I typed this out a while back but forgot to publish the post for whatever reason. This is the collection of mods that I am using the make Thief Gold tolerable on computer screens larger than a postage stamp.
My fellow denizens of the Internet seem to possess various opinions on whether or not the enhancement and HD mods remain true to the original spirit and look of the game, but I like them and I shall leave that judgment for your own personal preference. That said, I would highly recommend installing the TFix patch at minimum (enabled widescreen support, general fixes, patches, and the like). Also, as with any Steam game that you have to manually patch or mod outside of the Steam interface itself, I would highly recommend disabling automatic updates. You may do so by going to your Library, right clicking on the title -> Properties -> Updates -> Select ‘Do not automatically update this game’ from the dropdown menu. Mods used:
- NewDark: An update to the Dark Engine to accommodate newer hardware. If you purchased Thief off of GOG, it already comes packaged with NewDark.
- TFix: n all-in-one unofficial patch for Thief and Thief Gold. It improves compatibility with newer hardware, fixes miscellaneous issues, adds support for widescreen resolutions, and various other things. This update utilizes and comes packaged with the NewDark update.
- Thief Enhancement Pack 2: Replaces some of the textures and models.
- OpenAL: Enable EAX through the OpenAL library.
- HD Texture Mod: Makes things HD.
1. Install TFix: Download and run the TFix installer (use 1.18a) or newer from here. By default, TFix will choose C:\Games\Thief as the destination folder. If you purchased Thief off of Steam or GOG you will need to change the folder path during the installation process to reflect your Thief install directory. For most people running Steam on a 64-bit installation of Windows it should be located at: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\thief_gold\
2. Install the Thief Enhancement Pack 2: This mod does not have an installer, Download the ep2.cr file from this forum post and drop it into the main directory. Ignore the installation instructions on ttlg.com by the way: You do not need to edit cam_mod.ini as that will be added later by the HD mod..
3. Install the HD Texture Mod: Download the HD Mod Installer and install it to your main thief directory.
4. Enable EAX through OpenAL: Extract the contents of the 7-zip files from this guide into your Thief Gold directory. Start Thief, options -> enable Hardware Acceleration until it shows OpenAL.