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Tomb Raider seriesTomb Raider 1 native windows and resolution patch(36 posts)(36 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted November 15, 2016
high rated
Hi all,

In a recent Digital Foundry Retro video i noticed that there is a user made patch to run Tomb Raider 1 and Unfinished Business as native windows programs that can use any resolution, including widescreen ones with proper scaling.

Check this screenshot. This is Tomb Raider 1 from GOG running as a native Windows program inside a window (you can run it in fullscreen, i play the game at 1920x1080 without stretch, etc).

The patch works by wrapping an old TR1 executable for ATI's CIF API (used in their Rage line of GPUs in the mid 90s) to do OpenGL 3.3 calls instead. That TR1 executable was the only version of Tomb Raider 1 for Windows that used 3D acceleration.

You can find the executable, the wrapper and installation instructions in this topic at the Tomb Raider Forums. From the same place you can also download the full soundtrack for TR1 (the original PC version used a cut down version) and another wrapper for the DLLs the ATI verrsion of TR1 used to play music that overrides the CD play commands with commands that play FLAC files instead.

To make this work properly, after starting the game make sure you enter the options to use your native resolution (by default it uses 320x240 but the wrapper always uses your native one, so you get weird triangle artifacts - i missed this the first time i tried the wrapper and thought it wasn't a good solution). If you download the full soundtrack (pretty much necessary to have any music in the windows) make sure you modify the .ini file as mentioned in the thread.

Also for the files needed from the CD, you need to mount the GAME.GOG file as a CD image and copy the files from there. One way is to create a fresh DOSBox installation and use its imgmount command to mount the image (imgmount d game.gog -t iso) and copy the files from DOSBox's command line to a mounted directory on your hard disk. Another way is to rename the GAME.GOG file to GAME.ISO file and use WinCDEmu to mount it and copy the files. Windows 10 users may not need to use WinCDEmu since AFAIK the OS has support for mounting ISO files as CDs.
Posted December 09, 2016
high rated
Wow. This works great. No more DOSBox! Thanks, badsector, for bringing this to our attention.

Edit: Instead of following my old instructions, go to the following link and follow one of the first two instructions for playing the game without DOSBox:

pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Tomb_Raider_(1996)#Run_the_game_without_DOSBox
(can't make that a clickable link like the others because this forum doesn't like the special characters, so copy and paste it, instead)

For archive purposes and in case anything in them is still helpful to people, below are my original instructions, but note that the link to the new files is dead (which is the main reason to use the instructions at the link above, instead).

Old instructions
============

Here are my instructions, hopefully simplifying the process for everyone:

1. Download UniExtract and use it to extract the game's GAME.GOG to a new folder somewhere.

2. Delete everything but the DATA and FMV folders from that folder. Those two folders and all of the files in them are the only ones that we need from GAME.GOG.

3a. Download and extract archive TR1_Win.zip to that same folder. This archive contains the rest of the files needed for Tomb Raider (minus the soundtrack, which you'll download in Step 4). Specifically, it includes both 3D Rage patches, the GLRage wrapper (edited to enable the soundtrack), the music wrapper and the Unfinished Business levels. In order to make things easier for you and not require you to download 5 separate zips and make two INI file edits, I did it for you and just zipped it all up into one package.

-OR-

3b. Only if the link in Step 3a is ever dead or you want to check for newer versions of the various included files, here are the individual instructions with links:
....i. Download and extract both ATI 3D Rage patches from the link given in the OP to the folder created in Step 1. Don't worry; you don't need an ATI video card. The GLRage wrapper translates the ATI instructions into OpenGL, so that any modern card can run that version of the game.
....ii. Download and extract the GLRage wrapper from the same link to the same folder.
....iii. Download the wrapper from the "Soundtrack" section of the same link and extract the two files to the same folder.
....vi. Open patches\tombati.ini and patches\tombub.ini in a text editor, find "full_soundtrack" in both and change "false" to "true".
....v. Download the Unfinished Business levels from here and extract just the .PHD files to your DATA folder. The .TUB versions are for the DOS version of TR, while the .PHD versions are required for this Windows version.
(Again, you don't need to do any of the above 3b steps if you were able to successfully download the package linked in Step 3a!)

