First post, by janskjaer
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I've never played Tomb Raider before and the only version of the game I own is the one bundled with my Videologic Apocalypse 3Dx PowerVR PCX2 graphics card.
This version of the game is labelled as the "Special Edition". However, it seems to be far from "Special".
The CD has the "PowerVR Extreme" logo on it and as far as I can tell, it should simply be a PowerVR enhanced version of the full game.
As well as testing the game with my PowerVR cards, I wanted to see if this version of the game would accept me using the Rendition Verite Speedy3D patch on top of it. (http://www.patches-scrolls.com/dl.php?file=rendfina.zip)
I was surprised to see that it worked. I decided to play through the game with my Creative 3D Blaster PCI Rendition Verite v1000E instead.
Upon reaching the end of "Level 8: The Cistern", I dropped into the tunnel to end the level, seeing the level statistics and then ... error:
S_LoadLevel(): Could not open F:\data\level7b.phd
Doing a DIR command on the data directory of the game CD, I couldn't find any more .phd files after level7a.phd:
Having obtained a BIN/CUE image of the original Tomb Raider game CD, I compared the two to find quite a few differences.
Left-side being the original Tomb Raider game CD, and the right-side being the Tomb Raider PowerVR Special Edition:
Mode: Differences
Left base folder: Z:\Volumes\TOMBRAIDER
Right base folder: Z:\Volumes\TOMB
Name Size CRC Modified Name Size CRC Modified
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3dPatch 10/02/1998 07:12:00
DATA 51,681,110 10/02/1998 07:08:50 DATA 28,024,458 21/10/1997 08:05:31
| << +BUY.PCX 146,735 4B033A51 11/07/1997 15:13:06
+CUT2.PHD 354,320 E3E695AF 05/11/1996 15:12:56 >> |
+CUT3.PHD 512,104 2236E7EB 05/11/1996 15:13:00 >> |
+CUT4.PHD 879,582 ED2A6319 05/11/1996 15:13:04 >> |
+END.PCX 102,512 2A6906A6 18/10/1996 08:42:36 << +END.PCX 220,139 B07B309F 27/03/1997 15:27:50
+LEVEL6.PHD 3,139,590 D33506EF 05/11/1996 15:10:42 >> +LEVEL6.PHD 3,074,376 C02DE8D4 25/10/1996 09:56:36
+LEVEL7A.PHD 2,817,290 496D674B 05/11/1996 15:10:54 >> \LEVEL7A.PHD 2,817,612 E70BD755 25/10/1996 09:56:48
+LEVEL7B.PHD 3,388,774 05F6CA55 05/11/1996 15:11:12 >>
+LEVEL8A.PHD 2,880,242 A38D6808 05/11/1996 15:11:26 >>
+LEVEL8B.PHD 2,886,434 BF53F700 05/11/1996 15:11:44 >>
+LEVEL8C.PHD 3,105,128 45E08F6A 05/11/1996 15:11:58 >>
+LEVEL10A.PHD 3,223,816 6EBEF3A3 05/11/1996 15:12:16 >>
+LEVEL10B.PHD 3,094,020 827DFC49 05/11/1996 15:12:32 >>
\LEVEL10C.PHD 3,531,702 9B7AF7CE 05/11/1996 15:12:50 >>
FMV 124,750,330 10/02/1998 07:09:48 FMV 56,103,381 21/10/1997 08:05:34
Profiles 10/02/1998 07:12:00
UNIVESA 10/02/1998 07:08:50
INSTALL.BAT 77 D4DEDFD9 06/11/1996 10:25:52 >> INSTALL.BAT 64 931F23AF 22/10/1996 13:41:04
<< INSTALL.EXE 214,457 23261F39 21/10/1997 15:40:40
INSTR.BAT 77 D4DEDFD9 06/11/1996 10:25:52 << INSTR.BAT 86 79B2868C 20/10/1997 13:31:30
<< ISPCX1.EXE 42,684 5D6FB51C 21/10/1997 16:26:04
<< PVRSETUP.EXE 27,136 E2504D6C 21/10/1997 15:55:16
README.EXE 24,334 39487616 16/11/1994 13:21:18 >>
README.TXT 9,666 47CB2962 19/02/1998 11:32:18 >> README.TXT 9,828 3A23A9A6 21/10/1997 14:38:44
TOMB.EXE 768,563 1772DBA0 06/11/1996 14:11:12 << TOMB.EXE 1,145,708 8E26142D 10/09/1997 09:54:18
TOMB.PIF 967 D8B9D233 06/11/1996 16:13:22 << TOMB.PIF 967 2D522044 20/10/1997 13:39:56
TOMB.SP 11,888 F3B1C414 06/11/1996 14:13:08 >> TOMB.SP 11,888 BE30AB0C 06/11/1996 11:34:08
<< TOMBPCX1.EXE 1,144,108 7E5D6B6F 23/09/1997 17:30:40
TRFAQ.rtf 477,247 4C56CEB7 19/02/1998 10:49:14 >>
TRFAQ.txt 25,755 C23B8259 19/02/1998 11:37:32 >>
<< UVCONFIG.EXE 309,382 E2293DAE 27/01/1997 13:58:14
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's quite clear the the PowerVR Special Edition is missing the rest of the levels.
What is interesting are the two last level files on the Special Edition, LEVEL6.PHD and LEVEL7A.PHD. For some reason, the files are different than on the original CD. The same goes for the two images on the PowerVR edition, BUY.PCX (which doesn't exist on the original CD for obvious reasons) and a different END.PCX file:
The only reason I can think the last two levels on the PowerVR edition are different than the original is because they were supposed to initiate the end sequence of the game prematurely, and display those two PCX files, signalling the end of the PowerVR edition.
So why didn't I see them, and instead get the error about the missing LEVEL7B.PHD? Because, I had replaced the PowerVR-modded TOMB.EXE with the one from the Rendition Verite Patch. The Rendition-based TOMB.EXE wasn't coded to prematurely end the game, and was it was expecting to continue onto the next level, hence the error.
Moral of the story - "Special" doesn't always signify "Better" 😉
DELL Dimension XPS M200s
:Intel P1 MMX 200MHz
:64MB EDO
:DOS 6.22/Win95b
:Matrox Millenium II + m3D (PowerVR PCX2)
Chaintech 7VJL Apogee
:AMD AthlonXP 2700+
:512MB DDR
:Win98SE/2000 SP4
:3dfx Voodoo5 5500 AGP