Restoration of Raptor EXE revisions

[nukeykt]

Hi,
To celebrate 30th anniversary of Raptor, gamesrc-ver-recreation project now covers all known EXE revisions of Raptor. As a reminder, gamesrc-ver-recreation is a project which aims to reconstruct EXEs of various games accurately as possible using their released source codes as a base. Like with Doom engine games EXE restorations, this release does not include proprietary DMX code.
This project started in November 2021, when copy of source code of Raptor and parts of surrounding code (GFX library) were received from original developer, Scott Host. Using code we got and copy of DMX code we already had, me and @NY00123 starting piecing them together to get functioning DOS exe. Eventually we managed to compile it, but as expected, there were few differences compared to original v1.2 EXE. With some more effort we found and fixed all the differences, and got EXE that matched original EXE byte-by-byte. Using this, I immediately started reconstructing sources for earlier releases. v1.1 release was reconstructed fairly easily within a day or so. Reconstruction of v1.0 though, proved to be quite difficult, as the DMX version used in this version was much earlier than any version we had (for example, Gravis ultrasound code was completely different, and still was using hardware mixing like Doom 1.3 and earlier did). We weren't able to finish this at the time. Shortly after this we moved to the Doom and Strife source code restoration, and DMX restoration we did for Raptor v1.2, turned out to be useful there. Specifically, we found out that Doom 1.7/1.7a uses exact same DMX revision.
Much later though, in September 2023, I was trying to reconstruct Doom 1.2 executable. As it uses DMX version quite close to Raptor 1.0, I decided to look at this again. This time I had much more luck, and thus Raptor v1.0 finally was reconstructed.
Shortly after this, branch of v1.2 reconstruction was published on github by skynettx as official GPL release of Raptor source code. Based on this, @NY00123 put together this repository for public release.

 

https://bitbucket.org/gamesrc-ver-recreation/raptor

[NY00123]

Adding my words as well.

 

1. Work on Raptor v1.2 was started by @nukeykt after receiving original files from Scott Host of Mountain King Studios. I joined later with the efforts, albeit I consider most work to still be done by @nukeykt. v1.1 was indeed covered by @nukeykt during the span of a single day, more-or-less. For v1.0, I helped a bit, mostly with Sound Blaster related code in DMX, but it was otherwise @nukeykt's work again. What we ended with were 3 separate private git branches representing versions 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2. They weren't ready for becoming public, due to the presence of proprietary DMX code and other possible aspects of code review. I eventually took the open-source release of v1.2 from skynettx' repository and added versions 1.0 and 1.1 to the same codebase, while preparing additional files (like Raptor's makefile and helper scripts) for support of all covered versions. I also added README.md, partially based in form on notes previously written for other games.

 

2. One more thing is the time span, given that it all started back in November 2021. While originally preparing the open-source release of Raptor v1.2, we were waiting to see if we'd maybe be able to use DMX. There were also internal pending code review notes. At some point, Scott Host seemed to want something a bit different; While he'd be working on a remaster of Raptor without a legacy mode, @nukeykt would work on a more direct port of the original game, with the idea that - possibly as an alternative to the DOS sources - the port itself would be the one to go open-source. Eventually, as written by @nukeykt, he had finally gotten back to Raptor v1.0 source reconstruction and finished it in September 2023. Host showed support for the original plan again, and not much later, skynettx published the sources.

 

3. I'll finish with the topic of forum threads. People have maybe noticed that the Duke4.net and/or Doomworld threads on the topic were new ones. In fact, @nukeykt already started a separate related Doomworld thread earlier, covering reconstructed Doom and Strife sources. Beforehand, there was generally just a single thread of mine about gamesrc-ver-recreation in each forum which had any; For a portion of these threads, each of them would be mostly specific to one game or engine, but that wasn't the case for all of them. I had actually considered deprecating my Doomworld thread covering Heretic+Hexen and migrating to @nukeykt's thread about Doom+Strife as a new general one. However, it was eventually decided with @nukeykt to start a new one for Raptor (at least on Duke4.net and Doomworld for now). A few reasons to bring up:
- If a post about a newly covered game (e.g., Raptor) were to be made in a more general existing thread, then people who see the title wouldn't immediately be aware of Raptor being the topic; They wouldn't know without inspecting the thread.
- As an added post to a previously created thread, chances are it would look like a small update, rather than something entirely new.
- Finally, I think that usually, one person's reverse-engineering projects covering different code-bases (e.g., games) are considered to be separate endeavors. Sure, we've had varying repositories under gamesrc-ver-recreation, and there's more than enough to share (like the Apogee Sound System). But I still think the notion of such projects being separate makes sense.