Ok, alright...

Actually I discovered not too long ago that the single frame advance strat on PS1 relies on the music track restarting and stopping in-between unpausing and popping up the inventory. So playing music from local files that lie around in the data track would probably make that strat not work anymore (like in TR3 onwards where music plays from a file)

In other words: Nevermind then.

Can you stop the off-topic that you started?

Let us backtrack and get back to the facts.

Quote from critzB: "PC uses different audio files and a .dll to allow them to play"

This is untrue for the game versions that are suitable for speedrunning. Again, the Original and Botched versions are disc only releases that play CDDA Audio tracks for music. The statement only matches the behavior for the Digital releases (Steam, GOG) which is currently sort of a useless game version to do speedruns with. The PS1 releases similarly play CDDA Audio tracks. Can it be made compatible™ as well or not?

I've noticed during my PS1 runs that cutscenes are also waiting for the CDDA disc track to load (I guess so the cutscenes are in sync), it would be comfortable if those loads could be reduced as well. Maybe it's possible to modify the code that plays the disc track to do a non-blocking call (possibly resulting in desync).

The PC RTA runs highly depend on this version mixery that is done with files from the Digital version if I am informed correctly. So, why can't something similar be done for the PS1 speedruns (either non-blocking calls or play sound files from the data disc) for a quicker RTA?

Here another comparison how the PS1 music behaves similarly like the unmodified PC music on the Original version (music plays while underwater), hope the timestamps work this time:

PS: The PC (non-cracked/no version mixery) CDDA Track loads are all blocking calls that make the game wait for the track to play afaik (in-game, cutscene and stats screen). For PS1 the in-game tracks that play seem to be non-blocking.

I mean why can't the PS1 leaderboards be as peak degenerate as the PC leaderboards, it would only be fair in my opinion.

Couple mods here and there, couple files deleted, couple files mixed in from another version, all normal for the PC version, no biggie.

You already did it once, can it be done for the PS1 is the question?

Why wouldn't you address the things I stated in my post?

The original and botched versions behave just like the PS1 version regarding sound.

You compared the PS1 versions with the "RTA w/ mods & version mixery" submissions that are done here.

I ask why similar modifications - screwing around with the sound to circumvent CDDA track loads that results in a lower RTA - can't be done for the PS1 version for consistency? I'd like to have some statement on why it is ok for the PC version and "No, it is not ok." for PS1 and why this can't be changed? Doesn't have much to do with the PS1 version being "difficult to watch" for some people.

My PC run has an RTA timer in the video that would be compatible with the rules on the speedrunning leaderboards on this site here. I choose to use the In-Game Timer for timing as that is the timer implemented by the official developers of the game which was carefully crafted and isn't based on mods, version mixery and hardware power (I'm running on a Win98 rig without mods, version mixery and with dated hardware) which makes it suitable for submissions on speeddemosarchive.com as well. Honestly I'm not sure why the timing method is even being brought up... I posted the video (it's a video, not a pic, you can click on it to play) to refer to the behavior of sound for the the original version to be listened to. Actually provided a timestamp with the youtube link, but apparently link handler for this forum ate it up (still there in the page source though, below the formatted html that is being rendered).

Could you point to the .dll that is playing the CDDA music tracks of the original version which currently is the fastest? Because I can't find one in the installed files in that version: https://gitlab.com/tombraiderspeedruns/trs_version_database/blob/master/tr2/pc/original/german_game_guide/installed_files.csv

Because for that version the CDDA music tracks are directly played from the disc from the disc. It is designed to be played along the game separately by the operating system, for old setups, the disc drive directly transmits analog audio to the sound card through an audio cable between disc drive and sound card, which then gets mixed together with the game output and then transmitted.

It's also the reason the CDDA music tracks can't be interrupted and thus there's music in the inventory and when underwater:

With later windows versions and with SATA CD drives the direct analog audio cable was dropped and all this is done in software with the same behavior.

All in all very similar behavior to PS1 for the original PC release.

I'm assuming though that the .dll you refer to is it mixed in from another version along with the transcoded CDDA music tracks from that other version?

And glad you asked about the PS1 hate, here are some screenshots that may clarify what I referred to: https://imgur.com/a/JbzsjYE

Can a reason be given for this?

It's basically the same behavior on the PC version with the original version (disc-only release) that needs to load the CDDA track from disc before continuing.

Where you guys

1. Crack the game so local files can be loaded instead of a (mounted) disc.
2. .DLL mod the runtime to intercept calls of playing CDDA to transcoded local music files instead.

Why is it ok there and not on PS1?

For the RTA w/ mods category:

I noticed that at the end of a level, I can't skip the level stats and the save prompt quick enough because it's waiting for a music track to be loaded from disc. Reducing the music volume to 0 didn't have any effect to stop this from happening.

Is it ok to alter the game code there to actually not load this CDDA track at the end of a level? Or to do it similar to the PC version which is .dll modded to intercept calls of playing CDDA music tracks on the disc-only release to local transcoded music files instead, which is done for saving a couple of seconds of loads there.

It'd be only fair to reduce the hate on the "slow RTA" PS1 version when people compare those platforms.

To save time just like when modding the PC version in the "RTA w/ mods" category.

The rules are still very unclear, what's up with this double standard? The game versions that can't skip FMVs on PC are all disc only, so where exactly is the difference here? How come this time saving modification is PC only, yet PS1 runs are publicly hated upon for being so slow for loading the FMVs coupled with the level loads when comparing the RTA w/ mods and loads.

