Heroes of Might and Magic II has a fantastic CD soundtrack.
I also like the soundtrack from Rayman.

Two soundtracks I really like on the Sony Playstation are Wipeout 2097 and Assault Rigs - I think they were ported to PC but did they keep their original CD music?

Apart from that, on the top of my head I remember Full Throttle and Screamer having CD music on PC. But there are probably many more.

It's not suprising that "abandonware" don't have audio tracks since the "abandonware" scene valued size over quality but we don't care about "abandonware" here so no need worrying about those games.

Previous threads on games with CD audio:
Games with CD Audio?
Classic Games with CD Audio

Rayman was another game with CD Audio.

When I first set it up and had it recognize my sound card I didn't know it would only play the sound effects and was hella confused for not getting any music or sound during its cutscenes whatsoever.

C&C didn't really have CD audio. It streamed some form of ADPCM out of SCORES.MIX off the disc. You could copy this file and use it locally.

You can experience these CD audio tracks by buying the games. 🙄

I went through my games a few years ago and made MP3s from those that had CD audio (tracks that an audio CD player can play). Note that some of these may have had a separate CD audio disc as part of the game package (which I will try to note). Note also that some games may have only had one or two tracks, perhaps for game intros, etc.

Addiction Pinball
Adventure Pinball: Forgotten Island
Airfix Dogfighter
Aliens vs. Predator Gold
Archimedean Dynasty
Baldur's Gate: The Original Saga (separate disc)
Barrage
Battlezone
Battlezone Gold
Battlezone II Combat Commander
Beam Breakers
Bicycle Hearts and Spades
Carmageddon
Centipede
Chicken Run
Civilization II Multiplayer Gold Edition
Clue: Murder at Boddy Mansion
Crime Cities
Cue Club
CyClones
Darius Gaiden (this is the Interplay PC port)
Dark Colony
Dark Reign 2
Deathtrap Dungeon
Descent II
Descent II Vertigo Series
Destruction Derby
Die Hard Trilogy
Driv3r
Duke Nukem 3D (1 track)
Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition (1 track)
Dungeon Keeper
Earthworm Jim
EF 2000 V2.0
Enemy Engaged: Apache vs. Havoc
Eradicator
Europa Universalis 1492-1792
Europa Universalis: Crown of the North
F-22 Air Dominance Fighter
Fighter Squadron: Screamin' Demons over Europe
Forsaken
Frogger
Frogger 2
GP500
G-Police
Half-Life Blue Shift
Half-Life Game of the Year
Half-Life Opposing Force
Hardwar
Heavy Gear II
Heretic II
Homeworld Game of the Year Edition (separate disc)
HyperBlade
Imperialism II
Incoming
Interplay's Classic Collection
Interstate '76
Interstate '82
Last Bronx
Layer Section (This is the Interplay PC Port)
Lemmings 3D
Magic Carpet II: The Netherworlds
Manic Karts
Manx TT SuperBike
Master of the Skies: Red Ace
Messiah
Michelin Rally Masters
Microsoft Pinball Arcade
MindRover The Europa Project
Mission Humanity
Monaco Grand Prix Racing Simulation
Monkey Island Madness
Mortal Kombat 4
Motorhead
Myst III Exile (separate disc)
NASCAR Racing (2 tracks)
No One Lives Forever (both the original game and the GotY versions have separate CD audio discs)
Operation Flashpoint Game of the Year
Operation Raystorm 2219
Outcast
Outlaws
21st Century Entertainment Pinball Arcade (2 tracks)
Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure
POD (1 Track)
POD Gold
Powerslide
Pro Pinball: The Web
Pro Pinball: Timeshock
Quake II
Quake II: Ground Zero
Quake II: The Reckoning
Racing's Greatest Thrills (2 Tracks)
Railroad Tycoon II Gold Edition
Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear
Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear Black Thorn
Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear Urban Operations
Rayman
Redneck Rampage
Re-Loaded
Rocket Jockey
S.C.A.R.S.
Sam and Max Hit the Road
Sega Puzzle Pack
Sega Rally 2 Championship
Shadow Warrior
Shattered Steel
Sonic 3D Blast
Sonic CD
Soul Ride
Sports Car GT
Star Trek Pinball (3 tracks)
Star Wars Dark Forces
Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds Saga (1 track)
Star Wars Jedi Knight Dark Forces II
Star Wars Jedi Knight Dark Forces II Special Edition
Star Wars Jedi Knight Mysteries of the Sith
Star Wars Shadows of the Empire
Star Wars TIE Fighter Collector's CD-ROM (3 tracks)
Star Wars X-Wing Collector's CD-ROM
Star Wars X-Wing vs TIE Fighter
Star Wars X-Wing vs TIE Fighter Balance of Power
Steel Panthers (2 tracks)
Steel Panthers II
Sudden Strike
Sudden Strike: Forever
Take No Prisoners
The Great Battles of Hannibal
The Next Tetris
The Sting
Tomb Raider Gold
Tomb Raider II Gold
Total Air War
Total Annihilation
Ultim@te Race Pro (1 track)
Virtua Fighter
Virtual Pool 3
V-Rally 2 Expert Edition (3 tracks)
Worms 2

akula65 wrote:

[..]Sam and Max Hit the Road[..]

