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Thread: System Shock 2 Widescreen mod

  1. #26
    Member
    Registered: Mar 2001
    Location: Ireland
    You don't need instructions. You extract the archive to your Thief (or SS2) folder and run the batch file.
    It asks you to input first the horizontal size and then the vertical size that you want to use.
    That's it. Then you run the game.

    If you run the batch file again, it will give you the option of uninstalling the patch and restoring the backup (which it automatically made), or changing to a different resolution.

    You don't need DDFix, though why you would want to not use it is beyond me.

  2. #27
    Member
    Registered: Jul 2007
    Location: USA
    I don't not want to use ddfix (I very much WANT to use it), I just haven't done it yet, haven't read all the latest stuff/issues on it.

    You said I don't need instructions, and then in the next breath you gave them to me! The instructions are "extract the archive to your Thief (or SS2) folder and run the batch file." This is what's missing from the download itself, that's all. All downloads should have a readme.txt, if for no other reason than you download it and don't use it for a while or forget about it, and months later find this file with no explanation what it is or what to do with it, and you would have to remember this thread.

    I can manage it, but some people won't know how to properly extract something somewhere, or they'll extract all the files and then stick them in the T2 folder but without the "widescreen" subfolder, etc. Also, a more complete explanation of what happens would be good. A simple "it lets you play widescreen" isn't enough. I would like to have known that it adds the new resolution to the resolution list in Thief 2 and sets the game to it. Also, it would be good to know what happens when the batch file is run and how it works to uninstall, just as you well described it above.

    -----------

    Okay, I tried it out, very cool, works! I tested Running Interference before the patch, then after, to verify that you can see a bit further on each side, true widescreen! I use 1280x800 on my laptop.

    But there are a couple problems/issues. For me at least, the sky is no longer "set" in place (or else the world geometry is "loose"). When I turn right and left, the sky turns less, so that the buildings rotate with me somewhat relative to the sky, not good and very weird. If I simply change the resolution back to a 4:3 (like 1024x768)(without uninstalling this mod), the problem goes away.

    Also, at the very edge of the screen, objects pop in and out of existance - I especially noticed it on the trees in the courtyard. This might actually be normal behavoir, since in 4:3 they would pop in before entering the FOV (thus not rendering when you can't see them to save resources), but now with true widescreen we can see them pop in.

    Lastly, I also wonder if this might cause problems with very high complexity scenes that barely squeeked through, scenes in Calendra's Legacy for instance, where Purah is pushing the 1024 poly limit, or other limits having to do with FOV (objects, textures?). I guess we'll see.

    Overall I LOVE this mod, very promising and exciting, good work!!!
    "For the Love of the Game"

  3. #28
    Member
    Registered: May 2008
    Just how many versions of dromed.exe are there actually? I have found at least three.
    7.633.276 bytes
    8.265.876 bytes
    8.955.512 bytes (shocked)

  4. #29
    Member
    Registered: Jul 2007
    Uh, I forgot to mention that I linked to this thread from ThiefGen after posting news of the Thief 2 widescreen hack. Sowwy. =)

    There's one DromEd executable for each of the Dark Engine titles, if I'm not mistaken - the dromed.exe released separately before Thief Gold was published was an earlier version. IIRC, I might be wrong. And there was one included on disc with each of the Thief Gold and Thief 2: The Metal Age games.

    --
    L.

  5. #30
    Member
    Registered: Jul 2007
    Location: USA
    My Thief 2 Dromed is the 8,265,876 one. Maybe that smaller one is the old 1.07 version?
    "For the Love of the Game"

  6. #31
    Member
    Registered: Mar 2001
    Location: Ireland
    There are more than that (namely various older, out-of-date versions), but those three are the main ones.

    They are:

    7.633.276 bytes (DromEd v1.37 for Thief Gold)
    8.265.876 bytes (DromEd v1.18 for Thief 2)
    8.955.512 bytes (ShockEd)

    There's also a DromEd v1.35, which was the last release of DromEd for Thief: The Dark Project (non-Gold). I don't have the filesize for that handy.
    As far as I know, v1.37 wil work with Thief: The Dark Project anyway.

