Hardwar Music Pack - working soundtrack with winmm wrapper

[solidox]

Hello.

Hardwar is a game that really needs the soundtrack for the full experience, it complements the atmosphere of the game so incredibly well. That moment where you first undock in Alpha and are hit with the bleak environment, the lightning, the thunder and then the soundtrack starts and ties it all together, easily one of my favourite starts in a game.

I looked about and couldn't find any existing solutions to get the soundtrack working other than emulating CD drives or using external media player. So I took this ogg-winmm wrapper and modified it to work with Hardwar. This allows the soundtrack to be played in-game from ogg vorbis files instead of the CD.

nyx.pretime.org/trees/HardwarMusicPack.zip (122MB)

nyx.pretime.org/trees/HardwarMusicPack_FixOnly.zip (wrapper only, no music included)

This contains the fixed winmm.dll wrapper and a "remastered" version of the soundtrack. Tracks from both CDs are included and will all play without any CD or file switching. The tracks with glitches and skips on the original CDs have been corrected or replaced with clean versions. One track has been replaced as it was present on both CDs. See the readme file for more details.

To install just extract the archive to your Hardwar directory (so winmm.dll is in the same directory as hardwarw.exe), that's all you need to do. Rename or delete winmm.dll if you wish to disable it.

Feel free to mirror these files.

[Max Darkmane]

Awesome! Will check it out shortly!

[Lee]

Fuckin' awesome mate. I tried all sorts with different wrappers trying to get this to work. Nice one.

[Pilot]

I was thinking that the music worked as long as it was burned to CD, but it seems I never tried it or remembered wrong. ^^

Though one time I was playing a game, XCOM: Enforcer (FPS) back when games didn't require there disk inside the drive, or constant internet connection etc, and had the Hardwar disk in and Hardwar's sound track was playing, which was awesome, though I couldn't play that XCOM game for long, since it strangely enough made me motion sick which I can count on one hand the games that do that. . .

[RANT Warning]
XCOM: Enforcer
Wolfenstein 3D, as well as the Linux clone of it, I think it has to do with the 2.5d I guess.
Stranded Deep. . . It makes me sea sick after traveling in a raft for a bit. . .

[Lee]

Any music works on CD. I used to stick my own albums in.

It's using a winmm.dll wrapper to play music locally that's been the problem.

One of the reasons it's never really been released on Steam by Ian Stewart.

I tried various wrappers but they just didn't work.

[Lord Solarix]

Solidox, excellent work! I LOVE this tool, thank you so much for releasing this.
It is delightful to be able to customize the music! This is a MUST HAVE tool for any Hardwar fan.

I must comment that for years now I've noticed something odd - the Hardwar OST is different between versions.
Looking through yours, I can identify the following <(click a track to be taken to a YouTube of it)>

~Solidox collection Disc 1~
Track02= The Black Dog [Spanners] - Raxmus
Track03= The Black Dog [Spanners] - Chase the Manhattan
Track04= LFO [Advance] - Tied Up
Track05= LFO [Advance] - Shut Down
Track06= Autechre [Anvil Vapre] - Second Bad Vilbel
Track07-17= Neil Biggin - <unused tracks from Loaded (PlayStation 1)>

~Solidox collection Disc 2~
Track22= Autechre [Amber] - Nine
Track23= Autechre [Anvil Vapre] - Second Scepe
Track24= Autechre [Tri Repetae] - Clipper
Track25= Squarepusher [Hard Normal Daddy] - Chin Hippy
Track26= UNKNOWN?* -- Can you identify Track26? I have no idea what this is

---

For point-of-comparison, my two identical retail boxes of Hardwar, USA region, version F2.1 (four discs total):

~USA F2.1 Disc 1~
Track02: The Black Dog [Spanners] - Raxmus
Track03: The Black Dog [Spanners] - Chase the Manhattan (title screen music if started w/ Disc 1)
Track04: The Black Dog [Spanners] - Raxmus (yep, on mine, it's on Disc 1 twice)
Track05: LFO [Advance] - Shut Down
Track06: Speedy J [G Spot] - The FUN Equations (UNCREDITED)

