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LostArtefacts / TR1X

Open source re-implementation of Tomb Raider 1 (1996), along with additional enhancements and bugfixes
https://lostartefacts.dev/
GNU General Public License v3.0
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Option to manage the ambient sounds like on PS1 #1078

Open VGMFR opened 10 months ago

VGMFR commented 10 months ago

On the original PS1 version of the game, ambient sounds like the wind in many levels or the pipes sounds in the cistern are only played at some point ; and they are played once and then silence comes back.

On the PC version, these sounds are looping forever, which can sometimes be very disturbing as you will hear wind under water or on very little rooms which clearly cannot have any wind.

It will be very nice to have the option, in the sound options, to activate this way of working for ambient sounds.

I found this thread regarding the subject: https://www.tombraiderforums.com/showthread.php?t=218461

walkawayy commented 10 months ago

I am pretty sure the original game behaved this way because of a bug where only one track could play at a time. Which is why the bug where finding a secret would stop a music track existed. Triggering the first sound in any level would kill the ambient track on PS1. PC didn't have music triggers originally, so the ambient tracks play correctly the whole level. We could possibly add an option to disable ambient tracks.

VGMFR commented 10 months ago

An option to disable the ambient tracks would be a great start indeed, as for you currently have to delete or rename the corresponding tracks to fit with the PS1 experience.

Regarding the fact that the original game behave this way, I don't think this is the reason. I mean, ambient sounds could have looped as well, be replaced by music / secret sounds when needed and then start looping again.

Actually by reading the thread I linked above, I noticed that there was a lot of debate regarding this matter, but this made me think that the PC version is looping as it has originally no music (why, good question). Therefore ambient sounds where always here to replace the lack of music.

I'll quote some messages that I found interesting:

"Both PC and PSX version of the game were released a month after the Sega Saturn release, yet it's only PC which has looped ambience. If the silence of the Sega version was a bug, then it would have been fixed by the time playstation version was released. Yet it wasn't, so I believe it's rather clear it was intentional. They probably did it so the player was surrounded by complete silence with music being some sort of reward as he progressed. On the other hand, since PC version didn't have music at all, the ambience was probably looped as a replacement. Actually, I truly do wonder why TR1 never had music on PC in the first place."

"Someone would need to implement the triggers for the ambient tracks of the PS1 version and disable automatic playback of the PC ambient tracks in order to simulate how the game worked on PS1."

This is harder as it would mean implementing triggers as well, but it would be even more accurate to match the original PS1 experience.