I have the Saturn version of Tomb Raider and I was searching the forums to find out why some music’s didn't play like on level 3 when the t-rex first appears on the PC version (never managed to finish the game and i was thinking of doing it on the PC with better graphics and allot more save points).
Is it really true that the PC version doesn’t have them?
If so the PC version just lost all its appeal, the graphic may be better but who cares if you lose the atmosphere the sound gives to the game 🙁 (And the Saturn has a gamepad all ready to go).

Well, I have both versions (PSX and PC) and it took me a while to find out what was really missing in the PC one. Yes, there's a *bit* of appeal lost here, but not that much.

FYI, only the small 'jingles' are missing. The CD tracks with background sound (wind, heartbeats, howlings and such) are still there thankfully. I agree it would be better if the soundtrack was complete, but it definitely doesn't disfigure the whole game as you believe it does. And the dramatically improved graphics largely make up for this 'loss'.

Give it a try and you will see/hear for yourself.

[Edit] As for the gamepad, I'm currently using my original PSX one 😎

I still remember how scared I was when the music started playing I knew I was about to face a terrible enemy and I didn't want to go forward but had to and has soon as I did a T-Rex appeared.
I'll never forget that moment, and if it's missing from the PC version them for me it's a very big deal indeed.

EDIT: I have a PSX like gamepad 😀 but haven't been able to use more then 4 keys, Nicht Sehr Gut suggested joy2key so ill go check that out.

EDIT2: I'm not shure but I think thst it may also be playing the wrong background music on some levels, i woul have to check.

I just went and plugged in my old Saturn (to the TV of course) and compared level 3.

It seems I was half right, it's playing the right music but when you enter the valley (the area with the dinos) the Saturn version stops playing wile the PC version with Glidos continues, also some "event sound" (when you enter a secret room or a enemy is coming) are missing (just don't play).

And this plain sucks I miss hearing all the sound (very usefull to know wen a big bad guy is coming) but I like the save any were option.

PS: I know this is double posting but I didn’t knew if editing would mark it has unread

AntiSnipe wrote:

CDRSapu is the best CDROM plugin I've found and even it won't run the audio tracks quite right in Tomb Raider. They queue off and play at the wrong times, but some of them play properly too.

At least that's how it is on my PCs.

Yeah I have that problem with ePSXe....

Yeah I have that problem with ePSXe....

(another Unregistered)

Make sure you're using the latest version (1.6.0) - see http://www.epsxe.com

From the what's new:
- Added support for autopause when playing CDDA sound. It should fix the problems with music in games like Tomb Raider I.

Also, if that doesnt fix it, try using ePSXe's own CD plugin.

Now, do you still have that problem?

k thanks I downloaded the latest version. Theres an improvement, at least the audio actually stops now. However it stops a second or two before it's supposed to so I lose the last part of the soundtrack... I tried all the plugins from http://www.ngemu.com but none of them can make it work quite right.

Unregistered wrote:

k thanks I downloaded the latest version. Theres an improvement, at least the audio actually stops now. However it stops a second or two before it's supposed to so I lose the last part of the soundtrack... I tried all the plugins from http://www.ngemu.com but none of them can make it work quite right.

What about ePSXe's own CD plugin? Did you try it?

Originally posted by Unregistered What about ePSXe's own CD plugin?

If you're going to discuss console emulation, then you should really use the console emulation forum. That's what it's there for...

Unregistered wrote:

What about ePSXe's own CD plugin? Did you try it?

Yep!

DragonSoull wrote:

I just went and plugged in my old Saturn (to the TV of course) and compared level 3. […]
Show full quote

I just went and plugged in my old Saturn (to the TV of course) and compared level 3.

It seems I was half right, it's playing the right music but when you enter the valley (the area with the dinos) the Saturn version stops playing wile the PC version with Glidos continues, also some "event sound" (when you enter a secret room or a enemy is coming) are missing (just don't play).

And this plain sucks I miss hearing all the sound (very usefull to know wen a big bad guy is coming) but I like the save any were option.

PS: I know this is double posting but I didn’t knew if editing would mark it has unread

The problem here is the lack of audio tracks on the PC version, there are only 9 of them whereas the PSX version has 57! I suspect that the Saturn is similar.

I've just been comparing the two, playing a level of the PSX version, then then PC.
I must say that ePSXe is a great program. I played this a long time ago on the Playstation, and it's pretty much as I remember it, with all the music and sound (though I've only gotten past the first level). Based on some of the comments here, it seems like the coders of ePSXe have recently made some changes in the program that makes it work really well.
The two things I hated about the PSX version, even before I ever played the PC one, was the fact that you could only save at the crystals, and the controller (I always hated that controller. Give me a keyboard any day). Now, with the savestates, I can save anywhere, and I programmed the keys as much like the PC version as I could, which suits me much better.
The movies are better on the PSX, and I actually think the sounds, such as footsteps are also better, which makes sense to me, since ePSXe uses plugins that use Directsound, while VDMSound is emulating an old soundblaster.
The only thing I really don't like about the ePSXe version is the wavey graphics, which seems to be a problem with all PSX games in emulators, because of the different base resolution. That, and the low resolution, especially when Lara's up close.
The PC version definitely has better graphics and is smoother. It would be great if it could get all the music from the PSX version, which, for me, is the main attraction to this game. I'd pay again! But, I also understand it would be a tremendous amount of work. So it's nice that there are two platforms, each with different strengths.

