Archived from groups: alt.games.tombraider (
More info?)
In the dead of night, a faint whisper from Ms T was heard, at about
04/16/2005 04:55 PM, and I could have sworn it said ...
> In reply to Kieran's post:
>
>>"MGSPhilly" <MGSBoca@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>>news:b4X7e.30224$qO6.11261@trnddc05...
>>
>>>Hello gang:
>>>
>>>I understand that by installing the XP Patch that some of the savegames
>>>will
>>>not function....actually I read contradictory information on this at
>>>Stella
>>>Lune' s remarkable site. Does anyone know if:
>>>l. it's worth patching to play in XP;
>>>2.if the savegame feature from her site or any site would work?
>>>Thanks a million
>>>Regards,
>>>
>>>Mark
>>>Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia.
>>
>>TR3 *should* function on XP without patching - it does on two XP machines
>>I own anyhow. Savegames from Stella's site *should* work regardless of
>>which patch you have installed, I have certainly found this to be the
>>case on the 3 different patches I have tried. Your own savegames do
>>however cease to work.
>
>
> Just for clarity, I have a question about the above patching business. I
> will be attempting to load my TR games (likely starting with TR3 or the one
> we can create/play user made levels-I have yet to decide) at my next
> available chunk of "down-time". I'll be copying over my saved games after
> installing TR3 (btw those saved games were from when I was running Win98se
> and doubtful if my saved games are even any good now with a different OS),
> so here is my question:
>
> Do you mean, if you apply the patch *before* attempting to run a saved game
> (of any source), they *will* work on XP? But not if you apply the XP patch
> for TR? I've not played any TR game but TR6 on this XP Prof OS (SP2+) yet,
> and actually haven't loaded that even since I did a wipe/format/fresh
> install with now all the latest updates either...,
>
> tia
>
Saved games are a collection of facts about your position,
accomplishments, weapons ... basically a list of things you have and
have done. Its a file, with a defined format and content.
If a patch makes a change to the way that file gets written (because
there was a bug or misrepresentation in that file), then if you patch
the game and try to read that file written by the "bad" version of game,
it will likely confuse the hell out of the new (patched) game.
So, yes, as soon as you patch the game, you (likely) invalidate any and
all save game files made by the previous versions of that game.
The save game files may also be OS dependent (like saving the physical
screen resolution, or video card model or some such thing). You
probably have a pretty good chance that a save file from a prior
Windows will work under an new version of Windows.
I definitely recall someone saying they had tried using a Win save game
under MacOS (or vice versa), and it did not work. So I would guess that
was too big a transition.
Now, all that said, it is quite possible that the save game file will
work if the patch only changed something about how the game runs rather
than anything in the file format for save games.
When it comes down to it ... just try one of your old save games. If
things are strange, quit and restart the game. You can't do any
permanent damage. Ok, if you start saving games over top your save
files while in this "strange" state, they'll likely be worthless. But
that is about as "permanent" as you can get!
I think you already have one opinion (above) that says you should have
no trouble without the XP patch. I'd try to install it without that
patch. If you can, the quandary is solved.
(reminder) You also have the question of whether your save games were
played with or without the *fix* patch for TR3 (OS independent). That
patch definitely made *some* prior save games invalid. If you (fix)
patched it before, of course, you should (fix) patch it this time.
For more on this last point ...
http://tombraiders.net/stella/savegame.html#tr1save
.... under the TR3 section.
---
PW