Unofficial patches for Thief and other PC games

[Doc Sportello]

Only 6 more games to go, thank god!

Why only 6 more?

 

[spekkio]

Do you have any idea how much work does it take?



Plus, I covered almost all good old games anyway.

 

[spekkio]

BROs, added three more games to teh blog:

 

[agris]

You should post the blog link each time you drop an update!

RE2 is looking good, btw. Does it support 3D sound?

 

[spekkio]

RE2 is looking good, btw. Does it support 3D sound?

Nope, it's a PS1 game after all.

 

[spekkio]

BROS, it's finally done.



https://runoldpcgames.wordpress.com

Autistically-detailed descriptions of how to run 21 good old games on old & new systems should be more than enough as a private anit-decline attempt.

Added last 3 games:

 

[AlphaYellow]

Just released a widescreen patch for Carmageddon II: Carpocalypse Now (1998), a really good racing game which I have amazing memories of. It's great fun to slash pedestrians and destroy the other racers, pure madness :D
https://community.pcgamingwiki.com/files/file/2968-carmageddon-ii-carpocalypse-now-widescreen-fov-fix/

 

[AlphaYellow]

Just released another FOV fix, now for State of Emergency (2002), the game that got the most attention on Rockstar's E3 2001 booth, and Rockstar thought it was gonna be more successful than GTA 3, oh well... it didn't even reach close in sales :D
https://community.pcgamingwiki.com/files/file/2973-state-of-emergency-fov-fix/

 

[ferratilis]

Just a year ago, I used a utility that helps with scaling in older DX7 games like Arcanum, there's a bunch of settings you could tweak like renderer, type of scaling, resolution etc. Now I want to use it for Fallout 1 because my resolution is 1440p and everything looks tiny, but for the life of me, I can't remember the name of that utility. Can someone help me, I'm having a brain fart?
EDIT: Nevermind, I found it. It's cnc-ddraw.

 

[MasterofThunder]

The "Surreal Engine" looks to be an interesting project. It's a work-in-progress reimplementation of the Unreal Engine, focused on Unreal and Unreal Tournament currently, but could expand to other games. Unreal Gold seems to run pretty well, but it's in an alpha state and doesn't even save your keybinds.

https://github.com/dpjudas/SurrealEngine

 

[deuxhero]

Deus Ex keeps getting more annoying to run. Hopefully this will support it eventually.

One of the Epic heads actually mentioned open source UE1 as a possibility years ago since unlike UE2+ it wasn't dependent upon middleware. Sadly the company is too Chinese at this point to give the code up.

 

[MasterofThunder]

Deus Ex keeps getting more annoying to run. Hopefully this will support it eventually.

One of the Epic heads actually mentioned open source UE1 as a possibility years ago since unlike UE2+ it wasn't dependent upon middleware. Sadly the company is too Chinese at this point to give the code up.

I also recall Tim Sweeney suggesting the vague possibility of open sourcing the first Unreal Engine, I believe that was way back in 2015. I think it's more of a case that he was unwilling to audit his code to ensure it was compliant, and/or seeing little purpose in doing so. Unlike John Carmack, he was never passionate about Free Software as an ideal or as a necessity. Carmack saw his fans modifying Doom as a reason to ensure his engines were as clean and open as possible, Sweeney just sees those types as customers that should be paying him. Is it any wonder that he would sell out to the Chinese?.

 

[ds]

I also recall Tim Sweeney suggesting the vague possibility of open sourcing the first Unreal Engine, I believe that was way back in 2015. I think it's more of a case that he was unwilling to audit his code to ensure it was compliant, and/or seeing little purpose in doing so. Unlike John Carmack, he was never passionate about Free Software as an ideal or as a necessity. Carmack saw his fans modifying Doom as a reason to ensure his engines were as clean and open as possible, Sweeney just sees those types as customers that should be paying him. Is it any wonder that he would sell out to the Chinese?.

Sweeney talks big about standing up to closed platforms but when it actually comes to investing in open platforms he always has convenient excuses. I'd treat any comments and promises of his on the matter as 100% bullshit.