~USA F2.1 Disc 2~
Track22: LFO [Advance] - Tied Up (on Disc 2 instead, here)
Track23: RAC [Doublejointed] - Nine (UNCREDITED - Hardman.exe credits Autechre instead, but on my disc it absolutely is RAC - Nine, not Autechre - Nine!)
Track24: Autechre [Tri Repetae] - Clipper (title screen music if started w/ Disc 2)
Track25: The Black Dog [Spanners] - Chase the Manhattan (yep, on mine, it's repeated on Disc 2)
Track26: Autechre [Anvil Vapre] - Second Scepe

Some more interesting things about USA F2.1:
- Omits solidox's Track26, Second Bad Vilbel, Chin Hippy, the devs-singing joke track, and the unused tracks from PSX Loaded (solidox Tracks 07-17)
- Stock retail USA F2.1 Hardman.exe credits Raxmus, C.T.M., Tied Up, Shut Down, Second Bad Vilbel (misspelt as "Vibel"), Second Scepe, Clipper, Nine, and Chin Hippy. "Nine" is credited to Autechre ("Brown/Booth"), but the "Nine" on my disc is DEFINITELY RAC's, NOT Autechre's. And as seen above, Chin Hippy and Second Bad Vilbel are nowhere to be found on the disc!
- Speedy J's The FUN Equations is not credited at all
- Second Bad Vilbel and "Track26" would have fit in very well with my OST, yet were omitted
- Chin Hippy sounds VERY different from the rest of my OST, and was omitted

I theorize that Hardwar's OST was finalized _after_ they had already shipped the first batches of CDs; that the unused tracks from PSX Loaded (1995) found in earlier versions are leftover placeholder tracks. Whether the soundtrack changes in later versions were due to developer taste or legal reasons is unknown. One thing is for sure: Different versions definitely contain different soundtracks.

At this point, I'm going to roll with the F2.1 OST + Autechre - Nine, Autechre - Second Bad Vilbel, and Track26, whatever that is :-)

[solidox]

Ah, that's interesting, thanks for documenting this. I had assumed that the UK and USA versions had the same soundtrack, that also explains the discrepancy in the credits. Licencing issues is certainly a possibility, I seem to recall a few games from that era having different soundtracks in the NA versions to EU ones. I'm curious if the tracks on the USA version were all clean or if they had the same mastering problems with clicks/pops as the UK edition? Something definitely went wrong during the process.

I wasn't sure if the tracks 07-17 ever actually played in game so I left them in just in case.

Track26 on the original UK CD was LFO - Tied Up, due to the way the wrapper works it would play disproportionately often if included twice so I replaced it with an untitled interlude track from Gridlock - Trace. Track 10 at 51:50. This is one of my favourite albums of all time and many of the tracks on it work with Hardwar very well I think, it's sort of ambient industrial, a mix of harsh beats and delicate soundscapes. (Also check out their album Formless if you're into it). I didn't really want to include other music (copyright, dev's vision, authenticity, etc) but I needed to put something there and it seemed reasonably 'neutral'.

I'd like to update the pack to include RAC - Nine and FUN Equations now that I know about them, although there's some technical issues involved. Hardwar will only try to play tracks 1-5, so I added a 50% chance in the wrapper to pick from either CD to get 10. I wasn't sure if Hardwar picks the track randomly or if it plays specific ones on certain cues (menu music seems fixed, for example) but given what you've said about the differences in the versions though, I think it probably does it randomly or just doesn't matter, in which case the wrapper could ignore what Hardwar asks for and pick one randomly itself. If I get some time I'll look into it though. Maybe a Community Music Pack with lots of additional tracks that fit the theme could be fun.

[Lord Solarix]

Thanks for the reply. The bit about the 50% chance to flip between the two CDs is most interesting.

