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Troubleshooting/Technical Stuff Remember that every sound card, graphics card, etc., is only able to work with your machine if you have a particular piece of software installed on your machine known as a _device driver_. If you're experiencing problems with the sound and/or vision in Tomb Raider then I suggest that you update your machine drivers as your first port of call. You'll be able to get the latest version of your drivers from the manufacturers website (the URL will be listed in the documentation somewhere or refer to the "Hardware Manufacturers Websites" section in the appendices for a list of the most common hardware vendors) and also get the latest version of DirectX from Micro$oft as well at http://www.microsoft.com/directx/. The newer the driver the better it'll work (usually). 2.1 How can I obtain Technical Support for the games? You can obtain technical support for all of the Tomb Raider games from Eidos Interactive who offers help via the web, facsimile, and telephone help lines. Although Eidos say that customers shouldn't hesitate to contact them we think you should do a couple of things before hand. First of all read through this FAQ and see if you can solve your problem by following the advice within it. If you cant find the help you need in this FAQ check the manual that was supplied with your copy of the game and read the "Readme" file on the CD-ROM. If you still have no luck then by all means contact Eidos who will give you access to a representative who will help you sort out your problem. When you contact Eidos you will need to give them as much information as you can including the type of hardware you are using such as the make of sound card, CD-Rom drive, amount of RAM, and the speed and manufacturer of your microprocessor. Finally they ask that you make note of the title and version of the game you are using. You'll find contact information for your country/region in the manual or by using the web and pointing your browser to http://www.eidos.com/. Select your country/region from the options displayed and then click on the support link. There does seem to be a lot of confusion as to what platforms Tomb Raider is available for. The following table should help clear things up. As a side note, it seems that the original Tomb Raider was first released on the Sega Saturn (albeit with an almost "unplayable slow frame rate").
You'll also find two games available for the GameBoy Color, "The Nightmare Stone" and the recently released "Curse of the Sword". Plus owners of the original Tomb Raider and Dagger of Xian games can download for free from the Internet the add-on levels. For more information concerning the add-on levels please refer to section 1.6 entitled "What are the gold add-on levels, such as Unfinished Business, and the Lost Artefact?" 2.3 Minimum System Requirements Computer video games are requiring more and more from hardware as the years go by and Tomb Raider has been no exception. Compare the minimum system requirements of the original Tomb Raider to that of the fifth game below in the tables and you'll see just how much processor and hardware power has increased over the past five years. It is now becoming common for gamers to buy games that require hardware way beyond what they actually have. Therefore it is always recommended that you check the minimum system requirements against the specification of your machine before purchasing any games. In order to play any of the Tomb Raider games or use the Level Editor, you computer must meet the following minimum system requirements in the tables below. Please note that Tomb Raider, Dagger of Xian, and Adventures of Lara Croft including all the add-on levels now comes packaged as a Trilogy edition for Mac users represented in the table below under one heading. Also note that the minimum system requirements for the add-on levels are the same as for that of the games. For example the Unfinished Business add-on levels minimum system requirements matches that of the requirements for Tomb Raider. Tomb Raider (PC)
Dagger of Xian (PC)
Adventures of Lara Croft (PC)
Tomb Raider Trilogy (Mac)
Last Revelation (PC)
Last Revelation (Mac)
Chronicles (PC)
Chronicles (Mac)
Level Editor (PC)
Tomb Raider VI Predicted (PC)
The problem of not being to find your way out of the game has increased since Core changed the inventory system around in TRLR. Anyway In TR1, TR2 & TR3 to exit the games hit the ESC key and press the down arrow to reach the Passport and hit Enter. Use the right arrow one or two times and select the "Exit to Title" option. This will take you to the main title screen where you can exit be selecting the Passport again and using the right arrow key until you reach "Exit" and hit return to exit the game. Alternatively you could press ALT and F4 together to shut down the game. In TRLR & TRC you need to pause the game (P) and select "Exit to Title" to return to the title screen. From there select the "Exit" option to quit the game. Alternatively you could press ALT and F4 together to