Thief 2 – The Metal Age (2000) – Running Old PC Games

Info about the game
Installing
Patching / Cracking / Running
EAX (HD / 3D Audio)
High refresh rates
Mods
Fan missions
T2X – Shadows of the Metal Age

1. Info about the game

Developer: Looking Glass Studios, Inc.

Resources:

2. Installing

2.1.a) Insert your original CD1 into the CD/DVD drive,

or:

2.1.b) Buy the game on GoG or Steam and only then download CD images from archive.org. Extract .bin & .cue files, mount the CD1 image in ImgDrive or similar software.

2.2) Autorun should launch panel.exe (run it manually if you disabled Autorun for CD/DVD drives):

2.3) Do a full install of the game:

2.4) Installer should install the game fine without any compatibility settings (mount CD2 and CD1 when asked to):

2.5) Don’t install DirectX 7.0.

3. Patching / Cracking / Running

3.1) Don’t run the game yet. Grab the Patch v1.18 from Patches Scrolls or my mirror. Patch the game.

3.2) Don’t run the game yet. thief2.exe is protected with Safedisc v1.41.000. In its current state the game will run from original CD only on old enough x86 Windows (XP or earlier):

SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows 10 or Windows 11 and is disabled by default on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 when the KB3086255 update is installed.

3.3.a) If you’re on old hardware & OS (Win98, WinXP) and installed the game from original CD, you can run it (Safedisc should work).

3.3.b) If you’re on old hardware & OS (Win98, WinXP), but you don’t have an original CD, you must remove the Safedisc protection via a no-CD crack (GOTO #3.4).

3.3.c) If you’re on modern hardware & OS, you should upgrade the game further with a non-protected, updated .exe (GOTO #3.5).

3.4) Grab the no-CD crack from GameCopyWorld. I’ve used this one:

Backup original thief2.exe and replace it with the cracked one. You can now launch the game:

It should work on old enough hardware & OS, and it works on mine (see “Statement” for info about my setup).

3.5) People on modern hardware and Win 10 / 11 should upgrade the game further with an updated .exe (from NewDark update). The best way of applying NewDark to Thief 2 is by using Thief 2 Fixer a.k.a. T2Fix by Jax64. You can grab it at TTLG Forums. Download the T2Fix_1.27e_with_mods.exe and run it:

It contains optional improvements, mostly related to the fact, that NewDark uses modified Thief 2 engine. I recommend using following ones:

It can also apply some “modern” settings to the game (“Configuration Options”):

If the game doesn’t run, you’re probably missing required Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable (get it from the same link as T2Fix).

3.6) You can now run the game in its “most up-to-date” form:

And apply “modern” settings by modifying cam_ext.cfg:

4. EAX (HD / 3D Audio)

4.1) Hardware accelerated sound should be available “out of the box” (at least when using NewDark):

But EAX isn’t available. Yet.

4.2.a) Get the OpenAL 1.1 Windows installer (oalinst.zip) from OpenAL site. Install OpenAL driver (oalinst.exe).

4.2.b) If you don’t want to or can’t (Linux) use the system-level solution (driver), and prefer the appliaction-level one (.dll), grab the OpenAL 1.1 Dll Pack (OpenAL 1.1.zip) from my mirror.

Extract proper OpenAL32.dll (depending on your OS, either 32-bit or 64-bit one) to game’s main directory.

4.3) Get the latest OpenAL Soft binaries from the OpenAL Soft site.

OpenAL Soft is an LGPL-licensed, cross-platform, software implementation of the OpenAL 3D audio API.

OpenAL provides capabilities for playing audio in a virtual 3D environment. Distance attenuation, doppler shift, and directional sound emitters are among the features handled by the API. More advanced effects, including air absorption, occlusion, and environmental reverb, are available through the EFX extension.

Extract proper soft_oal.dll (depending on the game’s .exe, either 32-bit or 64-bit; in case of Thief 2, the 32-bit of course) from \bin\ subdirectory to game’s main directory.

4.4) Get the OpenAL Soft configuration file (alsoft_ini.zip) from my miror. Extract alsoft.ini to game’s main directory and modify it if necessary.

By default, it’s configured to use 2.0 speakers.:

channels=stereo
stereo-mode=speakers

If you want to change the channel / speaker setup, modify the “channels” entry, for example into:

channels=surround51

If you want to use headphones instead of speakers, modify the “stereo-mode” and “stereo-encoding” entries into:

stereo-mode=headphones
stereo-encoding=hrtf

Full list of alsoft.ini commands can be found here.

