System Shock 2 Widescreen mod

[The Magpie]

You should maybe test it with and without using Shadak's method, and then post step-by-step instructions in your thread, if such isn't already there?

--
L.

[Nameless Voice]

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.

If you read the entire DDFix thread, you would see that Timeslip has implemented a hack to load high-resolution textures without changing the texture scale.
The OMs would not need to be rebuilt.

[Shadak]

Here's a long written out tutorial of what I did:

----------------------------------
May 15, 2008
Instructions for Thief 2 installation to use ddfix and widescreen


INSTALL THIEF 2

- Install Thief 2 normally, such as in C:\Games\Thief2 (I always prefer to avoid spaces in directory names, so no "Thief 2" for me)
- Edit DARKINST.CFG:
My original said this:

cd_path d:\
install_path C:\games\Thief2
language english
resname_base C:\games\Thief2\res+d:\thief2
load_path C:\games\Thief2+d:\thief2
script_module_path C:\games\Thief2+d:\thief2
movie_path C:\games\Thief2\movies+d:\thief2\movies


I changed it to this:

cd_path C:\Games\
install_path C:\games\Thief2
language english
resname_base C:\games\Thief2\res+C:\games\Thief2
load_path C:\games\Thief2
script_module_path C:\games\Thief2
movie_path C:\games\Thief2\movies


- Make an empty .zip file, rename it snd.crf (not snd.crf.zip) and place it in your Thief2 folder (so that it's in the same folder that Thief2.exe is in). This allows the CD check to pass.
- Start Thief 2 and test that it's working and doesn't need the CD. If you have a dual core processor don't actually go in-game yet, just start Thief 2 and then exit from the main menu.


INSTALL DDFIX

- Download ddfix (http://timeslip.chorrol.com/ddfix.html)
I got the GUI version ("ddfixG.7z")
- Unzip files into your Thief2 directory
- Run "ddfixGUI.exe", chose a resolution such as 1024x768 (even if it's not the nice widescreen you want don't worry, you can adjust that later), and click "Apply patch". It should say that the patch was applied.
- edit the ddfix.ini (or click on "Expert mode" in the ddfix GUI which simply opens up the ini for you), and change any settings you want. You may want to change the resolution to a widescreen one, such as 1280x800 like I have on my laptop. If you have a dual core processor, you will want to leave the default setting to solve that issue (otherwise you'll get Thief 2 locking up right away in game). Save the file.

- Start Thief 2 again, and make sure you go into the options and choose the resolution you just set in the ddfix.ini. Set any other Thief settings you want (such as favourite key bindings, audio, game settings, etc).
- Start a new game and test it out. Try looking at your map or objectives, and notice how fast it switches screens (since it doesn't do the stupid changing resolutions anymore!). Try to notice how much better it looks without the crappy dithering all over the place. Rejoice and be happy!


INSTALL WIDESCREEN

- Download DarkWidescreen-v3r2.zip (http://files.filefront.com/DarkWides.../fileinfo.html)
- Unzip files into your Thief 2 directory (it will make the "widescreen" directory in there too).
- Run "DarkWidescreen.bat", follow the DOS box instructions (I entered 1280, then 800), and let it install.
Your widescreen resolution has to match your ddfix resolution (duh).
- Voila, try it out in game. You should notice that you can see more on the sides now, GREAT!


That should be about it

[Shoshin]

Has anyone tried Thief?

I patched Thief Gold last night. No problems.

I ran through about half of the training mission and from what I saw so far it works. I didn't have much time, so I couldn't test to see if any objects popped in and out. I'll have more time this weekend, so I'll let you know when I run through Baffords.

[phide]

Firstly, I just want to offer a major thanks to you, weak-ling. Being a widescreen aficionado/snob, this is huge for me. Thank you!

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.

Could you elaborate a bit more on this? Do you know the suggested values for 16:9 and 16:10 for a correct presentation? (~106.270273206 degrees horizontal for 16:9 and ~100.39487232 degrees horizontal for 16:10 if the original 4:3 FOV is 90 degrees horizontal)

Has anyone tried Thief?

I will as soon as I have a spare moment.

Oh, and thanks for the instructions, Shadak. They're appreciated.

[Digital Nightfall]

This is just in time for some major FM releases too. Awesome!

