VOGONS


First post, by ildonaldo

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Hello,

I just installed Windows 95C on my 1997 Pentium 1 Build (#2 IDT W2A/200, but now with a Matrox Millenium II + Matrox m3D PowerVR 2).
I now intended to install Tomb Raider 1 (including PVR 2 patch) on the system, but my TR1 "Gold edition" came only with the DOS installer.
Is there anything like a Win 95 installer update for Tomb Raider 1 available or do I have to get the Windows 95-Edition?

Thanks, ildonaldo

Building my own PCs since 1991 - for my retro builds it's "no CF-disks, no Floppy emulators, no modern cases etc.", only the real and authentic stuff whenever possible.

Reply 1 of 5, by Garrett W

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There is no Windows 95 edition of Tomb Raider. It was a DOS game and the series moved to Windows one year later with Tomb Raider 2. All of the 3D accelerated versions, except for one, were DOS executables as well. The one that was a native Win95 app was the ATi Rage patched version.

Reply 2 of 5, by ildonaldo

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Oh, I am quite certain that there had been a Windows 95 adapted version (that I remember having in that days).
Please see https://www.amazon.com/Tomb-Raider-DOS-Window … 5/dp/B004LJMNJ2 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrIhy8XxmzA

But I don't remember if there had been an installer update for the original DOS version - thats what I am looking for.
regards, ildonaldo

Building my own PCs since 1991 - for my retro builds it's "no CF-disks, no Floppy emulators, no modern cases etc.", only the real and authentic stuff whenever possible.

Reply 3 of 5, by Garrett W

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The amazon listing you provided does not prove your point, all versions of Tomb Raider 1 come with a DOS installer because this is a DOS game. Win95 took a while before it took off for games, even in 1997 a lot of games came with DOS versions on disk or there was no Windows executable at all often. Some memorable ones are: Fallout 1, Oddworld Abe's Oddysey, Atlantis the Lost Tales, MDK, Carmageddon, Dungeon Keeper and many many others. The fact that the CD says it also runs on Windows 95 is solely because Win9x run most DOS programs and games just fine through that OS's DOS Box (unrelated to DOSBox).

The youtube video you posted showcases a fan-made installer for later OSes, such as Windows XP, from 2006 (you can even see it clearly on the modification date). Windows NT based OSes (such as Win2000, XP and all the way up to 10) do not run DOS apps natively, they run them through what is an abstraction layer called NTVDM, in essence a Virtual Machine. Back in the days of Windows 2000 and XP and before the advent of Steam and GOG re-releases such installers were commonplace because they contained a lot of tweaks and extra software/patches to make said games run on an OS they were not designed to run on.

Tomb Raider 1 is a DOS game through and through. The only Windows executable is the ATi Rage version, which has led to it being used to run the game on modern systems at high resolutions through the usage of an ATI 3DCIF wrapper. What you may remember as a Windows installer may have been another game in the series entirely or perhaps some compilation or re-release that did not use it, but the game would have been a DOS exe in any case. I had the Sold-Out version back in ~2003-2004 and it still used a DOS installer although you were presented with a menu in Windows, like with all of Sold Out's releases.

Reply 4 of 5, by Dominus

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if you actually view that video you will notice that it uses Vdos which is a Dos emulator (based on Dosbox if I'm not mistaken), not to mention that his CD-Rom is obviously a self enhanced one, as it has VDMSound, Glidos and Vdos on it. The versions on Gog or Steam also use Dosbox. So the CD-Rom on Amazon probably means it ran in the Windows 95 Dos mode.
However there is a patch for Tomb Raider on Gog/steam that makes it not use Dosbox, no idea what it does. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filede … s/?id=932208684

Edit: Garrett answered how they are not using Dosbox. Thanks 😀

Windows 3.1x guide for DOSBox
60 seconds guide to DOSBox
DOSBox SVN snapshot for macOS (10.4-11.x ppc/intel 32/64bit) notarized for gatekeeper

Reply 5 of 5, by ildonaldo

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Guess I have mixed this up with the "ADVANCED TOMB RAIDER INSTALLER" for Windows XP.

Got TR1 running now with Win 95 (with resolution 800x600 & colourdepth 16bit).
There is still a problem with the intro movies (don't show), but I will try some different 2D cards like S3 Virge/DX or ATI Rage Pro.
regards, ildonaldo

Building my own PCs since 1991 - for my retro builds it's "no CF-disks, no Floppy emulators, no modern cases etc.", only the real and authentic stuff whenever possible.