4.5) Run the game, change Hardware sound acceleration to “OpenAL”. EAX should now be available:

If it isn’t, or if you get no audio when using OpenAL, check the Thief2.log. In most cases it’s either:

Problem with the OpenAL driver (OpenAL32.dll missing, wrong version used: 32-bit instead of 64-bit):

: OpenAL Init...
: OpenAL not found on system or failed to load, install AL redist package or chose other sound driver

Problem with the OpenAL Soft binaries (soft_oal.dll missing, wrong version used: 64-bit instead of 32-bit):

: Opening user defined OpenAL device "OpenAL Soft"...
: Skipping device "OpenAL Soft", failed to open
: failed to open device

If everything’s fine, you should get sth like this:

: OpenAL Init... : OpenAL32.dll: 6.14.357.24 : Default device: OpenAL Soft : Opening default OpenAL device "OpenAL Soft"... : Device 0 (default) : name : OpenAL Soft : version : 1.1 : version str: 1.1 ALSOFT 1.23.1 : vendor : OpenAL Community : renderer : OpenAL Soft : 3D sources : 255 : 2D sources : 8 : EFX : 1 : EAX2 : 1 : EAX3 : 1 : EAX4 : 1 : EAX5 : 1 : occlusion : 1 : XRAM : 1 : Opened device 'OpenAL Soft' : EAX reverb support enabled : occlusion support enabled

5. High refresh rates

If you want to enable high refresh rate (144Hz, 240Hz) for this game, do the following:

5.1) Open cam_ext.cfg (NewDark configuration file).

5.2) Increase the “framerate_cap 100.0” value to the desired one, for example:

framerate_cap 144.0

5.3) Remove semicolon from the “;phys_freq 60” line:

phys_freq 60

This should prevent physics-related issues by locking physics updates to a fixed frequency.

6. Mods

There are some pretty interesting mods available for the game: hi-res textures, hi-res sounds, etc.

6.1) To use mods, you’ll need a Mod Manager. T2Fix installs one by default – Dark Engine Mod Manager (a.k.a. DMM). Go to game’s main directory and run dmm.exe. As you can see, T2Fix uses it to install its mods:

6.2) I can recommend one TG mod for sure: Thief Enhancement Pack by Nameless One.

This project is an effort to improve the quality of the graphics in Thief 2: The Metal Age, and also in Thief: The Dark Project and Thief Gold. The ultimate goal is to replace all the old, low-quality objects and textures from Thief 1 and 2 with versions that have higher polygon counts and texture resolutions, while keeping as close to the originals as possible.

6.3) Grab latest version from GitHub. Select “Install mod archive(s)” in DMM, choose ep2.zip. Activate mod.

6.4) Set proper mod priority (upper mod’s contents supersede contents of the lower one).

Mods that are higher on the list override every mod below them.

AFAIK ep2 should be placed above EP and below t2skies / t2water:

6.5) Launch the game via BMM. And voila:

7. Fan missions

Except mods, Thief 2 can also run fan-created missions. Good resource of these can be found at thiefguild.com. To run them:

7.1.a) Run the “Thief 2 FMs” Desktop link, created by T2Fix.

7.1.b) Run Thief2.exe with the “-fm” parameter:

Thief2.exe -fm

7.2) Either way, you’ll get FMSel. Let it create the\/FMs\ subfolder and (optionally) choose the subfolder with archived FMs (\archFMs\ for example).

7.3) Download fan missions, put them either into the \archFMs\ subfolder (if kept as archives) or into the \FMs\ subfolder (if extracted). Play FM:

8. T2X – Shadows of the Metal Age

Based on the critically-acclaimed Thief series, T2X is an unofficial expansion building on the technology that made Thief 2 a classic with critics and fans alike. More than 60 artists, designers, writers and programmers from the gaming community have contributed their talents to realize a fresh new Thief experience.

- Thirteen full-length missions take the action through city streets and rooftops, ancient tombs, hotels, museums, cathedrals and more in a gripping tale of vengeance and deception.
- Ten new weapons and tools provide the means to evade, outwit, and out-fight your opponents, as well as bringing unprecedented levels of emergent gameplay to the Thief series.
- Hundreds of new models, textures and sounds: 3000 lines of new dialogue.
- Four beautifully-rendered cutscenes and twelve new briefings in the original Thief style.
- A new main character with a fluid, immersive narrative that grips the player until the last scene.

8.1) Download t2x_v11_full.exe from thief2x.com.

8.2) Install T2X to the main Thief2 folder:

8.3) Download t2x_fix_1d.7z from moddb.com (it’s an unofficial fix)

Early beta of a fixup package for T2x (v.1d), it currently lacks an installer, and there is quite a bit of redundancy, but it should be usable enough - if you want 32bit relit missions, hipoly objects, newskies and T2 water, you might want to give it a try.

8.4) Extract its contents into \t2x\ subfolder, overvriting old files:

8.5) Move the \t2x\ subfolder to the \FMs\ subfolder:

17) Use the “Thief 2 FMs” desktop link, created by T2Fix, or run Thief2.exe with the “- fm” parameter. FMSel should launch:

Click “Play FM” to launch T2X: