Inherit the earth + amiga mods.

[Bladerunner]

I asked a while ago whether the ITE Amiga version may be supported through scumm as well. AFAIR it isn`t possible due the way the Amiga Version has packed its graphics. Well However, I tried the ITE Dos Versions recently and while the graphic is fine (thanks to the various render engines), the Sound is not. I tried the normal adlib version as well as the MT32 emulation, but compared to the Amiga mods the sound is awfull. So I wonder, is there at least a way to use the Amiga mods instead of playing midi? (It would also reduce the CPU Usage for MT32 emulation) IIRC the Reminescence Game Engine does the same, one can utilize the Amiga Mods here.

[sev]

The appeared oAmiga ITE porter in our old forums, but I can't contact him since that. So, little luck. Problem there is not only graphics, but that they split resources in some way so they could be splitted by floppies. Without knowledge about that your request is extremely hard to fullfill.

So you may help us when you will find a working email of Sven Tegethoff. Current ITE rights holder has nothing against letting us to peek into Amiga sources, he just doens't have them as well.


Eugene

[Bladerunner]

Well, I remember that thread, I was the one who started it I also remember Sven Tegethoff replying and I thought it was because of the E-Mail I sent him. (IIRC you asked me via mail for his mail adress, right? Did you recive my answer?)

However, what I was thinking about is, just use the mod files, which are provided on the Amiga CD. You don`t have to extract them, because they are just there, ready for every modplayer (AFAIR only the Intropart, where the Storyteller is talking is missing)
My Idea was just to place those mods somewhere (They are in protracker format) and include a modplayer into scumm (isn`t there allready some code for that? For other amiga versions?)
I am no coder, so I have no idea how hard that might be to implement, but i guess it shouldn`t require the original Amiga Sources?!

For the mods itself, I asked at the wyrmkeeps forum whether it is possible to release them as well, but i was told they don`t have the rights for the Amiga Version (thus also no german Version is available yet)

Edit: I just listend to the whole ITE Soundtrack and also the Intro Sound is there. So the complete Soundtrack is indeed available as Protracker mods on the Amiga CD.

[sev]

Yes, I got your reply and the address you provided. But still no answer from Sven. Speaking of additional .mod play. Well, we try to mimic original as close as possible, and I don't thin there are too much people who own Amiga and other version of ITE at once, so that option will lead to unnecessary questions like "where to get these mods?", "why aren't they distributed" and "hey, I got this site where you can download them!"


Eugene

[Bladerunner]

Yes, I got your reply and the address you provided. But still no answer from Sven.

thats too bad then. I really hoped he would reply.

Speaking of additional .mod play. Well, we try to mimic original as close as possible, and I don't thin there are too much people who own Amiga and other version of ITE at once, so that option will lead to unnecessary questions like "where to get these mods?", "why aren't they distributed" and "hey, I got this site where you can download them!"
Eugene

Well, I understand the effort to stay as close as possible to the original and i appreciate that, that is what made ScummVM one of the coolest progs out there Otoh, I don`t think that an additional modplay option will lead to those unnecessary questions at all
I mean, compare that to the mt32 emulation. Correct me here if I am wrong, but afaik one need those two rom files so the emulation can work (well at least I have included them in my Scumm path) and also afaik, there
is no legal way to obtain them. But I don`t see constant threads poping up requesting those files
Don`t get me wrong, beeing able to play ITE was my biggest whish since I played scummvm 0.2 on MorphOS and believe me, you (you as in Scumm Team )made my day when 0.8 was released.
However, the soundtrack compared to my precious Amiga Version is poor
Therefor I would do everything i can to be able to have the same experience I had back then when I first played this gem
For the legal mumbo jumbo, I have to admit I don`t have a clue how to handle that. I asked the wyrmkeep guys whether it is possible to share
those mods, but i was told that they have no right for the german Amiga Version. But actually those mods are identical to the midi files, they simply
sound a bit better
Ok to make it short, I understand if the Scumm Team won`t include mod playing support to ITE, but otoh you would make an old man (*cough* got 30 a month ago, dammed i feel old) very very happy,
if you decide to include that

[sev]

I really hoped he would reply.

Yeah, I sent several emails to him without a success.

I mean, compare that to the mt32 emulation.

You're comparing apples and oranges. MT-32 tracks are inside of gamedata or are provided by freely downloadable patches from LucasArts FTP. In case of MODs you really have to have 2 game versions now and combine game data from one version and mods from another one. We even refused to add support of fixed cave voice number #4 (that duplicated one) for old CD version, though the voice is freely downloadable as part of Win32 demo.

afaik, there
is no legal way to obtain them

how come? Open your MT-32 and you will see 3 ROMs you need 2 which are located together. In some models they're in sockets, so that's easy, and in some other you will need to desolder them, dump, and align their contents. You'll get the correct control ROM.

Ok to make it short, I understand if the Scumm Team won`t include mod playing support to ITE

I really hope we will. I really hope we will add Amiga versions support eventually. I am myself curious about this version, and I have the CD, just didn't run it in UAE or something.


Eugene

[Bladerunner]

]
I really hope we will. I really hope we will add Amiga versions support eventually. I am myself curious about this version, and I have the CD, just didn't run it in UAE or something.

Eugene

Now thats a word I waited so long for the ITE support, so I guess I can wait just wait a bit longer until that get solved. In the meantime I am going to play those modfiles manually during the game, even if this is a bit strange, it works

[Kaminari]

I bought the AGA version ages ago (thought it was bilingual, dumb me) and I can say it's a very neat port. The voiceover in particular is well done and the German actors sound surprinsingly very close to the English ones.

But compared to the MT-32 tunes, the MOD transcriptions are not that great. Some tunes are ok, some others are very poor (damn eardrum-killing strings). One channel is busy with the dialogues, which leaves only three channels for the music. You can imagine how tedious a job it must have been for the porter (Sven did it himself, IIRC).

As a sidenote, it works a treat in UAE.

[Deathcrow]

Resurrecting this ooold thread:

Has anyone ever tried contacting Sven again or tried to acquire the source through other channles?

I would love to see this version preserved by ScummVM.

As far as i understand it, this would require quite a lot of work, but i believe there are a lot of passionate people working on ScummVM

[sev]

I would like to add support for this, but so far was unable to contact Sven,


Eugene