[weak-ling]

Could you elaborate a bit more on this? Do you know the suggested values for 16:9 and 16:10 for a correct presentation? (~106.270273206 degrees horizontal for 16:9 and ~100.39487232 degrees horizontal for 16:10 if the original 4:3 FOV is 90 degrees horizontal)

The mod does those calculations automatically and gives you a fitting field of view for whatever resolution you selected. I think that ZylonBane was talking about an additional increase to both horizontal and vertical fov.

Just compare the screenshots to see that the 16:9 fov is correct already without any user intervention:

[phide]

Beautiful. Well done.

[ZylonBane]

The mod does those calculations automatically and gives you a fitting field of view for whatever resolution you selected. I think that ZylonBane was talking about an additional increase to both horizontal and vertical fov.

Or decrease. Some people are really picky about their FOV, and if memory serves, the Dark Engine uses a somewhat narrower FOV than most first-person shooters.

If you could expose the base FOV value in an external config file or command line parameter, I'm sure people would enjoy experimenting with it. I don't have a widescreen monitor, but I'd enjoy using your mod to play around with different FOVs.

[phide]

Perfect

Only real issue so far is that supersampling on my 8800 is pretty sluggish with this, for whatever reason. So, I'm back down to 8xQ, which isn't a significant degradation (and it's totally worth it). Works like a charm -- will try Thief Gold a little later.

[Shadowcat]

Judging from the gaps betwen the shields in that screenshot, this causes some slightly funky scaling issues for the GUI. Still extremely cool, though :)

[phide]

The red overlay part is a 16:10 frame, and the shot in the middle is a normal 4:3 frame. It's used to demonstrate that the FOV is being modified correctly for hor+. And, yep, it's perfect

[Twist]

Holy crap this is cool. I don't have a widescreen monitor yet, but I was considering getting one. I was a little concerned how Dark Engine games would look on it. Now I worry no more!

Anybody have any screenshots showing how the various menu & map screens in Thief look with this mod and ddfix combined?

I can kind of imagine how they look, but I'm curious to see a concrete example or two.

[phide]

Neither ddfix's screenshot method nor FRAPS is able to grab the menu (for whatever reason). It looks how you'd expect it to look -- it's stretched horizontally and vertically.

Map screens? Same deal.

[DarkDragon]

I just love this community when things like this happen.
Now i've got SS2 with DDFix and The Widescreen Patch on my lovely 22 inch monitor and its just the best experience I could ask for.
Thanks very much weak-ling, your hard work is very much appreciated.

[Rainalkar]

Simply great. Excellent work, thanks very much!

[Shadowcat]

The red overlay part is a 16:10 frame, and the shot in the middle is a normal 4:3 frame.

Oh, I see! That makes perfect sense then :)

[weak-ling]

Dromed support, fov support
http://files.filefront.com/DarkWides.../fileinfo.html

[Muzman]

I havent read the whole thing (-naughty-). So can this thing be used to adjust the FOV in 4:3 as well?

[BrendaEM]

I tried setting both DDFix and your patch to 1920x1200. It starts, and I am cautiously optimistic.

I am going to give Ominous Bequest Gold a shot with the patch.
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=121276

Thank You.

[poroshin]

What does it mean when I get this trying to install the mod?

C:\Games\Thief TDP>widescreen\WeiDU.exe --nogame widescreen\DarkWidescreen.tp2
[widescreen\WeiDU.exe] WeiDU version 20600
[widescreen\WeiDU.exe] Using scripting style "BG"
WARNING: parsing log [WeiDU.log]: Sys_error("WeiDU.log: No such file or directory")

Would you like to display the readme? [Y]es [N]o

Same with Thief Gold.

Ah never mind, I just saw "no such file" and then "readme" and thought something was wrong, but hitting N prompts the installation!

[Kaleid]

This is great news. Two thumbs up from me

[YuSeF]

Whenever I try to play thief gold with the wide screen mod I get "Error: Direct3ddevice driver does not accurately report texture memory usage. contact your d3d accelerator vendor for updated drivers." This works perfectly fine for ss2. did anyone else encounter this problem? and if so what do I need to do to fix it? I have read most of the posts if not all. I'm probably just not understanding what is going on here. I'm using the latest version and my graphics card is a geforce 7600 gs

[Matthew]

That's the GeForce problem rather than a widescreen problem, I'd think.

[Trigga1986]

Some post ago someone wanted to see the menu stretch with the widescreen mod. So made 2 screenshots on the resolution

1600x1200



and

1920x1200



You can see the stretch. Looked it up and might fix it later today if my computer will run photoshop without messing around.