NVIDIA - Please Fix Bad Thief 1, 2 & Shock 2 Rendering - Petition - Please Sign!

[BrendaEM]

There are known problems with the rendering of Thief: The Dark Project, Thief Gold, Thief Metal Age, and System Shock 2 on newer Nvidia cards, which are well-documented in Biker Dude's thread.

The existence of hundreds of fan produced missions for these games, a full sized expansion pack, and continued fan-mission development shows that these games bring a lot of enjoyment to those people who play them.

When a programmer writes game code, an audio person records sound, a modeler or animator creates a character, when a texture artist or level designer makes an environment, or when writers, visionaries, producers...

...And even those people who you would never usually associate with the creative process such as public relations people, accountants, corporate staffing, and even the person who keeps the floor the others work on clean...

...Create a piece of digital art, that could very well stand the test of time, but will not because of it's modern interpretation through modern video hardware and software is bad because of a fixable oversight, so easily made, and perhaps fixed...

...It brings a darkness to the industry, a shadow as rendered darker as any in the Bonehorde when one of the greatest computer games ever made can not be presented as it was originally crafted. It sends a message to those who worked to create these "legacy" games, as well as those may create those computer games in the future.

Nvidia please fix your products to allow the original Thief series to be shown as it were meant.

Thank You.
BrendaEM

Please everyone place a post in this thread, but please only add one post, so that they may be counted. Feel free to add your own words, as mine may not do. Bikerdude has a thread on Nvidia's forums, please add a post to that as well, and his thread is a better place to have an ongoing dialog than this thread.

Update: In 169.xx drivers Thief 2 appears to crash entirely!

[smithpd]

Thanks, Brenda. I am doing what I can to investigate this problem and to encourage Nvidia to make their products work for Thief. Nothing to date has fixed the Thief 2 issues of bad sky or the lack of dithering of dark textures, which makes them look blotchy. This problem is more extensive than bad rendering on the 8000 series of cards, although the 8000 series is by far the worst. I posted a history of the situation on the Nvidia forums (click here). I have seen no response from Nvidia at the forum. Along with Squall Leonheart and Bikerdude, I submitted a trouble report to Nvidia containing all this information. It has been advanced to second level, but I have heard no response from them yet.

We need Nvidia to step up to the plate. I hope this petition helps. Everybody on TTLG who uses Nvidia products should sign this!

EDIT

I have just made three posts at the Nvidia forum in which I compared five video card / driver combinations in three original mission scenes.

The cards / drivers are:

Ti 4200 with 4xxx drivers (smithpd)
FX5900XT with 66.93 drivers (ef di)
FX5900XT with 162.18 drivers (ef di)
7950 GT with 84.56 drivers (smithpd)
8000 GTS with ???? drivers (ef di)

The scenes are:

Running Interference, start of mission
Eavesdropping, Karras' loft, first level
Eavesdropping, Karras' loft, second level

Screen shots, edited using consistent settings, and a summary of the rendering errors are given in the following posts:

Running interference, start of mission

Eavesdropping, Karras' loft, first level

Eavesdropping, Karras' loft, second level

These links show the gradual degradation of Thief 2 graphics with higher models of Nvidia video cards and drivers. The worst of the worst is the 8000 series, in which all dark textures are rendered with limited color pallette and without dithering. In short, crappy colors.

[Lovecraftian]

Add my name to the list, it's time they got their act together.

[New Horizon]

Please Nvidia, correct these issues. My last 3 cards have been Nvidia purchases, and it pains me not to be able to properly enjoy the Thief series on these cards.

[Sluggs]

Signed!

This issue makes it difficult to judge lighting and colouring when I'm in the game editor. Only by swapping out my Geforce 8600GTS for my Radeon X800XL, can I see things the way they were intended.

[Bikerdude]

I sincerely hope that nvidia does something about this state of affairs, the multiple threads I have started and contributed to on nvidia.com, guru3d.com and ttlg.com backs up this desire.

I was beginning to doubt nVidia would actually do anything about this, but AvP is just as old if not older than thief and that got sorted. but I would say this, to have maximum impact it would be better to join up to the nvidia forum and add to the thread I have already started, see below:-

Thief2 & 8800_GTS/GTX Crappy Colours so the totals are - 14 replies and 1137 views, lets see if we can raise that you taffers!

Please DO NOT multi post on this or the nVidia forum as it will only serve to annoy - [edit] too late..doh!

biker

[Jeshibu]

I want this fixed too, but keep in mind AvP's problem was fixed in a fan-patch before it was incorporated in a driver. It's quite likely that nVidia just used the fan-patch's solution for their drivers because it was presented to them and relatively easy to do.

[qolelis]

Signed!