  7. #32
    Member
    Registered: May 2008
    Shadak:
    I know there's a problem with the objects just ploping in. Don't think there's something I can do about it. Its not that bad if you're playing in 16:10 but if someone wants to use a wider-than-16:9 resolution it would probably look a bit ugly.

    So you're saying you have some kind of parallax scrolling effect in the sky? I can't find something like that in System Shock 2 (which doesn't have much sky anyway ;) But as I said I didn't try the Thief2 mod. My calculations might be wrong or Thief might just do something different than Shock. Is it possible to somehow document this with screenshots?
    Last edited by weak-ling; 14th May 2008 at 14:14.

  8. #33
    Member
    Registered: Mar 2001
    Location: Ireland
    Thief 2 has a much more complicated sky system than SS2 does.
    SS2 just uses a skybox, whereas Thief 2 uses a multi-layered sky sphere with procedural colours, moving clouds, etc.

  9. #34
    Member
    Registered: Jul 2007
    Location: USA
    Okay I made a video of it. Unfortunately my video editing program can't output to any widescreen format, so the video itself is squished to 4:3, but when I was playing it was widescreen.

    http://www.keepofmetalandgold.com/files/T2Wide.wmv

    You can see the sky background (with the distant tree art, etc) sliding behind the whole actual mission geometry. (You can also see the pop-in on the edge)

    I noticed in comparing screenshots that while the POV shows more of the missions (for true widescreen), it does NOT show more of the sky. So the sky is getting stretched wide just like the HUD elements, remaining 4:3 I guess, and this might be a related issue or the very issue itself.

    Original 4:3
    .............

    Wide 16:10
    Last edited by Shadak; 14th May 2008 at 15:23.
    "For the Love of the Game"

  10. #35
    bikerdude
    Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by weak-ling View Post
    While this is called the widescreen mod you can also use it to play in previously unsupported 4:3 resolutions like 1400x1050. In fact you are not limited to standard resolutions at all.
    Hi Weak-ling

    I suggest you liase with Timeslip, so you can intergrate your patch into DDfix or visa versa..

    biker

  11. #36
    Member
    Registered: Mar 2001
    Location: Ireland
    Those questions have already been answered in this thread?

    It works fine with DDFix and with Thief 2.

  12. #37
    bikerdude
    Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by Nameless Voice View Post
    Those questions have already been answered in this thread? It works fine with DDFix and with Thief 2.
    Hi NV

    Yeah i figured out so edited my post...doh

    Biker

  13. #38
    Member
    Registered: May 2008
    link removed, new version below
    Last edited by weak-ling; 15th May 2008 at 18:59.

  14. #39
    Member
    Registered: Mar 2001
    Location: Ireland
    Um, please don't use RapidShare, their new captcha is indecipherable.
    I'll be making sure to give them a wide berth in future.

    After cursing their mad 'find the cats' scheme, I've uploaded it here:
    - link removed - obsolete -
    Last edited by Nameless Voice; 15th May 2008 at 19:13.

  15. #40
    Member
    Registered: Jul 2003
    Weak-ling, this is a great release. I finally got a chance to try out the mod, and it seems to be working great. It's gotten me excited to play through SS2 again. I can also report that it works in conjunction with DDfix, and SS2 doesn't crash when frobbing anymore with DDfix either.

    DDfix seems to support external textures also - could that be the key to finally getting hi-res terrain textures?

  16. #41
    ZylonBane
    Registered: Sep 2000
    Location: ZylonBane
    Could very well be. I haven't had a chance to play with DDFix yet... been heavily sidetracked into Bloodlines modding the last month or so.

    EDIT: Also, is there a way to manually specify the FOV that this mod uses?
    Last edited by ZylonBane; 15th May 2008 at 17:11.