4. Download the soundtrack from here and extract the files to a subfolder named Music under your new game folder.
(For reference, the webpage that the link was gotten from is here)

Note: If you've done all of the above steps correctly, you should have a folder/file structure that looks like the following:

\DATA (folder with .PHD and .PCX files in it)
\FMV (folder with .RPL files in it)
\Music (folder with .FLAC files in it)
\patches (folder with .INI files in it)
\shaders (folder with .FSH and VSH files in it)
ati3dcif.dll
ddraw.dll
Dec130.dll
Edec.dll
glrage.dll
glrage.ini
libzplay.dll
Tombati.exe
Tombub.exe
winmm.dll
Winplay.dll
Winsdec.dll
Winstr.dll

5. Lastly, run Tombati.exe (for the main game) or Tombub.exe (for Unfinished Business) and, in the menu, select the glasses to configure details and set your resolution. If you don't see the resolution option, then you need to exit to the title screen first . If the game doesn't run at all, then you may need to install the VC++ 2015 Redist, which is required for GLRage to work.

Note: If the movies and menu backgrounds are black, it's probably because your graphics card/driver is really old (from 2010 or earlier) and GLRage was designed for more modern ones. You should still be able to use the menus and play the game, though.
Post edited June 15, 2018 by jnisbet
Posted February 18, 2017
Thanks for all this info!

I was reading PCGamingWiki yesterday and it seems there's another pack like yours available (RetailFix - http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Tomb_Raider#Run_the_game_without_DOSBox ), apparently it's using the same files and contains the soundtrack as FLAC too (Unfinished Business is put in its own folder and is the 'no music' version). It may be even easier to set up, but your method and obviously the original one are more thorough and easily updated, I think.
Posted February 19, 2017
Good find, Daracus. I hadn't seen that before. If I had, I probably wouldn't have packaged up the files, myself. I think that it was probably recently created, since UniExtract couldn't extract GAME.GOG when I made my instructions a few months ago. The new beta 2.0 version can, though. I like it better as an extraction solution than the IzArc that I was recommending, since it saves a few steps, so I've updated my instructions to recommend using UniExtract, instead. Thanks.

I haven't tried the game files in that link, but you say that they're the same, so it sounds like they're a good alternative to accomplish the same thing. You're probably right that it's a bit easier, since it includes the soundtrack, saving you one step. I didn't include the soundtrack in the zip that I uploaded because TinyUpload has a 50MB limit and I wanted to use that service because of the promise that files would never be deleted.
Post edited April 14, 2017 by jnisbet
Posted April 07, 2017
this is too much work for a game that should just work.
Posted April 12, 2017
I am trying this uniextract thing but I am unsure as to which file I have to select. Do I use game.gog or something. I can't find a game.bin...
avatar
jnisbet: Good find, Daracus. I hadn't seen that before. If I had, I probably wouldn't have packaged up the files, myself. I think that it was probably recently created, since UniExtract couldn't extract GAME.BIN when I made my instructions a few months ago. The new beta 2.0 version can, though. I like it better as an extraction solution than the IzArc that I was recommending, since it saves a few steps, so I've updated my instructions to recommend using UniExtract, instead. Thanks.

I haven't tried the game files in that link, but you say that they're the same, so it sounds like they're a good alternative to accomplish the same thing. You're probably right that it's a bit easier, since it includes the soundtrack, saving you one step. I didn't include the soundtrack in the zip that I uploaded because TinyUpload has a 50MB limit and I wanted to use that service because of the promise that files would never be deleted.
could you explain the uniextract for me, I must be stupid ;)
Post edited April 12, 2017 by xxxIndyxxx
Posted April 14, 2017
avatar
xxxIndyxxx: I am trying this uniextract thing but I am unsure as to which file I have to select. Do I use game.gog or something. I can't find a game.bin...

could you explain the uniextract for me, I must be stupid ;)
Use Game.GOG.

You're not stupid. My instructions were wrong. Originally, I recommended a different extraction program and it wouldn't open files with .GOG extensions, only recognized extensions like .BIN, so my instructions originally said to rename Game.GOG to Game.BIN. When I edited the instructions to recommend UniExtract, instead, I forgot to update the reference to the name. I've corrected my instructions. Thanks for that and my apologies.
Posted April 16, 2017
avatar
xxxIndyxxx: I am trying this uniextract thing but I am unsure as to which file I have to select. Do I use game.gog or something. I can't find a game.bin...

could you explain the uniextract for me, I must be stupid ;)
avatar
jnisbet: Use Game.GOG.

