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Thief

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games

This page is for the 2014 game. For the original 1998 game, see Thief: The Dark Project.

Thief
Thief cover
Developers
Eidos-Montréal
Windows Nixxes Software
macOS (OS X) Feral Interactive
Publishers
2014-2023 Square Enix
2023-present Eidos-Montréal
OS X Feral Interactive
Russia Noviy Disk
Engines
Unreal Engine 3
Release dates
Windows February 24, 2014
macOS (OS X) November 24, 2015
Reception
Metacritic 70
OpenCritic 65
IGDB 64
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase, DLC
Microtransactions None
Modes Singleplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives First-person
Controls Direct control
Genres Stealth
Art styles Realistic
Themes Supernatural
Series Thief
Thief on HowLongToBeat
Thief on IGDB
Thief on MobyGames
Thief on Wikipedia
Thief
Thief: The Dark Project 1998
Thief II: The Metal Age 2000
Thief: Deadly Shadows 2004
The Dark Mod (unofficial spin-off) 2009
Thief 2014

Warnings

Mantle graphics API option requires an AMD video card with a driver version earlier than Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition 19.5.1.[1]

Thief is a singleplayer first-person stealth game in the Thief series.

General information

Originally announced as Thi4f.
Official forum
GOG.com Community Discussions for game series
GOG.com Support Page
Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Developer website
Icon overlay.png
Master Thief Edition.
macOS (OS X)
Amazon.com
Icon overlay.png
Master Thief Edition also available.
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Gamesplanet logo.svg
Icon overlay.png
Master Thief Edition also available.
Windows
macOS (OS X)
GOG.com
DRM-free
Definitive Edition.
Windows
Green Man Gaming
Icon overlay.png
Master Thief Edition also available.
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Humble Store
Icon overlay.png
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Mac App Store
Icon overlay.png
Shadow Edition.
macOS (OS X)
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Master Thief Edition also available.
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Publisher website (unavailable)
Icon overlay.png
Master Thief Edition also available.
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Amazon.co.uk (unavailable)
Icon overlay.png
Master Thief Edition also available.
Windows
macOS (OS X)

Version differences

Japanese language support is only available in Japan and requires a separate purchase or the Thief + Japanese Language Pack Bundle.
The Master Thief Edition includes the Opportunist DLC along with a digital artbook, comic book and soundtrack. The Thief Collection and Eidos Anthology include all Master Thief Edition content.[2][3]

DLC and expansion packs

Name Notes
Japanese Language Pack Only available in Japan.
Windows
The Bank Heist
Windows
macOS (OS X)
The Forsaken - Challenge Map
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Booster Pack - Opportunist
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Booster Pack - Predator
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Booster Pack - Ghost
Windows
macOS (OS X)

Essential improvements

Skip intro videos

Modify ThiefEngine.ini[4]
  1. Run the game once to generated the necessary file.
  2. Go to <path-to-game>\ThiefGame\Config
  3. Open ThiefEngine.ini.
  4. Change StartupMovies=PROG_GUI_Video.StartupVideoPlayer to ;StartupMovies=PROG_GUI_Video.StartupVideoPlayer
  5. Save the changes.

Skip launcher

Only applies to the Steam version; the GOG.com version starts directly without a launcher.[4]
This boots the 32-bit executable as default.
Run the game with the -nolauncher command line argument.[5]

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\ThiefGame\Config\[Note 1]
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Eidos Montreal\Thief\
macOS (OS X) $HOME/Library/Containers/com.feralinteractive.thief/Data/Library/Application Support/Feral Interactive/Thief - Shadow Edition/VFS/Local/Config/ThiefGame.ini
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/239160/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game data location

System Location
GOG.com %USERPROFILE%\Documents\My Games\Thief\
macOS (OS X) $HOME/Library/Containers/com.feralinteractive.thief/Data/Library/Application Support/Feral Interactive/Thief - Shadow Edition/VFS/Storage
Steam <Steam-folder>/userdata/<user-id>/239160/remote/
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/239160/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

Launcher, display settings.
Launcher, display settings.
Launcher, video settings.
Launcher, video settings.
Display settings.
Display settings.
Video settings.
Video settings.

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor
Huge screen tearing for G-Sync multi-monitor users if using the Nvidia SLI profile. Set the game on a Single GPU to get rid of screen tearing.
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
No issues found, HUD scales fine at 3840x2160 resolution.
Field of view (FOV)
Up to 110°. Crouching slightly reduces FOV. See Field of view (FOV).
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Uncheck "Exclusive Fullscreen" to enable borderless windowed mode.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
FXAA and SSAA.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
Double and triple buffering.
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
High dynamic range display (HDR)
See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Field of view (FOV)

Set custom FOV[citation needed]
  1. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Eidos Montreal\Thief\Graphics\
  2. Open FOVCorrection
  3. Use a hexidecimal value to adjust the FOV, e.g. 9C40 (which is hexadecimal for 40,000) will add 40° to the 90° base FOV.
  4. The change will remain as long as the in-game FOV slider is not touched.