shut down the game. 2.5 I'm having problems with my sound The following paragraphs provide solutions to the most common sound problems encountered when playing any of the Tomb Raider games. It's recommended that you first try the solutions listed in section 2.4.1 entitled "Basic Sound Solutions" before tackling any specific sound card settings listed in section 2.4.2 entitled "Specific Sound Card Solutions". Before you get into specific problems associated with Tomb Raider, make sure your system meets the basic requirements. Ensure that your sound card is installed correctly. Have you correctly installed its drivers? Do you hear sounds in other games or applications? Go to the volume control in the system tray (it's the speaker looking icon) and ensure that mute is not ticked or that the volume is not turned all the way down and turn it up if it is. Make sure that the audio cable from your CD-ROM to the sound card is installed correctly. Is the lead inserted into the correct slots on the back of the CD-ROM and on the sound card? Can you hear CD music through your speakers when your play a music CD? If not, plug some headphones into the front of the CD-ROM and listen for music (you may need to turn up the volume on the front panel of your CD-ROM). If you can hear music through the headphones and not over your speakers, your audio cable is not installed correctly and you wont be able to hear the cutscene dialog and some other stuff from the CD-ROM. Most computer literate people and any computer store will know how to install the CD audio cable so ask them. Install the latest drivers for your sound card. Frequent your sound card website, you'll find a list in the appendices, and download current drivers for your specific card. Follow installation instructions located there. Disable Flex CD. This is a powertoy created by Microsoft. You may have this installed and not know it. If you have it, it's in the system tray. Hover your mouse over tray icons to get a description of each. You can right click on Flex CD to disable it temporarily. If you want to get rid of it completely either uninstall it from the Add/Remove applet in the Control Panel or delete the shortcut to it in your start- up folder of the start menu. Although the program adds some neat functionality we think it causes more problems then it's worth. So get rid of it unless you absolutely need it. 2.5.2 Specific Sound Card Solutions [This section Coming Soon] 2.6 I'm having problems with my graphics The Tomb Raider games have the ability to use most 3D graphics cards. For the original Tomb Raider game you'll need to download new executable files from http://www.eidosinteractive.com/techsupp/tr1/tr1-patches.html that is specific to your graphics card. Patches also exist for the graphics cards that use chips from the following manufacturers: 3Dfx (i.e. Voodoo Graphics, Voodoo Rush, Voodoo 2). [note: There is currently no patch for cards with the nVidia based chipsets] These graphics card chip manufacturers worked closely with Core Design to produce these patches (which hopefully would increase sales of cards using their chips, and promote brand loyalty). There are no specific 3D graphics card patches for TR2/3/4/5. They exist in the form of a single program only, which allows support for most 3D graphics cards on the market today. TR2 supports any 3D graphics card, which is compatible with Direct3D. Direct3D is Microsoft's application programming interface. That is, Direct3D is a way for an application, such as TR2, to communicate with your operating system (Windows 95/98), which in turn communicates with your 3D graphics card. The result is that your 3D graphics card allows your monitor to display a nicely rendered Lara. Direct3D can be thought of as a special way to write code in programs and in the operating system. In order for TR2, and any Direct3D enabled application, to take advantage of your 3D graphics card, you will need a "driver" from the manufacturer. A "driver" is software that acts as the messenger between the operating system and your 3D graphics card. You probably have these drivers already installed on your system. Also, the TR2 PC CD contains DirectX 5, which should contain drivers for most 3D graphics cards in use today. If you are unsure, then contact the vendor where you bought your 3D graphics card. You could also see Appendix 4 for links to some 3D graphics card manufacturers. When you run the TR2/3/4 CD you'll see an option labelled Setup on the splash screen. Choose this and then click on the Graphics tab and you'll see a multitude of options relating to how the game displays itself on screen. For your 3D graphics card you should select 'Hardware 3D acceleration' and then pick your card from the 'Graphics Card' box rather than use 'Primary Display Driver' as that's what those poor souls who don't have a decent 3d card have to suffer with (pity them)... If you are using a combination 2D/3D graphics card (e.g. an nVidia Riva-128 based card), then your only option under 'Graphics Card' may be 'Primary Display Driver' In this case, you will still benefit from hardware 3D acceleration. From here you can select all the little extras you want such as Z buffering, dithering, bilinear filtering etc. Some of these options might not work with some cards so it's really just a matter of trial and error in finding out what suits your machine. If you're after finding the correct settings for your card try Dracman's 3dfx help page at his Shotgun City site (URL in Appendix below). 