You're not stupid. My instructions were wrong. Originally, I recommended a different extraction program and it wouldn't open files with .GOG extensions, only recognized extensions like .BIN, so my instructions originally said to rename Game.GOG to Game.BIN. When I edited the instructions to recommend UniExtract, instead, I forgot to update the reference to the name. I've corrected my instructions. Thanks for that and my apologies.
Okay thanks for the explanation. Works perfectly!!
Posted April 20, 2017
avatar
xxxIndyxxx: I am trying this uniextract thing but I am unsure as to which file I have to select. Do I use game.gog or something. I can't find a game.bin...

could you explain the uniextract for me, I must be stupid ;)
avatar
jnisbet: Use Game.GOG.

You're not stupid. My instructions were wrong. Originally, I recommended a different extraction program and it wouldn't open files with .GOG extensions, only recognized extensions like .BIN, so my instructions originally said to rename Game.GOG to Game.BIN. When I edited the instructions to recommend UniExtract, instead, I forgot to update the reference to the name. I've corrected my instructions. Thanks for that and my apologies.
Do you have any idea what the perspective setting does and maybe how to lower the draw distance. I always thought the low draw distance made the game spookier...
Posted April 20, 2017
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xxxIndyxxx: Do you have any idea what the perspective setting does and maybe how to lower the draw distance. I always thought the low draw distance made the game spookier...
I believe that perspective correction simply corrects warping of textures (especially floor textures as they go off into the distance) so that they look correct to the eye. On is probably better, but I don't notice any difference with it on as opposed to off.

You can lower the draw distance by opening patches\tombati.ini (or tombub.ini) and setting:

draw_distance_override = false

If it's already false, then it's already the default draw distance that the game was designed for. You could, however, set it to true and then modify the "draw_distance_max" value that follows it to specify an even lower draw distance.
Post edited April 28, 2017 by jnisbet
Posted April 27, 2017
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Weclock: this is too much work for a game that should just work.
It's not that the GOG Version does not work, but that GOG's policy is to give you the original game in a version playable on a modern computer. If you want bells and whistles like widescreen support, choice or resolution, music htat was not in the PC version, etc.that is not GOG's job to provide it.
Posted April 27, 2017
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Weclock: this is too much work for a game that should just work.
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dudalb: It's not that the GOG Version does not work, but that GOG's policy is to give you the original game in a version playable on a modern computer. If you want bells and whistles like widescreen support, choice or resolution, music htat was not in the PC version, etc.that is not GOG's job to provide it.
I'm allowed to levy criticism.
Posted April 30, 2017
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jnisbet:
Thanks! The link still works and game is playable with music (even Unfinished Business).

The game allows you to select from only 3 resolution options:
1. 320x200
2. 512x384
3. 640x480 (native?)
and
4. your desktop resolution (e.g. 1920x1080).

Meaning that if you want to play Tomb Raider 1 in 1280x720 resolution (IMO the best widescreen res. for old games from 90s) your desktop should be set in that very same resolution, which is highly inconvenient.
Post edited April 30, 2017 by Cadaver747
Posted May 01, 2017
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Cadaver747: Thanks! The link still works and game is playable with music (even Unfinished Business).
...
Meaning that if you want to play Tomb Raider 1 in 1280x720 resolution (IMO the best widescreen res. for old games from 90s) your desktop should be set in that very same resolution, which is highly inconvenient.
You're welcome. To specify a custom resolution that's different from your desktop resolution, open patches\tombati.ini (or tombub.ini) and find and set "resolution_width" and "resolution_height " to the values that you want (1280 and 720, respectively, in your case).
Post edited May 01, 2017 by jnisbet
Posted May 01, 2017
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jnisbet:
You are the best!

The only thing left is to replace low quality interlaced FMVs with highter quality ones and non-interlaced.
I've found one article:
http://www.tombraiderforums.com/showthread.php?t=214653

here is a link for non-interlaced FMVs (just FMVs without patch)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ksikti7f7ls6r88/TR1_Deinterlace_Patch.exe?dl=0

The whole patch works ok, you even get a nice looking startup window where you can choose from Tomb Raider or Unfinished business and a variety of different resolutions a-la Tomb Raider 2 (see attached).

There are only 2 bad things about that Russian Community Patch:
1. they used nGlide wrapper which have its weird flickering textures and distance fog
2. they added "Tomb Raider Russian Community" logo into introduction FMV
Attachments:
start-up_window.jpg (42 Kb)
Post edited May 02, 2017 by Cadaver747
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This is my favourite topic
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Tomb Raider seriesTomb Raider 1 native windows and resolution patch(36 posts)(36 posts)
(36 posts)