Notes

Does not work if the game is set to run on Surround/Eyefinity.
Use Thief (2014) FOV Changer[6]

Fixing "Timed Fade" option for in-game HUD

Edit configuration file[citation needed]

When Health, Focus, Ammo and Inventory are set to "Timed Fade" in the Game & HUD menu, they only fade to around 50% opacity. This fix will make them completely disappear after a short while of inactivity, relieving the HUD of clutter.

  1. Open <path-to-game>\ThiefGame\Config\ThiefUI.ini
  2. Find mInvSelectionAlphaMin=, mHealthAlphaMin= and mFocusAlphaMin= and change their values to 0.0f;
  3. Save the changes.

Notes

No in-game settings override these, so there is no need to set the file as read-only.

Disable shroud effect (black/white fog at screen edges)

Using this tweak on existing saves will make the shroud reappear when loading a save (it will disappear after a cutscene is triggered).
Modify ThiefGame.ini[7]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\ThiefGame\Config.
  2. Open ThiefGame.ini.
  3. Change mbForceHideCloakEffect=0 to mbForceHideCloakEffect=1
  4. Save the changes and close the file.
  5. Right-click on it and choose Properties, tick Read-Only and click OK.

Input

Input settings.
Input settings.
Controller settings.
Controller settings.

Disable mouse smoothing

.ini edit[citation needed]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\ThiefGame\Config.
  2. Open ThiefInput.ini.
  3. Locate bEnableMouseSmoothing and change its value to false.

Reduce mouse input lag

Reducing mouse input lag[citation needed]

If the "Exclusive Fullscreen" setting is unchecked, the visuals will be one frame behind the input. This can be fixed by either checking "Exclusive Fullscreen" in the game options, or by disabling "one frame thread lag" in the configuration files like so:

  1. Open <path-to-game>\Engine\Config\BaseEngine.ini
  2. Change OneFrameThreadLag=True to OneFrameThreadLag=False
  3. Save the changes.

Audio

Audio settings.
Audio settings.

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Music, voice, and sound effects.
Surround sound
Up to 7.1 output.[8]
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
Czech
French
German
Hungarian
Fan translation
Italian
Japanese
Requires Japanese Language Pack DLC (Japan only).
Polish
Russian
Spanish

VR support

3D modes State Notes
Native 3D
Nvidia 3D Vision
vorpX
G3D, DirectVR
Officially supported game, see official vorpx game list.

Issues fixed

Missing voices, subtitles, music, and other sound effects

If the game is on an external drive, voices, subtitles, music, and some sound effects like lightning may not play during the game. This can easily be observed in the prologue cutscene, where Garrett should be speaking. If the game is installed on an external drive, try moving it to an internal drive.
Install game on an internal drive[9]

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 10, 11
Mantle support
Requires an AMD video card with a driver version earlier than 19.5.1 (2019).[1]
Shader Model support 4, 5
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows
Steam version has an option to use 32-bit version in the launcher; the GOG.com version is 64-bit only.[4]
macOS (OS X)

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Physics PhysX, Shroud
Audio Wwise
Interface Scaleform

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) Vista
Processor (CPU) Dual-Core/Quad-Core
System memory (RAM) 4 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 20 GB
Video card (GPU) AMD Radeon 4800 series
Nvidia GeForce GTS 250
DirectX 10 compatible
macOS (OS X)
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 10.10.5
Processor (CPU) 1.8 GHz
System memory (RAM) 4 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 30 GB
Video card (GPU) AMD Radeon HD 5000 Series
Nvidia GeForce GTX 600 Series
Intel Iris Pro
1 GB of VRAM
A 64-bit operating system is required.


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).
  2. 2.0 2.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/239160/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (239160) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 AMD - Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition 19.5.1 Highlights - last accessed on 2019-05-15
    "Support for AMD Mantle API Technology has been discontinued starting with Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition 19.5.1. Users who wish to continue to use AMD Mantle API Technology may do so with prior supported Radeon Software releases."
  2. Thief Collection (ROW) · SubID: 49972 · Steam Database - last accessed on 9 June 2023
  3. Eidos Anthology · SubID: 52123 · Steam Database - last accessed on 9 June 2023
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 Verified by User:Garrett on June 13, 2021
  5. Launch Tomb Raider directly and skip launcher - Steam Community Discussions for Tomb Raider - last accessed on May 2023
  6. Verified by User:Tuty4amxx on 2018-01-03
  7. HOW TO: Disable "shroud" (black fog on screen edges) PC - last accessed on May 2023
  8. PC Gaming Surround Sound Round-up - last accessed on May 2023
  9. Bug? Sounds missing? - Square Enix Forums - last accessed on May 2023