Oh my gosh, I almost forgot that it had CDA tracks. Who remembers this ? 😁

None of the SQ nor LSL games had CDA tracks. SQ 4-6 and LSL 6 Hi=res & LSL7 had digital audio for speech, but you could just copy all of the data to the hard drive and adjust config files to not need the CD.

Only Sierra games that were commonly played were The incredible Machine series, they all had fantastic CD audio scores.
King's Quest 6 did have the song as a CD audio track, but only that one piece.
Inca 1 and 2 also have fantastic CD scores, but are a bit more obscure.

Jones in the Fast Lane and the Gobliiins games.

I didn't know Jones had CD audio tracks? Are you sure?

Whiplash (aka Fatal Racing)
The Settlers II
Pinball Illusions (CD version)
Fire Fight
Midtown Madness
Corridor 7: Alien Invasion
Operation Body Count
Moto Racer
Moto Racer 2

The 1991 Stellar 7 CD had one long CD track for music, intro/outro and intel screens.

Spikey wrote:

I didn't know Jones had CD audio tracks? Are you sure?

Yes on the later CD version (among other wacky changes) it did all the dialogue as a single CD track. Music was still MIDI.

I remember Mechwarrior 2 had music on the CD. Don't remember for the other games in the series.
And I seem to think Quake 1 used the CD because I remember preferring to play it with the music from Mechwarrior 2 CD.

Alone in the Dark series
Screamer 1/2
Test Drive Off Road

MMaximus wrote:

on the Sony Playstation are Wipeout 2097 and Assault Rigs - I think they were ported to PC but did they keep their original CD music?

Wipeout 2097 on PS1 indeed, was the only one with the soundtrack including Prodigy (instrumental), Leftfield etc...That would be Sony Marketing in action wanting to put PS version above everything else...On the PC and other platforms and for Wipeout XL (not checked Wipeout2097 on Saturn though) it used Tim Wright who did the score for the original Wipeout (among other things like shite loads of the music of Psygnosis and dance eJay!).

Ones I remember....
* NIN famously did the the soundtrack for Quake (coz Trent loved Doom)
* Iron Maiden for Carmageddon 2...

but yes as others have said there are loads and loads...

For a number of years, given current setup's... MP3's were CPU intensive, and WAV's were MEM intensive, and CD-ROM's can play CD's without the PC even on (as long as they have power, a headphone jack and a 'play/skip' button).. so getting the CD-rom to play music without impacting the system is a no brainer and gave high fidelity music to a lot of titles... also you could listen to them in CD players (skip track 01 usually, although I don't think this was intended, but touted as a feature sometimes), and also means even 'Full install still required CD's for the full game experience...no doubt publishers loved this since it limited cracking since 'nocd' cracks wouldn't give the full experience.

Spikey wrote:

I didn't know Jones had CD audio tracks? Are you sure?

Yep, including some voice acting by Al Lowe. My Jones installer will rip the CDA track for CD-less play.

Some games are still missing:
Battle Chess II
Lemmings
Loom (CD audio contains all the voice acting and unfortunately little music)
Monkey Island (besides the Madness version, also the multi-lingual version has the CD audio tracks)
Tunnel B1

About Dark Forces, I've never seen a CD with audio tracks. The game only has 70 MB, and some releases have most of the disc filled with demos of other games.
Also, you should note which games also use the CD audio tracks. Some games have CD audio tracks, but they are merely there as a bonus and not actually used by the game itself.

Quarantine had a bunch of aussie rockers that aren't AC/DC for a soundtrack. Licensing music for video games was a very very new concept for 1994, Road Rash for the 3DO was the real notable title for that as it mostly featured Soundgarden among others (later got a PC port that used MIDIs for game and WAVs for menus)

A lot of the Dynamix games had CDA tracks, not just Stellar 7 that leileilol mentioned and the TIM games that Spikey mentioned. Most of the Metaltech CD games did in addition to Hunter Hunted, CyberGladiators, both CyberStorm games, A-10 II, and Back to Krondor games and some of the 3-D Ultra games did as well. Other Coktel Visions games that had CDA are Lost in Time and Fascination. Also the Sierra published Lode Runner games did.