"Trace" fits perfectly with the rest of the soundtrack - a most excellent choice. I am definitely into it and very well might buy that album myself.

[Lee]

Fun fact about one of the audio tracks:

www.gremlinarchive.com/index.php/2016/05/25/hardwar-qa-commentary/

[Pilot]

Seems this got more interesting after I was here last.

Did anyone check the French version, whether the ISO's tracks match or even have sound? Is the ISO still around?

I agree developers back then really liked to localize things.
In America interplay packaged Fragile Allegiance inside of Hardwar, I guess as a bonus.

-- branched to a Fragile Allegiance thread in general discussion. - Pilot

[Lord Solarix]

*BUMP* Hi, I'm back and have some more information about those mysterious tracks 07-17.
They are indeed from Loaded. Specifically, they are these:

Pop Will Eat Itself, Neil Biggin & Patrick Phelan - [Loaded #09] Rage Against The Law www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNFOLqZO4Lk
Pop Will Eat Itself, Neil Biggin & Patrick Phelan - [Loaded #10] It Continues www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TSQ7v1pbKc
Pop Will Eat Itself, Neil Biggin & Patrick Phelan - [Loaded #11] Forest Law www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi9wR9nRT2U
Pop Will Eat Itself, Neil Biggin & Patrick Phelan - [Loaded #12] Its A Copy www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6kC3dEWFbo
Pop Will Eat Itself, Neil Biggin & Patrick Phelan - [Loaded #13] The Insider www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL5lQRm_ICQ
Pop Will Eat Itself, Neil Biggin & Patrick Phelan - [Loaded #14] Groove On The Corpse www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ2v2ObgsvU
Pop Will Eat Itself, Neil Biggin & Patrick Phelan - [Loaded #15] Serial Killer www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f6gbEVIJrs
Pop Will Eat Itself, Neil Biggin & Patrick Phelan - [Loaded #16] Kill Me Now www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5DjGt0tHcQ
Pop Will Eat Itself, Neil Biggin & Patrick Phelan - [Loaded #17] Da Doodoo www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLOXj4mQOpo
Pop Will Eat Itself, Neil Biggin & Patrick Phelan - [Loaded #18] Coolness Prevails www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTkcfHFuuYM
Pop Will Eat Itself, Neil Biggin & Patrick Phelan - [Loaded #19] Come on...Move 'yer Gun www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctcj3G_iggM

These tracks are EXACTLY the same, in the exact same order, as the ones on the Hardwar UK CD.
I believe even more strongly now these tracks were placeholders for the Hardwar UK release. My reasons why:

(1) Loaded was published by Gremlin in 1995, 3 years before Hardwar.
(2) Patrick Phelan is credited in the Hardwar Manager as "Pat Phelan," Hardwar's Creative Manager and one of two Sound Effects personnel.
(3) Neil Biggin is not credited at all in the Hardwar Manager's music credits.
(4) Later versions of the game don't contain these tracks, and made some alterations that were not reflected in the music credits:

• Autechre - Nine, Squarepusher - Chin Hippy, Autechre - Second Bad Vilbel, the Loaded tracks, and the recording of The Software Refinery employees singing along to the ending music were removed.
• The later versions replaced them with Speedy J - The Fun Equations, RAC - Nine, and a duplicate of The Black Dog - Raxmus.
• The Hardwar Manager's music credits, as late as UIM06, were never updated to reflect those changes:
  
  - Raxmus & Chase the Manhattan to "Turner/Downie/Handley" (The Black Dog)
  - Tied Up to "Bell" (LFO)
  - Shut Down to "Varley/Bell" (LFO)
  - Second Bad Vibel, Second Scepe, Clipper, and Nine to "Brown/Booth" (Autechre)
  - Chin Hippy to "Jenkinson" (Squarepusher)

(5) Neil Biggin appears in the opening credits for Software Refinery's previous 1995 game, Slipstream 5000.
I theorize he was heavily involved as a composer with Gremlin games in general, and so it was natural to stick some Loaded tracks in Hardwar during early development.