2.6.1 How do I get high resolution/SVGA mode in Tomb Raider/Unfinished Business To use high resolution/SVGA mode, press F1 when you are in the game. This will let you toggle between low resolution/VGA and high resolution/SVGA modes. If you find that the speed of the game is slow, it is recommended that you press F2 to reduce the screen size. Use F3 to increase it again. 2.6.2 I can't get my voodoo accelerator card to work with Tomb Raider/Unfinished Business While there is no specific voodoo2 patch for TR1 the original 3Dfx patch *should* work if you know how to tweak the Voodoo2 card environment variable settings. Dracman's site (URL in section 5.1.3) contains a page showing the settings he uses to run TR1/UB - and includes nifty batch files with which to run TR1 using these settings. His settings also address the 'purple Lara' syndrome. 2.7 The game runs really slowly First you should check and ensure that you computer system meets the minimum system requirements listed above in section 2.3 entitled "Minimum System Requirements". It may just be that your computer system is not powerful enough to play the game. For example, Tomb Raider will not run on a 486 processor (it's just too slow to keep up with all the animations) regardless of its speed, yes even at 100 MHz. Secondly this problem usually occurs in Dagger of Xian when the CD-ROM drive is constantly being read by the game (you should see a light constantly flickering on your CD-ROM drive and/or hear it being accessed). A patch that solves this problem is available from the Eidos Support section of its web site at http://www.eidosinteractive.com/support/ that can solve this problem. 2.8 The menu ring endlessly spins This problem is normally caused by an un-calibrated joystick or game pad that is connected to your machine. Either unplugging or re-calibrating the offending device can solve it. If you find that the rings still endlessly spin, even after re-calibrating a joystick or game pad then that device is just not compatible with the game. Certain video cards are known to cause problems because they include game ports, which are incompatible with Tomb Raider. Video cards, which are known to cause problems, are discussed below: If you have a Diamond Edge 2000 and 3000 series video card you will need to disable the sega game port on it manually as it is not compatible with Tomb Raider. However we recommend you do this very carefully as you may render you video card useless if handled incorrectly. If you have a Diamond 3D Rage vide card you are advised to get the latest drivers for the card from Diamond (version 2.21 or higher). Using the updated drivers will give you a new tab in the Display Adapter Properties that controls your Joystick Port on the card and you will be able to disable it from there. 2.9 Lara moves, even when I'm not pressing any keys This problem is caused by the same circumstances as the endlessly spinning menu rings above. Please refer to section 2.9 entitled "The menu ring endlessly spins" for more information. 2.10 The game suffers from long pauses when reading from the CD-ROM drive. What's wrong? If you find that the game suffers from long pauses when reading from the CD-ROM drive resulting in read errors then it is recommended that you install the DOS drivers for your CD-ROM, even under windows. Doing so will normally correct this problem. If this fails to work and your drives speed is faster than 4x you could try using a 4x only Dos driver instead. If you own an NEC CD-ROM drive then you must use an older NEC_IDE.SYS DOS driver, dated prior to December 1994. If you have multiple CD-ROM drives in your machine you must use the first drive connected to your machine to play the games from. 2.11 I keep getting Visual C++ runtime errors! Either re-install DirectX or download and install the latest DirectX version from Microsoft's Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/directx/. If that fails to solve the problem then please check to see if your computer systems date is set beyond the year 2035, and change it back if it is. 2.12 The Windows 95 / 98 / 2000 / Me / XP key keeps on dumping me out of Tomb Raider/Unfinished Business The original Tomb Raider game is an MS-DOS game and as such , any accidental use of the Windows 95 / 98 / 2000 / Me / XP keys now included on all new keyboards will cause the computer to stop the game and got to the Windows desktop. These keys happen to be unfortunately located between the Ctrl and Alt keys on both of the Spacebar, making life difficult for the Tomb Raider player (thank you Bill... thank you very much...). To stop this you will need to download a