 

[antimeridian]

Sweeney pulled all the old Unreal games from digital sale because reasons. Fuck that clown

 

[spekkio]

BROs, two things:

1) TFix has been updated to 1.27b in May:

TFix 1.27b is up;

- reconstructed resources and mods to accommodate the new mod manager, mods now can be enabled/disabled with ease, also the TFix RESBASE is now set up as a mod that can be paused to ensure compatibility with improperly set up fan missions.
- the FMdml folder now contains all fm fixes from Jax64's repo. can also be paused in the mod manager.
- carry body mod is now integrated.
- few more fixed resources and map fixes.
- hdmod is much less pain in the neck to manage (pay extra attention to the TFix install instructions).

If using EP2 or NecroAge, make sure to download the latest versions. if you were using the wip TFix versions, delete the MODS folder before patching with 1.27b just to be sure.

2) Homeworld - Cataclysm got an unofficial patch.

New features:​

• Allows for increasing the default universe update rate of 16 FPS. This is why ship movement appears choppy in the classic Homeworld games. Supported values are 32 or 64 FPS; higher settings are possible but may cause instability or bugs.
• Unlocks selection of any resolution your system supports in the in-game video options. No need to edit the registry anymore!
• Bundles a new Direct3D9 renderer with better performance, compatibility, and fixes for issues in the original D3D renderer.
• High-detail mode: renders objects at maximum detail and removes active effects cap.
• Configurable autosave interval for SP/MP games.

Bug fixes:​

• DirectSound audio is now properly supported by the game engine, providing lower latency.
• Fixed OpenGL renderer being unavailable on newer operating systems (NT4 compatibility fix is no longer needed).
• Fixed current music track not being saved/loaded properly in SP games.
• Fixed F12 key not responding to keypresses after the first one (bound to military parade by default).
• Fixed ship textures randomly reverting to point instead of bilinear filtering, causing them to look pixelated.
• Fixed command ships damaging themselves when firing at certain angles.
• Add .ini option NoCompiledVertexArrays to fix graphical corruption in OpenGL for some AMD Radeon users.
• Add .ini option DisableEqualizer to fix a rare audio bug causing loud distortions for some users.
• Mission 17 no longer reduces the available texture memory pool for ships, and they should display at full detail.

 

[MasterofThunder]

If a game doesn't work out of the box it's not worth playing.

 

[ind33d]

Sweeney pulled all the old Unreal games from digital sale because reasons. Fuck that clown

it would be too damning to modern slop if audiences could see what unreal achieved with a fraction of the hardware

 

[flyingjohn]

Diablo 2 stuff (mostly version switcher):
https://xyinn.org
Will be handy because the original github links are dead.

 

[Baron Dupek]

https://github.com/Wemino/VorpalFix
American McGee's Alice 2011 remaster wasn't perfect so someone made fixes

https://github.com/dethrace-labs/dethrace
Carmageddon got reverse engineered to run natively on modern systems
no more DosBox or old Win95 version that have its own flaws

 

[ferratilis]

I'd like to use the ESRGAN texture pack for Thief Gold with the latest version of TFix. But apparently, TFix doesn't use the USERMODS folder anymore, using ddm instead. I tried installing the pack using it, but it doesn't work. Is there any way to do it?

https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=149825

EDIT: Nevermind, I just dumped everything manually into the mods folder and activated in dmm, it works somehow.

 

[The people of Duckburg]

I recently got around to finishing Thief 2, and went on to the third one. I remember hearing that it's consolized, but holy shit, is it worse than I expected. Genuinely unplayable. Installed the sneaky update, which made it better, but far from perfect. By default, the awful headbob makes your screen sway violently from the slightest movement. I set it to zero in the tweaker, but now Garrett freezes and starts floating around any time I move. Is there a way to fix this?

Headbob is truly the worst visual cancer in the industry. It's neither immersive nor realistic, because human brains have evolved to not pay attention to such motions. I can go for a run in the woods without experiencing even a fraction of what you get from taking a single step in the game. Absolutely unbelievable that this shit keeps getting pushed.