Enabling cinematics (TFTD)

When the DOS version of Terror From the Deep was introduced on CD-ROM, it offered two options to install the game. A partial or full install. The partial installed only installed the necessary files and the rest of the files were read directly off the CD-ROM. Unique to this installation was that it had animated videos for the intro, failure and outro.

The full hard disk install installed all the game files, but to conserve hard-drive space used screen captures from the videos with text narration.

Today's hard drive space restrictions are much more lenient than they were during the dark ages of home computers. Creating a true Full Installation for the Dos version of the game is explained in this article.

Enabling the animations

Dos Hard Drive install

This assumes you are working with the full installation of the game, installed from the CD-ROM or Floppy Disks. You will require the CD-ROM or a copy of the Windows version of TFTD to obtain the animation files.

1. Copy the ANIMS\ folder from the CD-ROM into the game directory
2. Create a file called cdspeed.dat and place it in the SOUND\ directory. See below for more information.

NOTE:

• The second step is very important, otherwise it will continue to play the intro slides.
• These steps will also work for the Steam version of TFTD if you are having trouble running the animations from its Dos executable through Dosbox.

CD Install

This assumes you started with the CD install to get the animation to run and now want to convert the game into a full install.

1. Copy all of the folders on the CD-ROM that were not copied over into the hard drive installation

NOTE:

• Some steps may be missing at this time.

SOUND\CDSPEED.DAT

CDSPEED.DAT is 2 bytes in length and stores a 16-bit value that represents the speed of your CD-ROM drive.

Under normal circumstances, this file is created by CDSPEED.EXE. CDSPEED.EXE is a program used by the partial install to gauge the speed of your CD-ROM Drive. The contents of this file however aren't really important for getting the hard disk installation working with the animations.

To create this file, the easiest method is use any plain text editor and save a blank file as CDSPEED.DAT. Alternately, you can also copy a random file and rename it as CDSPEED.DAT.

Reverting to Cutscenes

If for some reason you wish to revert to the cutscene introduction, simply delete or rename cdspeed.dat and make sure that the FLOP_INT folder with the slideshow images is present.

Gravis Ultrasound

If you set TFTD's sound effect soundcard to the Gravis Ultrasound (GUS) in TFTD's sound setup, the game will revert to the cutscene introduction even if the animations are enabled.

Using Sound Blaster 16 for the sound effects and Gravis Ultrasound for the music will allow the cutscene to play.

Misc

Though not necessary, you can also rename the FLOP_INT folder to FLOP_IN to hide it from the game. That is where all the slide-show images are stored.

You also get the animations to play if you run the game's setup and set no sound to both SFX and Midi output. In this case, the CDSPEED.DAT file is not necessary. This method is not desirable unless you want to run a silent game.

2012-08-13 I've found you don't need to set it silent, you just need to set Sound output to something other than 'Gravis Ultrasound'. I presume the technical limitations (lack of direct DAC) that make this card useless in the modern era also prevent TFTD from playing it's cinematics. I've got the cinematics working in DOSBox with both SB16 sound/MT32 music and SB16 sound/GUS music.