Best version of Discworld

[cai]

Hi all

So I want to re-play Discworld for the millionth time and I'm looking to play the best version there is.

ScummVM supports the PC, Mac and PSX versions.

As I understand it, there were three PC CD versions of Discworld released, each fixing various bugs etc., and the PSX version seems to have been based on the third PC version, possibly with further improvements on top of those already made.

I've got the PSX version and the original PC CD version, and can spot a few noticeable improvements in the PSX version just from the first few minutes of gameplay. The "Dragon!" chant in the intro is a different (less annoying!) recording to the original PC version, and Rincewind's line "You make more space for ideas by sitting on your backsides sipping a cup of milky tea?" uses a different take where Eric Idle correctly delivers the line as a question rather than a statement.

Unfortunately, however, ScummVM does not support music when running the PSX version of Discworld. I tried getting around this using the ScummVM Music Enhancement Project, but unfortunately the PSX version must number its MIDI files differently to the PC version or something as using the Music Enhancement Project causes the wrong music to be played during the wrong scenes around half the time.

So, it seems like my best bet is to try and locate the third PC CD version. However, I have no idea how to identify it - does anybody know if there are particular files that only exist in the third PC CD version or anything like that?

Alternatively, is there any way to get music working on the PSX version of Discworld through ScummVM, perhaps through an unsupported dev build or something?

Thanks!

[invwar]

If I understood the information available correctly, the first version of Discworld is based on the original Tinsel Engine, which used GRA files (likely for Graphics). While working on Discworld 2, they also improved the Tinsel Engine. One major change was the switch from GRA files to SCN (likely for Scenery). Thus you can differ between Version 1 and 2. The third Version very likely never released, they worked on it, but it was discarded because of costs.
I checked some videos on Youtube of the PS1 version, yes, the "Drago(n)" was finally replaced by "Dragon", but this might be also just because of recompiling from Sourcematerial, in other words, the n was maybe just eaten by the compression. If I remember correctly, PC Versions of this time usually used 22kHz while the PS1 used 44kHz.
Anyway, i checked some other scenes and it seems like the PS1 port has some 'loading' issues within scenes. Like when Death wants to get rid of the fly or when the guy gets burned down.

[BoTToX]

Try this :
https://www.jameswoodcock.co.uk/2007/12 ... -released/
Don't know if it work with psx version, but on pc version it's amazing !

[Raziel]

@cai

Did you play your PSX version till the end?
Because there is a glitch near the end at "The Eye of Offla" which will probably never get fixed...

edit: Oh and btw, music runs fine for me with the PSX version.
Sometimes it does not start right away, you have to press F1, go to Sound Options and change the volume to trigger it to playback again.
(happens mostly on a fresh start, not so on load save states for some reason)

...and it's using MIDI, so you might want to try the MIDI emulation.

[jestar_jokin]

Oh and btw, music runs fine for me with the PSX version.

@Raziel, how did you get the PSX version working with MIDI music? For me, it doesn't set instruments, so every channel is a piano. No issues with the PC version. Tested in 2.8.1, 2.9 daily build 4a4431f4, and 2.6.1.

I'm wondering if it's a ScummVM bug/missing feature, or just a limitation of the SEQ format.

Addressing the topic, to me, the PSX version seems to be "the best" - i.e. least buggy, best speech quality - but when playing in an emulator, there's a noticeable pause every time a sound or speech plays, and loading times between every scene change. I'd like to play it through ScummVM, but the music isn't playing correctly.

If it's a bug or missing feature, I might have a crack at fixing it.

[Raziel]

heh...you're right...every note is piano...never really thought about it (using a real midi sequencer here)

then again, i never really played the game before, so i didnt know the instruments were meant to differ

please, go ahead and fix it
theres also another bug late in the game
see here: https://bugs.scummvm.org/ticket/6395