The vibes when the vote for this was held were definitely for convenience purposes mostly by botched privilege runners (you as well) who were used to have a "disable fmv option" on the botched game version. Can tell because sort of every botched version runner voted for removing FMVs with no time penalty.

There are no issues I know of using a windower tool for TR2 on PC.

Still baffled by the in this clueless community's rules.

Can disable FMV on executable that doesn't have option The run will most likley be rejected as a result ???

Considering to submit future runs to Speed Demos Archive as they seem to have avoided the degeneracy influx and kept their clear rules. Also being timed by sing-e-segment IGT where all this RTA-reducing modding would be obsolete anyway.

Keep on modding!

Since nobody came up with a way to disable FMVs on PS1 executables, I decided to try some hacking and found a way to mimic the behavior how FMVs are disabled on the PC version on executables that don't have a disable FMV option.

If you have a single "tr2.bin" "tr2.cue" pair disc image of the game, you can go ahead and strip the error correction data of the .bin file by running "bin2ecm tr2.bin" from the ecm-tools package from https://github.com/alucryd/ecm-tools and delete the "tr2.bin" file after. This will create a "tr2.bin.ecm" file.

Next you can replace all occurences of "FMV;" with "FMW;" in the "tr2.bin.ecm" file to rename the FMV files with the help of a hex editor.

Then you can convert back to .bin with "ecm2bin tr2.bin.ecm", adding the error correction data into a modified "tr2.bin" file. There will be a checksum error because the ecm format has an intrinsic checksum but it'll work anyway.

Burn to disc and play on a modded console, covert to an EBOOT and put it on PS3/PSP/PSVita/PSTV with a custom firmware or fire up an emulator.

Haven't tested the time save for a full run yet, but it could be up to 5-10s as they don't have to be skipped manually anymore and the FMV play functionality may fatally error out early as it doesn't find the file in the lookup table and skip a somewhat long file seek operation that would move the laser on a physical console.

Glad I could help reducing the PS1 RTA further with some modifications. Happy Speedrunning!

God how did I miss this gem. Hilarious OMEGALUL

By the way, can someone point me to a list of files with their checksums that belongs to the UK Box .exe? I don't own this version which is why I used the .exe from the archive together with files from other versions.

Surely someone in this big community owns this version and can give some information about the files that belong to this version to play it correctly so people don't get their runs rejected for this reason. Thanks in advance.

Rules state that it's totally ok to mix files from different versions as long as it doesn't change gameplay, and patching the Floating Islands file was explicitly only a recommendation in the archive provided in the Discord. So with that in place, currently basically anything that runs is perfectly fine for speedrunning. Nowhere is it mentioned that unnecessary mixing files is breaking the rules as you state. I don't know how anyone with some basic intellect can come to that conclusion with the wording of the rule.

I actually didn't want to cause any drama, as I honestly thought this run would be accepted just like other runs on the leaderboards that used mods and mixed game files for some reason, and that there wouldn't be any ground to reject this one.

I am insulting this community? How exactly did I insult the community? I pointed a lot of things out that I think are wrong. I think people like you make the community look very embarrassing.

Like being the guy mixing versions like a mad man half a year ago...

Makeal 19-Apr-18 11:22 my game is good, setup is in german, fmvs in english and menu in french ?

... and suddenly, although nothing really changed, being against the very thing he defended all this time. I can't be the only one that finds this absolutely ridiculous and hypocritical.

Oh I don't expect any rule change, as this community is going even more downhill as I could have possibly imagined. So yeah, just keep on modding guys, don't be open about it and don't ask any questions seems to be the name of the game here.

"Official" leaderboards with seemingly no integrity whatsoever.

So, is there a complete list of what is ok and what isn't? All I did was what I've already seen in other runs that are listed on these leaderboards.

So at what point doing something like this considered "unnecessary", "wrong", etc.? It should be very clear somewhere in the ruleset, but I am unable to find it. I mean these are the "official" leaderboards. I'd like to have my run listed there.

Also posting this here for clarification and also that it can spread:

So using english audio on a german game .exe is fine, but using german and japanese audio on an english .exe isn't? I'm sorry but I still can't follow the logic here.

Also who defines what is unnecessary?

This guy?

Makeal 19-Apr-18 11:22 my game is good, setup is in german, fmvs in english and menu in french ?

Or where in the rules is that 'unnecessary' term defined?

I just own too many versions and got things messed up. I don't know exactly what I did but the game works ?

Hmm, the ATI patch doesn't contain any sound files for me: http://web.archive.org/web/20081121063015/http://ftp.eidos-france.fr/pub/fr/tomb_raider/patches/tombatiragepro.zip

The glrage runtime has an option to mod the game though (disabled on default): https://github.com/ata4/glrage/blob/master/glrage_patch/TombRaiderPatch.cpp#L384

So is it cool to mix in tracks from other versions/platforms for those people and not for me?

Are you abusing the loosely defined rules to reject unwanted runs?

Hello,

I'm sorry but why was my glitchless submission rejected exactly? https://www.speedrun.com/tr2/run/zp027rnm

There are runs with a german executable and english audio on the leaderboards: https://www.speedrun.com/tr2/run/yo27wdjz

Likewise, I've seen TR1 runs with the same ruleset running with mods to play with the PS1 soundtrack that doesn't even exist on PC: https://www.speedrun.com/tr1/run/yj4lo1ny

I am not sure I understand the application of these rules exactly. Could someone give some information about it so other runners also know do's and don'ts?