TombATI on Windows XP, Applying Mods to Tomb Raider DOS

[gidierre]

Originally Posted by jcdbm

finding it difficult to try to either 1. expand an existing Mixed Mode CD's data (by replacing DATA files with modded ones) or 2. rip the audio from the Mixed Mode CD, extract the files from .BIN, replace the DATA files with modded ones, and then rebuild a Mixed Mode CD with the new files + extracted audio. I downloaded ImgBurn but it doesn't seem to support the functionality, and it seems Nero is pay-only.

yet ImgBurn freeware ought to work just fine afaict
https://www.techwalla.com/articles/h...-cue-bin-files

there used to be a useful guide @tombraiderhub.com too, I guess it was this page
https://archive.tombraiderhub.com/faq/traudio.html
eg under heading A. Create a single replacement CD-ROM (requires the ability to burn a mixed-mode session)
except you already have the cue/bin stuff

oh and notice that the very cdaudio tracks and the whole \data folder contents in windows will coincide, but are not exactly equivalent
when I applied those mods (see my 3 earlier screenshots) for instance it was 'only' a matter of working the modded .phd files

Originally Posted by jcdbm

all my other instances of DOSBox do not freeze when I alt-tab, so I find Thou shalt not alt-tab to be a completely new concept!

I was joking kind of
still I'm not very fond of this alt+tab thing, I consider it freeze-prone so to speak and possibly hard to restore right afterwards, so I prefer the standard ingame way to restart or a killing w/Ctrl+F9 instead

[jcdbm]

Originally Posted by gidierre

yet ImgBurn freeware ought to work just fine afaict
https://www.techwalla.com/articles/h...-cue-bin-files

there used to be a useful guide @tombraiderhub.com too, I guess it was this page
https://archive.tombraiderhub.com/faq/traudio.html
eg under heading A. Create a single replacement CD-ROM (requires the ability to burn a mixed-mode session)
except you already have the cue/bin stuff

oh and notice that the very cdaudio tracks and the whole \data folder contents in windows will coincide, but are not exactly equivalent
when I applied those mods (see my 3 earlier screenshots) for instance it was 'only' a matter of working the modded .phd files

Before I get started, do you know if there a method that will let my game read DATA from the installation directory, or at least check for the files there first before looking into the CD?

That way, it would be much easier to add and insert modded files than having to burn a new .BIN/.CUE sheet every time, much like how it works for the non-DOS TombATI version.

[gidierre]

Originally Posted by jcdbm

...a method that will let my game read DATA from the installation directory, or at least check for the files there first before looking into the CD?
That way, it would be much easier to add and insert modded files than having to burn a new .BIN/.CUE sheet every time

the \data folder is copied of course into tombraider folder, but afaik it's not enough
I've only had a look into mods when I asked Xevengar about it, just as I wrote earlier:
https://www.tombraiderforums.com/sho...30&postcount=2

the issue comes from having to use an image in the first place, and from the mandatory mixed-mode type of image (if one wants to hear the soundtracks)
in practice, after you extracted all files from image and made the customization, you can
1
create an iso image and of course, after renaming the defaults as backup, name the modded image tombeng.cue/bin, or else the script ought to be customized too to account for the changing names iow to mount one tombeng.iso and that's it
the con: no music
Lara's steps, gunshots, all that should be heard normally, but no cdaudio tracks
or
2
burn a rewritable cd-rom, using the modded cue/bin correct layout as tombeng.cue and .bin
and then either
2.1
use the cd-rw disc as the source, then again this would imply editing of the installer routines to have it read from a real cdrom in the drive
or
2.2
(which I did) create now a new cue/bin image from said cd-rw, copy that into \tombraider and you should be free to go

as I said it's cumbersome because of
one, the image per se and
two, the mandatory image type.