Editorial

Aug 09, 2014

How To Play the X-Wing Series on a Modern Windows PC with a gamepad or flight stick

Tie Fighter Reconstructed

Introduction

The Windows 95 version of Tie Fighter, while having better graphics, introduced significant downgrades to the voice and music from the DOS CD-ROM version. Most of the MIDI tracks (which would sound good if you had a great sound card) were replaced with low quality digital recordings of the MIDI played through a sound card that had bad MIDI capabilities, and what was left on the Tie Fighter Windows 95 edition was a mess. They also replaced the completely original Tie Fighter battle music (which is what you hear most of the time while playing the game) with music straight from the score of Star Wars. While the battle music quality for Tie Fighter Windows 95 was redbook audio, it fit in much better as the X-Wing (whose music was based off the Star Wars score) & X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter battle music than it did with Tie Fighter. And finally, to fit in the redbook audio on the disc for the Windows 95 version, the Voice quality was cut in half to accomodate it.

This modification’s purpose was to restore (as best as possible) the music from the DOS version and improve upon it’s quality where possible alongside restoring the better quality voice work from the DOS CD-ROM version as well. Unforunately, since we’re stuck using Redbook Audio, the Battle Music is static whereas the original DOS version had dynamic music using the iMuse system.

GOG.com Edition Instructions

What you’ll need

1. TFReconstructedGOGEdition.zip – Contains better quality voice work from the CD-ROM DOS version of Tie Fighter along with re-orchestrated music tracks by Daniel ‘Yitzchak’ Bennett based on the DOS version of Tie Fighter & Modified Tie95.exe by Pete Jatz which fixes some issues with the music in the game and restores some spots where music was not playing in the Windows version.

Guide

1. Extract the contents of the zip to your Tie Fighter folder (default: C:\GOG Games\Star Wars – TIE Fighter (1998))
2. That’s it! You’re ready to go!

Windows CD version Instructions (NOT FOR GOG.com version!)

NOTE: Everything below is for the ORIGINAL Windows CD version. DO NOT read further if you’re using the GOG.com edition.

What you’ll need

1. TFReorchestratedMusic.zip – The music ISO containing an improved version of the Tie Fighter DOS Battle Music, re-orchestrated by Daniel ‘Yitzchak’ Bennett.
2. TFReorchestratedDatav1.1.zip – The better quality voice work from the CD-ROM DOS version of Tie Fighter along with various re-orchestrated music tracks by Daniel ‘Yitzchak’ Bennett & Modified Tie95.exe by Pete Jatz which fixes some issues with the music in the game.

Guide

Note 1: The improved music quality makes it impossible to fit all of the game contents all onto one disc, so they music be split into two discs.
Note 2: I refer to ISOs as the format that should be used for CD images– but you can use .bin/.cue files or .nrg files as well.

1. Create the Music Disc: Extract the contents of TF95RecorchestratedMusic.zip and burn the bin/cue format using your favourite ISO recording software (Nero, Imgburn, etc). You can also mount it using Virtual Drive software like Nero Burning ROM, but it must be the primary CD/DVD drive in your system, otherwise the music will not play.
2. Create the Game Disc: Copy the contents of your Tie Fighter Windows 95 CD-Rom to a temporary folder on your desktop. Then extract the contents of TF95ReorchestratedMusic.zip into the same temporary folder. It should overwrite the contents of the MUSIC and VOICE directories. Then package the contents of this temporary folder using your favourite Burning Software (such as Nero, etc) to an ISO file . You MUST label the disc you burn TIE95, otherwise the disc will not be recognized when you run Tie Fighter. You can use the Image Recorder as the selected Recording device in Nero to save the contents of the disc to a mountable ISO file.
3. Now, you can use any combination of physical or virtual DVD/CD drives to mount/insert the Music Disc into the primary CD/DVD drive, and then mount the Game disc into any non-primary CD/DVD drive. Also make sure that you remove the original Tie Fighter Windows 95 Disc from any drive as well. Its key that the Music Disc is in the primary drive, otherwise the music may not play.
4. The TF95ReorchestratedData zip file contains an INSTALL folder with an updated TIE95.exe. Overwrite the TIE95.exe in your C:\Program Files\LucasArts\TIE95 folder with this one.

Credits

1. Daniel ‘Yitzchak’ Bennett (YouTube Channel): Re-orchestrating of the Tie Fighter MIDIs
2. Pete Jatz: Modified TIE95.exe (changes: Add Registration music, Add Briefing Map Music, Add Combat Chamber Briefing music, Add Combat Sim and Training sim Debrief music, Add music to credits, Have concourse music “flow” into “continue battle” room without restarting, Have post-mission music as lose or win depending on mission outcome – this music “continues” into officer debrief)
3. Andkloras (YouTube Channel): Inspiration for this project with his great Tie Fighter Battle music arrangement

Contact the author at @AbdulBCRT on Twitter if there are any issues with the guide.