You could try making an ISO of the game and running it off the HDD, effectively eliminating the slow CD-ROM speeds. Alternatively, the GOG version is your best bet.

Yes it is. In fact it is about the best way to run the game smoothly. Keep in mind that there are CDA tracks, so you will need to make your image as something like a BIN/CUE pair or an ISO with ripped tracks and imgmount it with a CUE sheet. You can use my installer to do all of this automatically. http://sierrahelp.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=3925

BTW, since this is a DOSBox question it should go in the DOSBox forum. A mod might be kind enough to move this thread for you.

By the way, I suppose you're using Jump Save&Load bug ? 😉 I'd like to see how fast you can speedrun the game 😀 !

Please start Dosbox questions in the Dosbox forums. Moved it now

Hey,
I didnt expect that fast help! Thanks everyone 😀

Dominus wrote:

Please start Dosbox questions in the Dosbox forums. Moved it now

Thanks for moving! I just dont feel too comfortable in another language, in a topic i have no clue about. I am sorry. But you probably hear that everyday ^^'.

F2bnp wrote:

You could try making an ISO of the game and running it off the HDD, effectively eliminating the slow CD-ROM speeds. Alternatively, the GOG version is your best bet.

Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking of! Just didnt know I had to save it as a .iso! Now I just need to figure out how to do this in detail!

collector wrote:

Yes it is. In fact it is about the best way to run the game smoothly. Keep in mind that there are CDA tracks, so you will need to make your image as something like a BIN/CUE pair or an ISO with ripped tracks and imgmount it with a CUE sheet. You can use my installer to do all of this automatically. http://sierrahelp.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=3925

BTW, since this is a DOSBox question it should go in the DOSBox forum. A mod might be kind enough to move this thread for you.

I will try this ASAP! Thanks! Also I didn't really understand what you were talking about 😁 CDA tracks, BIN/CUE , CUE sheet - I'm glad you attached something that will probably help me! I'm a super noob with things like this 😀

EDIT: Ohh - Thats your program? I've already seen it when searching the forum. Unfortunately it doesnt work for me. It always ejects the CD and tells me to put it back in again. Maybe I have one of the (rare?) LBA2 CDs and not the LBA2: Twinsen's Odyssey CD?

F2bnp wrote:

By the way, I suppose you're using Jump Save&Load bug ? 😉 I'd like to see how fast you can speedrun the game 😀 !

Oh sure, I will PM you the link to the speedrun. I don't think it would be appropriate to advertise my streaming channel here 😜 We use the SaveJumpBug (or whatever you want to call it) to skip a lot of things. For example the jetpack gets pretty useless if you are good at using the SaveJumpBug. My PB for Any% is currently at 49mins:13seconds, but there is a major skip we recently found, so you can substract about 20 seconds from this I think 😀 With the extra fast loading without the CD (finger's crossed) it might even be less than that!

The installer was based on the NA release of the game (Twinsen's Odyssey). It could be that if you have the European LB2 that there is enough of a difference in the layout that the installer does not recognize it. I have attached a small program that will list the files on your CD. If you point it to your CD and attach the list I can add support for your version.

Really appreciate your help! If you need something else, ask straight away!

I gather LBA2 has no particular timing issues, i.e. the game won't start running faster than normal if you bump up the DOSBox cycles? Because DOSBox might not be too great for speedrunning if that's the case. (Please excuse me if I am stating the obvious.)

@Mabrie, give me a couple of days to find some time to look it over.

My installer uses dynamic core and max cycles and the game is completable without crashes. I am not aware of any timer bugs, but then I never tried a speed run. The main thing that I am aware of is CD access issues that seem to be solved by using an image. I have never tried the Win version on anything later than XP, but even for that you need a fan patch.

Jorpho wrote:

I gather LBA2 has no particular timing issues, i.e. the game won't start running faster than normal if you bump up the DOSBox cycles? Because DOSBox might not be too great for speedrunning if that's the case. (Please excuse me if I am stating the obvious.)

I really dont know too much about the technology behind DOSBox, so I cant answer this sufficent enough. All I know (from some other runners) is, that its something like an code of honour to not manipulate your DOSBox. All the runners I know used a clean setup from the magicball network (Its the corresponding fan page for the game) with very few (afaik even 0) Variables you could change to make the game run faster.
I am not too worried about someone speeding up his run by 1% or something. You get a feeling for this after some time and also its just a speedrun for an old game. Competition is awesome, but If anyone feels like cheating at that point, just let him do it. There is few people who would hate him for it (I would 😈 ).

collector wrote:

@Mabrie, give me a couple of days to find some time to look it over.

Take your time! I don't have time for speedruns anyways, since exams are on their way... 🙁

I have had a chance to look this over. The main difference between the discs is that the main folder is named "LBA2" and the installer was expecting this folder to named "TWINSEN". This part is trivial, but the multi language presents a bit more of a hurdle. What language did you want? It would be possible to do a multi language installer, but that would require some one to translate the installer's custom strings for each supported other language -- French, German, Italian and Spanish with only English, German and French audio files. I suppose that I could just do a multi language installer with all of the custom strings in English. It would at least allow the user to select what language for the game that they want to use.

Also, I have no way to check the CD audio tracks. The NA release (Twinsen's Odyssey) has 6 audio tracks. I do not know how many the EU release (Little Big Adventure 2) has or what other differences it may have. Take a look at your disc with a ripper and let me know what audio tracks it has.

Thank you so much for all your work so far!
I am not very experienced with audio software; I've tried going with Audiograbber as you can see in the attached picture. Doesn't look right though. If this doesn't help you any further, please give me some information on what exactly you need and more importantly how exactly I can get the information.

For me a multi-language support is not needed, since I only know people running the game in English language. Nevertheless it would be a great idea to do so for people in the future, and I offer my translation service for German. I can also ask another speedrunner who speaks French to do the same, if required.

I can understand your frustration towards my incompetence, but I would appreciate an answer 😁

I don't see what the issue is. Use a program like IMGBurn to create an ISO file of the CD and then use the imgmount command on DOSBox to load said image. I don't think you'll care much about the audio tracks, they'll probably serve as an annoyance when speedrunning.

Or just get the GOG version which is prepped up and good to go.

To be clear: you would use imgburn to make a BIN/CUE image of the CD.

(Back in the day, people would sometimes make images of a CD consisting of one ISO file consisting of the disc's data, a bunch of MP3 or OGG files consisting of the audio tracks, and one CUE file that served as an index for everything. But such a technique was mostly used because compressing the audio resulted in much smaller files that were easier to store and transfer. In this era of fast Internet speeds and gigantic hard drives, there is little need to use anything other than BIN/CUE images.)

Sorry, I have not forgotten this, but I have had little time to give to it. Perhaps sometime this week.

gog release might have a few clues of how to do it. Last time i tried (on not gog release) i had broken cd audio.