I am using a 6800GT for playing Thief 2, but because of the bad sky problem and other issues, I consider changing to some other brand, if the issues don't get fixed, that is.

[10Brooklyn01]

I'm still using my TI4200 (my third nvidia board,) cooled with a spare case fan perched over it because the original nvidia fans burn out as quick as you please, but I soon must upgrade in order to enjoy the upcoming and already arrived games that this card cannot render.

When I do, I'd really appreciate it if said upgrade addresses via patch the Thief 1 and 2 rendering problem!

Thanks in advance!

[Opal-Eyed Fan]

All right, I am really concerned about this, I have been thinking of replacing my two 7800 cards with some up to date 8800 cards lately but after reading about the buggy rendering of the old Thief games which I love playing more than anything, I'll now wait for a while giving Nvidia a chance to fix this: If they fail to do so I might go for a couple of ATI cards in stead!! Which would involve changing my motherboard as well, so it is a big deal to me. Nvidia don't do this to us, you end up losing sales over this....

Opal-Eyed Fan
15. sept 2007
somewhere in Norway

[Benvox2]

I have an Nvidia 7600GT and it doesn't run Thief Gold at all - it just gives those Hardware and Texture errors which has made me downgrade drivers to play this great game!

Im in!

[Sensut]

I have an Asus 7600GT but everytime if I want to do a test for my FM's I have to copy it onto the older computer with FX5200, what working fine with Dark Engine, but it's an old device to use in Dromed today. Some correction would come well on the drivers in favour of Thief.
Thanks in advance!

EXAMPLE



-----------------------

[SlyFoxx]

My 6 series card works but renders the ugly sky like Sensut's pic shows. I'm tempted to put my old MX card back in but that would negate playing some other games.

ROCK...me...HARD PLACE.

[Nameless Voice]

I've personally been put off from buying a new nVidia card because of this. Not sure if I count towards the petition since I don't have a recent nVidia card (I do have an old AGP one I can't use anymore...), though I'd consider buying one if they could run Thief.

Signed anyway.



Shrunk to not go too far off-topic:

If they fail to do so I might go for a couple of ATI cards in stead!

The latest ATI cards have similar problems, though.

[MoroseTroll]

I'm signed too. I think it's a shame for driver's programmers to don't fix this little problem ASAP! One of my acquaintance bought ATI Rage 128 PCI (Hello from past Millennium!) as a second video card in order to play Thief 1&2.

[Nightwalker]

I'm hanging onto my present computer that's equipped with a GeForce 4200 for as long as possible just so I can play Thief and see it the way it's supposed to look but heaven help me if my video card fails! Please take the time to come up with a set of drivers that will run Thief properly on the new video cards for all of us die-hard Thief fans!

[Mr. Bean]

Signed.

I have GeForce 8500 GT. The sky and dark places look really bad. Because of that, some missions are unplayable to me, I simply can't see what's in those dark parts.

[Gillie]

Thanks @ biker for all the help..
For all we the die- hard Thief fans as Nightwalker says.
I have older cards I Kept which will not even fit in the new computer.

I have a Dual Nvida 8600 GTS
The mother board Two PCI-E Slots wich are filled with Dual Graphics cards.
Which leave only Two PCI slots availible for a second card.

I have ordered a FX 5500 from ebay. Nvida again!, hoping that will enable me to play.
I can understand new games not playing on very old cards.
New cards though should be backwards compatible.
There should be something.

[Calibrator]

Signed.

I have GeForce 8500 GT. The sky and dark places look really bad. Because of that, some missions are unplayable to me, I simply can't see what's in those dark parts.

You could try to increase the gamma in the game options and if this isn't enough you could also increase the desktop gamma in the Nvidia control panel.

Of course this may be too bright for your taste if overdone. But you should be able to see something.

HTH,
Calibrator

[Reaper310th]

I have the 8800 ultra and I have the same problem with lousy textures in Thief 2.
NVIDia please fix this.

[MH.TheFreak]

Long time ago I had a GeForce 6600GT and all my games which support only 16-bit color mode looked crappy. This was the reason why I got a Radeon x1600 Pro.

But nevermind: Let me signed too.

[DrK]

I have an ATI x800 and no problems of rendering, still you can count me in to support the ones who have troubles in the community. And who knows, maybe one day I'll end up with a Nvidia card...

Signed for great justice

[Muzman]

I've been planning acurrent vid card purchase for a while now but I'm waiting for the new Radeon prices to come down a bit first, despite them being generally slower and more expensive than Nvidia cards, simply because they run these old games better (or at all) compared to Nvidia.
If these problems were fixed I'd probably get an 8800 next week.

[addink]

Long time ATI user here. Recently bought a new card, the choice to stay with ATI was very easy.

Signed.
For great justice.

[tdbonko]

TDBonko!!!