  17. #42
    Member
    Registered: Jul 2007
    Location: USA
    What fixes are in the new DarkWidescreen-v3.zip? Do I need to uninstall the other one first? Thanks

    EDIT - blech, it's refusing to recognize my Thief2.exe. The older version worked fine. I uninstalled it, then deleted all the widescreen files, properly unzipped the new v3, then tried to install it and it refused. So I deleted the Thief2.exe and manually restored it from the manual backup I made just before installing the first version of widescreen, and still no go, it says it doesn't match the exact bytes number.

    I of course use a no-cd Thief2.exe, and I'm NOT about to go back to having to have the retarded disc in the drive. Mine is 2,662,445 bytes, can that file size be added to the program so it will work? (how did it work last time with the first version of widescreen Thief2Widescreen-v00.zip?)
    Last edited by Shadak; 15th May 2008 at 17:51.
    "For the Love of the Game"

  18. #43
    Member
    Registered: May 2008
    Hmm, ... I don't know why there seem to be two almost identical but still different executables for thief2. Version3 uses a totally new way to create the enlarged horizontal fov. The results might be disastrous or maybe beautiful ;)

    link removed, new version below
    Last edited by weak-ling; 17th May 2008 at 21:56.

  19. #44
    Member
    Registered: Jul 2007
    Location: USA
    Okay, I got it to work, and it's GREAT! Both the sky rotation issue and the object pop in are GONE/FIXED!!! Woohoo!

    I had a problem with my dual core system though. It might be my own fault, since I had to mess around with different exes trying to make everything work, but somehow I lost my "permanant fix" for the dual core issue (I can't even remember how that worked, something to do with Scrooge's fix or something...). Anyway, I remembered that ddfix also fixes the dual core issue, so I figured I'd finally try that out.

    But first I decided to try out the simple new way of getting Thief 2 to run without the disc in the drive (so that I could use the easier to install ddfix version), without having to use the no-cd hacked exe file. I found in another thread regarding installing Thief 2 on a little ePC thing how to set it up and it worked perfectly! Then I installed ddfix, which I instantly LOVE, then tried widescreen again, and works SUPERBLY!

    Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
    "For the Love of the Game"

  20. #45
    Clearinghouse
    Registered: Aug 2002
    Location: Siberia, Russia
    Shadak, new screenshots please

  21. #46
    Member
    Registered: Jul 2007
    Location: USA
    New shot mixed with old

    .............Original 4:3
    .............

    Old Wide 16:10 with bad sky


    New Wide 16:10 (and with ddfix), ALL GOOD!


    .............Original 4:3
    .............
    "For the Love of the Game"

  22. #47
    Clearinghouse
    Registered: Aug 2002
    Location: Siberia, Russia
    Coool.

  23. #48
    Member
    Registered: May 2008
    Quote Originally Posted by Shadak View Post
    Okay, I got it to work, and it's GREAT! Both the sky rotation issue and the object pop in are GONE/FIXED!!! Woohoo!
    I told you it might be beautiful.

    Quote Originally Posted by ZylonBane View Post
    EDIT: Also, is there a way to manually specify the FOV that this mod uses?
    Actually there is, but it's not easily accessible: After your executable is patched with v3 there is a value at off_hex+0x1f in 64bit format. The default is 4/3, decrease this value to increase your overall fov.


    Has anyone tried Thief?

  24. #49
    Member
    Registered: Jul 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by blaydes99 View Post
    DDfix seems to support external textures also - could that be the key to finally getting hi-res terrain textures?
    That's not my impression. We more or less know what needs to be done, and the traditional view is that it's more feasible when creating new FMs than implementing in OMs, since the resolutions of textures play an important part in the architecture rendering of the Dark Engine. Thus, the OMs would in all probability need to be rebuilt, surface for surface.

    That said, pay attention to this post by another of our excellent current hackers, Tos. Who is not to be disturbed about this, as he's working on Thief 2 Multiplayer.

    --
    L.
    Last edited by The Magpie; 16th May 2008 at 06:06. Reason: linkfix

  25. #50
    bikerdude
    Guest
    If its ok with the author of this thread, but Im going to link into this from my "DDfix" Direct3D texture thread.

    biker
    Last edited by bikerdude; 16th May 2008 at 07:06.

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