with uninstalling the mouse and reinstalling and got somewhat mixed results. I now have a game with good graphics but the mouse pointer in the game has disappeared and been replaced by a block of pixels which is actually part of the scenery! In other words, when I move the mouse a small piece of the road or wall will move. Very disconcerting.

I also tried installing Thief 2 on VPC, which installed with no trouble but now tells me it's not compatible with my video card, an ATI HD 4800 series. Also tried installing it on XP but no luck there either.

I think the first Thief allowed you to play in Software mode, so you didn't need a 3D video card. I don't know about the second Thief. Virtual PC emulates a computer with an old S3 Trio video card, which is not a 3D card. It doesn't matter what video card is actually in your computer. Windows 98 only sees the old S3 Trio.

If you want to try using Thief 2 on a virtual computer, you could try VMware Player. It's supposed to emulate a 3D video card -- or at least have an option to emulate 3D.

I'm not sure what happened with your mouse cursor. Does it look normal in Win98 outside the game? If it does, see if the game has any options that look like they'd have to do with how the cursor looks.

You might try the tips for running these games on XP at ntcompatible.com.
http://www.ntcompatible.com/compatdb/details/thief_gold_windows.html

One person says

Another says

and for Thief II
http://www.ntcompatible.com/compatdb/details/thief_gold_windows.html

Here's another link I found that describes how to get Thief Gold running properly in Windows XP:

Thief Gold/Windows XP

He claims it takes less than 15 minutes.

Jenny, I turned off 3D and Thief Gold wouldn't work. The only setting for Mouse is Sensitivity. The pointer is normal outside the game. I've already tried Compatibility and setup -lgntforce'. with no luck. Also tried SafeTextureManager with no luck.

Marion, I went through all that site's recommendations, step by step, and, guess what, Windows still didn't like it!

However, on Jenny's NTcompatible.com site I found the following:
-


This caught my eye because the poster had a similar ATI Radeon card to mine. However, since I've been at this all day and am now going cross-eyed and getting fed up, I'll put off trying this until tomorrow and will let you all know then how it goes. Fingers crossed everyone.

In the original Thief game there was an Options Screen with a Video setting. There was a setting for 3D hardware acceleration there. If you set the game to use hardware acceleration, and your video card can't do 3D hardware acceleration, the game won't work. It should be OK using software acceleration though.


More important would be the processor. If your computer has hyperthreading or a dual core (or multi-core) processor, setting the game's affinity to a single processor may help you.

Gameboomers has a webpage on hyperthreading with 3 different methods for setting affinity, so if one way seems too difficult, you can try one of the other two ways.
http://www.gameboomers.com/Members/legacygameshyperthreading.htm

Well, I've tried everything and then tried it again, both on my regular XP and then on VPC. I've put in patches, downloaded "fixes", read all the advice on TTLG, and it just gets worse each time. Really can't understand why the install on VPC which worked so well at first now won't let me have a mouse pointer at all. Thief 2 won't install on VPC at all, and the fixes for XP don't work.

SOOOOOO, I give up!!! (Although I'm going to try installing on hubbie's computer which has simpler specs than mine tomorrow. I'll let you know how THAT comes out.)

VirtualPC doesn't have the specs for Thief II. It needs a 3D accelerated video card. There is no software mode. That may be why it won't install. 3D accelerated games are a problem for Virtual PC because of the emulated S3 Trio video card which has no hardware acceleration or 3D capability whatever. It's much better for older games.

I don't really understand why Thief worked at first on the VPC and not now, but VPC's can get corrupt that way. That's why it's a good idea to back up your VPC (the .vmc and .vhd files) as soon as you've finished install Win98 on it. That makes it really quick to go back to the way it was when it was a fresh install. You just replace the corrupt .vmc and .vhd files with your backup VPC files. Of course you'd have to find some way of getting your saves out of the virtual machine before doing that.

Virtual PC doesn't support 3D acceleration - but, VMware sure does -

VMware Player

Thief should work fine in XP. I have Thief 2 installed. All I had to do was use -lgntforce to install, alter the safe texture manager line (because I got a black screen) and untick a couple files in task manager because I have a dual processor.

Just to bring you all up to date, I tried VMWare but so far I'm still trying to find out how to fix the settings. It installed fine and I put Win98 in Ok. I'm trying to find out how to make it full screen, as at the moment full screen gives a small window in the centre with a black surround to the edges of the screen. Also I tried installing Thief Gold but the graphics were skewed and the game was unplayable.
I took note of what Jenny said about corrupt files, so uninstalled VPC and reinstalled 2004. Then I went through the business of Win 98 install again then installed Thief Gold and it works perfectly! Thank you Jenny.!

I want to take your advice and back up the .vmc and .vhd files but they're not leaping out at me. Can you explain where to find them?

Inland and Pokey, I only tried Thief 2 once in VPC and I know it doesn't work. I have tried the usual tricks to install in XP, but no luck so far. Tomorrow I'll try to install in VMWare, if someone can explain how to get proper full screen. BTW, the screen resolution is already as low as it goes. Also any tips on setting graphics would also be welcome.

On my XP computer they are in a My Virtual Machines folder that is inside My Documents.


According to this
http://www.petri.co.il/virtual_increase_vmware_performance.htm

Alternatively, if you just want to make the window bigger, or if Thief II has no widescreen setting and your monitor is widescreen, you can increase the resolution inside the virtual machine. If your VM is using 640x480 or 800x600 resolution and your monitor is 1920x1200, the VM window will be a little bitty thing. If you increase the resolution to something closer to your monitor's resolution, the window will be bigger. If you start Thief II, it may use its own resolution which is different from that of the Win 98 desktop, and you may have to change that from the Thief II options.

I actually prefer windowed mode, but to get to full screen do the following -

Start the VM and right click the desktop. Select properties and change the screen resolution on the Display tab (change it to your host desktop resolution).

Click the Maximize box on the top of your VM. To return to windowed mode press Ctrl+Alt.

I installed Thief 2, in VMWare, seemingly successfully, but on trying to play it, I get kicked out to the desktop. Would a patch help?

Thanks Jenny, I was confused because those files didn't actually have an extension in the file. I've backed them up now.

Possibly. Thief II did have a patch. But if the problem is specifically related to running the game on a VM, the patch may not help.


Microsoft hides file extensions by default. I always change Windows to display file extensions. Here's how to do it in Windows 7:
http://maximumpcguides.com/windows-7/show-file-extensions/

Update on progress so far: Thief Gold seems to be running fine on VPC - fingers crossed. However, Thief 2 is giving headaches. I've tried it on my regular XP but it tosses it out to desktop, even with the Tafferpatch and disabling hyperthreading and compatibility tweaking . Also get the same result with VMWare on which I installed Win98. I've been through the TTLG forums and can't find any more suggestions unless they've been so technical that I've missed them.
I can only think it must be my ATI Radeon 4800 video card, since this is the only new addition since the last time I played. I think it just doesn't like the game! Anyway have given up for the time being, unless you know better?

From Googling, there seem to be different versions of Thief 2 and your success using the patches may depend on which version you have.

***This thread*** seems to be about if the game won't play because of the video codecs not working.

This thread seems to involve a hex edit of one of the game files, but success depends on which version of Thief 2 you have.
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=128624

Here's another thread involving using the ddfix file
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=122596

More ideas in this thread
http://forums.eidosgames.com/showthread.php?t=29823&page=3
such as reducing audio acceleration to basic (in XP).

Sounds like it can be quite difficult to get Thief 2 working if it decides to be difficult.

JA+ now has a ***thread on Thief and Thief 2***. You might get more tips from that.

Thanks, Jenny, for all the hard work you've put into this. I actually tried the DDFix patch back in early October but, guess what, no luck. I checked the Eidos Forums and tried reducing the audio acceleration, but that didn't work either. I just took a quick look at JA+'s thread, will check more carefully in a while. I've uninstalled the game (see thread above) frustrated, but will try reinstalling and seeing if there's something I haven't tried. I get a bit lost when they talk about modifying files. I downloaded the K-Lite Codec pack some time ago, so think I'm covered for codecs. Will get back to you and thanks once again.

Bristol when I played Thief my computer had hyperthreading and the gamed would crash. The only way I could play was to "turn off" one "hyperthread". It played okay after that.