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The Thing

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Revision as of 18:11, 27 May 2018 by Elfor (talk | contribs)
The Thing
The Thing cover
Developers
Computer Artworks
Publishers
Vivendi Universal Games
Release dates
Windows August 20, 2002
The Thing on Wikipedia
Icon overlay.png
Icon overlay.png

General information

MobyGames entry

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
 Patch 1.2 removes disc check.
Windows
This game is not available digitally.

Essential improvements

Patches

Patch 1.2 removes disc check and adds mouse look option.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Computer Artworks\The Thing\1.0\

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\bin\[Note 1]

Video settings

Game settings.
Game settings.
Audio and video settings.
Audio and video settings.
Key mappings screen.
Key mappings screen.
Advanced controls.
Advanced controls.

Template:Video settings

Widescreen resolution

Change resolution and aspect ratio[1]
  1. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Computer Artworks\The Thing\1.0\.
  2. Change DisplayModeWidth and DisplayModeHeight to the desired resolution.
  3. Open TheThing.exe with a hex editor such as HxD.
  4. Find the hex values AB AA AA 3F.
  5. Replace with the desired aspect ratio.
    • CD CC CC 3F for 16:10 screens
    • 39 8E E3 3F for 16:9 screens
    • CD 90 18 40 for 21:9 screens

Input settings

Template:Input settings

Audio settings

Template:Audio settings

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 8
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

White screen, no intro movie error

When you get just a white (and then black) screen when starting, it means the data path is missing.
The solution is to either re-install the game or simply add the necessary path to the register by hand:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Computer Artworks\The Thing\1.0\]
"RESOURCEDIR"="C:\\thething\\data"
(edit accordingly then apply, this should fix the problem)


System requirements

Windows[2]
Minimum
Operating system (OS) 98
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium II
System memory (RAM) 64 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 600 MB
Video card (GPU) 3D Accelerator Required
8 MB of VRAM
DirectX 8 compatible

Notes

  1. ↑ When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).

References

  1. ↑ The Thing - WSGF - last accessed on November 30, 2016
  2. ↑ The Thing for Windows (2002) Tech Info - MobyGames - last accessed on November 30, 2016