keyboard "re-mapping" utility which will re-map the Windows 95 / 98 / 2000 / Me / Xp key to any function you want (other than launch the startup menu) leaving you able to press the offending key while playing Tomb Raider and have nothing untoward happen. If you don't want to go to the trouble of the above we have another couple of solutions. First I'm also told that if you press the key whatever you do don't un-press it. Apparently it's the un-pressing that causes the startup menu to appear. What you should do is click on the Tomb Raider program on the taskbar to relaunch the program and then let go of the key. Another solution, if you like the idea of committing a bit of vandalism, is to simply remove the offending key from your keyboard altogether. You do this by levering it off with a knife or screwdriver... (they can be replaced afterwards). 2.13 I'm having problems with my screen resolution under Windows 2000 A few people have reported problems with Chronicles when trying to change the resolution in Windows 2000 from the default 640x480. An unofficial patch has been released to combat this and the perpetual crashing problem and is available from the Tomb Raider Chronicles web site at http://www.tombraiderchronicles.com/. 2.14 I can't save/load my game or save my settings. What's wrong? If you find that you are loosing you're save game files, unable to save or load games files, or unable to save program settings, make sure you have first installed the game correctly. Then check that you are not playing the game from the CD-ROM, as you cannot write any files to it. If you are unable to install the game because of sound problems then please refer to section 2.4 entitled "I'm having problems with my sound" for solutions to getting you sound card to work with Tomb Raider. 2.15 Can I watch the FMV sequences without playing the games? Yes you can, for TR1, TR2, and TR3 under Windows you can find a viewer program called Escapeplay available from http://www.vvm.com~hfowler/tombraider/rpl_player.zip that allows you to view the .rpl files. For TRLR and TRC you will need to get a copy of the Radtools program available from the radgames web website at http://www.radgametools.com/. The program once downloaded will allow you view to the new "bink" file format. If you are an Apple Mac user first copy the "FMV" folder from the CD-ROM to your hard drive. Using ResEdit or another similar resource editor, use the "Get File/Folder info…" under the "file" menu and change each movie's creator type to "MooV" and the file type to "TVOD". You will then be able to view the movies with MoviePlayer. 2.16 How do I take screenshots? The original Tomb Raider game didn't have any facility built in to it to allow fans to take screenshots however it is possible to take them with a little bit of work. The supposedly easiest way would be to use a third party screenshot-grabbing program however I have been unable to get any to work. One other way is to create a shortcut on your desktop to the "tomb.exe" file and change its properties to fool windows into playing it in a window. To do this right click on the shortcut and select Properties from the menu. When the properties window has appeared click on the Program tab and from the dropdown menu for the Run command change the setting from "Normal Window" to "Minimized". Now click OK to save the settings you have just changed. Ensure that your Tomb Raider CD-ROM is in your drive and double click on the shortcut to start the game. The game will be running minimized on the taskbar. Wait around fifteen seconds then click on the program to display it on the desktop in a window. Now simply use the Print Screen key to take your screenshots. In TRUB press the forward slash key, "/" and the game will start to dump screenshots (in .pcx format) into your installation directory. Press the slash key again to stop it. The limit is 1000 according to some sources, but writes over the oldest as it goes. In TR2 you can press the "s" key on the keyboard at any time to dump a screenshot, saved to TR2 directory, of your current game. Also depending on what colour mode you are using they will be saved in either .pcx or .tga if you are using 16.7 million colour mode. In TR3, TRLR, and TRC you can press the @ key on the keyboard at any time to dump a screenshot, saved to your TR3, TRLR, or TRC directories. For non-European countries you use the " (or ') key instead. 2.16.1 I'm having problems viewing the screenshots The screenshots that are dumped to your hard drive by the games are in an image format known as truevision targa. Be default windows does not support this file format so you will first need to obtain a third party program to help you view and convert the image files. Paintshop Pro and most other good drawing packages support this format however if you cant afford to purchase a copy you can always use the Texture Edit Viewer program available from the Texture Edit web site at http://www.3dactionplanet.com/tombraider/textureedit/viewer/ to view the images.
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