Yes I agree. That's much the same experience I have. There may be some chance to use Glidos to pull the sounds from the PS1 version into the PC version, but its a lot of work. The wavy graphics on the PS1 version cannot be solved I'm afraid.

There is also the possibility that one day the PC version's graphics can be made very much better than it alread is, if only some people will make use of the texture pack facility. Very disappointing that someone hasn't taken advantage of this.

There is also the possibility that one day the PC version's graphics can be made very much better than it alread is, if only some people will make use of the texture pack facility. Very disappointing that someone hasn't taken advantage of this.

I was also expecting to see more of this, but when I started reading the threads, it looks like it's pretty complicated, beceause of how the textures were originally combined with solid colors, especially on Lara. I tried it a bit and couldn't make it work at all, though I didn't spend too much time on it.

About the sounds though, I just tried an experiment that had a rather interesting result. I have F and G CD rom drives. I put the PC version of Tombraider in the G drive, and the PSX version in the F drive, and launched Glidos. Glidos started the program from the PC disc, but then started reading the audio off the PSX disc, presumably because it was the first one in the chain. Beceause of this, it played music that wasn't on the PC disc.

It seems to be reading the songs by track number, so it seems that if one was to go through the PSX version and note when certain music started, then play it on the PC version and find out which track numbers it wants, it should be possible to burn a disc where the tracks are the PSX music, with the PC track numbers.

Granted, since there's only 11 or so tracks on the PC version, that might limit things, but one could make different cd's for different levels. I might see how this works for the first level. I probably can't get all the music to play, but at least some of the stuff might play at scenes where it doesn't normally on the PC.

Here's another interesting possibility. The movies seem to look much better on the PSX version than the PC version. Looking at the files, I noticed that they seem to be about twice as big. I wonder if it would somehow be possible to make a new disc with all the PC data on it, except the movies, which would be be the PC version.

Would it look better? Worse? Would they even play? I notice that the PC files are RPL, and the PSX ones are FMV. They might have to be converted, though sometimes I've found that just changing the extension name makes them work. Of course, it might just be the player in ePSXe that makes the movies look so good.

The other issue is, of course, how you would make such a disc. It all depends on whether there's some kind of code on the PC version that it needs to run that you can only reprodce with a straight copy. You would have to make a mixed-mode disc. But it's such an old game, it might work.

Hopefully, this is all legal, as long as you own both versions of the game, as I do. And if it worked, these improvements would make the PC version equal or rise above the PSX one in just about every aspect, not even including the fact that you can improve the textures with Glidos.

Well, those ideas didn't work. The PC version won't read the movies from the PSX version, and I don't know how to convert them, (or even if they would look good), and because it only has 11 songs to choose from, the PC version keeps calling the same tracks over and over again, so a "moment" of revelation becomes constant revelation. But it does show that if the PC version called the right songs at the right time, all the music could be there.

slube wrote:

I was also expecting to see more of this, but when I started reading the threads, it looks like it's pretty complicated, beceause of how the textures were originally combined with solid colors, especially on Lara. I tried it a bit and couldn't make it work at all, though I didn't spend too much time on it.

Yes, the complex directory structure doesn't help making it an easy job. But my main issue with the way the textures are handled by TR is the brownish color used by the engine as a pseudo alpha channel. This color has the huge default of being extremely common and could easily be found in any kind of 'rocky' texture or any antialiasing effect without being noticed.

TR2 upto TRLE switched to a pure magenta color for that purpose, which was a much better idea since this color is never used as such in any kind of texture (it would look pretty horrible, to say the least). Paul, wouldn't there be a way for Glidos to hack the texture engine and force it to handle the magenta color as a tranparency color? Or even supporting PNG textures?

Ok, I'm daydreaming here 😀

I could make the magenta color transparent. Or I could make it handle bmps with a mask. Or I could write a tool that altered any occurences of the brown color slightly, and mapped pixels outside a mask to the bronw color. If someone is interested in creating high qulity texture packs, I'd certinaly like to help.

Magenta transparency support should be a good thing for a start. I'm willing to try my teeth on TR1 Gold to begin with. I'd like to make some experiments with the desert textures from TR4 in the Shadow of the Cat, the results should be interesting despite the lack of fog bulbs and dynamic lighting. For sure it will take me some time since I'm far from being a gifted mapper (I've barely scratched the surface of TRLE), but it would be a shame not to use this wonderful feature.

Glidos wrote:

Yes I agree. That's much the same experience I have. There may be some chance to use Glidos to pull the sounds from the PS1 version into the PC version, but its a lot of work.

Well, I understand how much work this is. I'm not a programmer myself, and I have no idea if this would be at all helpful, but if I can do anything in the way of finding out where certain tracks play in the game, I'd be happy to give it a go. For me, the music really makes this game, and of course it would be great to be working on the improvement in both graphics and music.

Again though, if it just makes you cringe to think about doing it, don't bother with it.