Sam Stoat wrote:

I've managed to install Thief Gold in WinXP using 98 compatability mode, but when I run the game I can't switch on Hardware Sound, which means no surround.

I'm using the nforce chipset for my sound card, and Hardware Sound did work in Win98. Does anyone have a fix for this?

Not sure what to tell you, it appears that you are having more success than most people:

Please note that WE DO NOT SUPPORT playing the game under Windows 2000 or Windows XP. There are likely several problems that you will encounter attempting to play Thief: The Dark Project or Thief Gold under Windows 2000/XP that would not occur when playing under Windows 9x/ME.

If you are attempting to play Thief or Thief Gold under Windows XP and the in-game movies are not playing you may wish to install the Windows XP latest version of the Indeo Codecs. However, the company that produces the XP version of the codec charges a fee for the current version.

Problems may arise depending on your hardware configuration and the DirectX compliance of your video and sound card drivers. Our only suggestions if you encounter problems playing Thief: The Dark Project or Thief Gold under Windows 2000 or Windows XP are to ensure you have the latest available drivers installed for your hardware and to contact Microsoft for the latest Service Packs and Critical Updates for your version of Windows.

Have you checked with the NVidia people about the surround sound? If the option doesn't appear in-game, your setup is (supposedly) incapable.

You cant turn on 3d sound if your all ready in a game. Try turn it on before starting a new game.

if that did’nt work all I can say is it's properly due to the fact your using the nforce chipset, though if it did work in 98 its odd that it's not working now. All I can say is have you checked your drivers are up to date?

all so I found if the movies don’t play in any of the look glass games it some times has to do with what codec you have install. I did a fresh install of windows 2000 and install all my drivers and what not and the movies work fine. However they stopped working after I installed ffdshow, DirectShow Ogg Vorbis filter, DirectShow Subtitle filter, XviD and or GordianKnot CodecPack. I have no idea WICH one of the codec are interfering with the game but if you do have any of them installed you may want to try removing them to see if it fixes the problem, because after I uninstalled them the movies started working again.

And on a different but similar note instilling of some 3rd party MP3 codec such as Fraunhofer IIS MPEG Layer-3 Codec can interfere with the sound in freelancer.
Go here to see more:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?sci … kb;en-us;814549