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Old 18-09-17, 07:41   #5
Caesum
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HD86 View Post
If you want to mod the game extensively, you should just build a new game or play one of the recent Tomb Raider releases.
That is kinda silly tbh. Using that logic we should suggest barracuda415 to stop and remove his TombATI project, because if one wants to mod the game he can just play TR Anniversary, no? I mean it doesn't even make sense.

Recompiling an engine gives a variety of new possibilities. It's not only about modding the existing game, it's making it possible to create an entire new one based on the source of TR5, or modifying TRLE in order to give it the features of TR5 engine. TR5 has been heavily modified, especially graphically. The main difference is that integers were replaced by floating points, making the entire game less shaky and much better looking on PC version.

Even your beloved TR5 (and mine btw) can benefit greatly if we can manage to reclaim the source code. TR5 is a Windows 98 game which doesn't work well on modern hardware. Heck, at this point TR1 with TombATI is more compatible than TR2-5. The source gives the possibility to modify the executable in order to make it work on modern PCs. No dirty hacks needed, no wrappers, no emulation. Modifying the game can also make it possible to restore PSX-exclusive effects like echo, footprints, dynamic Dreamcast shadows, special effects. It can also allow rewriting the rendering engine to something more modern than DirectX 5 and thus more compatible.

Also, understanding the engine can make it possible to modify enough to be able to make new adventures in it. Maybe even one would be able to replace the old and quirky TRLE engine with it. The source makes it possible to add new features without dirty hacks that do more harm than good (TRNG). We already have the official Room Editor for TR5 along with several tools and PSX devkit.

At last, decompiling the source will give new information for programmers to improve and extend their custom engines, eg. OpenTOMB and OpenLARA.
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