hfVoice.mpq missing from the first pressing of the hellfire expansion CD

[chris-dent]

The original pressing of the hellfire CD back in the late 1990s did not come with hfVoice.mpq file that DevilutionX requires to play.
However, it you make another copy of hellfire.mpq and rename it to hfVoice.mpq the game will play fine.
My understanding is later pressing of the hellfire CD added a 44.1KHz audio versions of the audio in the hfVoice.mpq file. The first pressing had 22.05KHz version of the audio inside the hellfire.mpq file.
The hash associated with the 22.05KHz and 44.1KHz audio files are the same, so once it get past the 'hfVoice.mpq' doesn't exist, it can process the new implementation which will work - The duplicate hashes do not seem to be an issue.

[StephenCWills]

My understanding is later pressing of the hellfire CD added a 44.1KHz audio versions of the audio in the hfVoice.mpq file. The first pressing had 22.05KHz version of the audio inside the hellfire.mpq file.

There's a few things that don't add up based on your understanding. The Hellfire disc I have is by no means a first pressing, but it does provide a timestamp associated with hfvoice.mpq of 1997-11-04, which is 21 days before the official release date of the Hellfire expansion according to Wikipedia. It's also 11 days before the timestamp associated with hellfire.mpq which suggests they would have made more changes after splitting the files up between the two mpq files on the 4th. Lastly, wouldn't your info suggest there exists a version of the Hellfire executable which doesn't attempt to load hfvoice.mpq? But Hellfire v1.00 has to be loading data from hfvoice.mpq or else it wouldn't be able to playback the sound files within.

What is the source for your info? Can you provide an explanation for these discrepancies?

[AJenbo]

DevilutionX mirrors Hellfire 1.01, are you saying that the original CD version of Hellfire would break if updated? And that there where two 1.00 versions?

The hash associated with the 22.05KHz and 44.1KHz audio files are the same, so once it get past the 'hfVoice.mpq' doesn't exist, it can process the new implementation which will work - The duplicate hashes do not seem to be an issue.

This is just technically impossible or at least doesn't really make sens.

My understanding is later pressing of the hellfire CD added a 44.1KHz audio versions of the audio in the hfVoice.mpq file. The first pressing had 22.05KHz version of the audio inside the hellfire.mpq file.

I can verify that this is incorrect.

[chris-dent]

I made the iso from my disc a long time ago so I could use it on my laptop which did not have a optical drive. I can't find the original disc at the moment.

I just downloaded the iso from archive.org - it had these timestamps
Mode LastWriteTime Length Name

---

--r--- 16/11/1997 6:56 AM 65502336 hellfire.mpq
--r--- 5/11/1997 4:19 AM 37658368 hfmonk.mpq
--r--- 5/11/1997 4:13 AM 34379360 hfmusic.mpq
--r--- 5/11/1997 4:16 AM 37743520 hfvoice.mpq

My CD rip had these
-a---- 13/11/1997 5:03 PM 65502336 hellfire.mpq
-a---- 4/11/1997 5:49 PM 37658368 hfmonk.mpq
-a---- 4/11/1997 5:43 PM 34379360 hfmusic.mpq

My time stamps for my hellfire.mpq are is 3 days older than the 1.00 on archive.org
and about 11 hours older for the other two mpqs my CD had.

BTW you were correct when you said "This is just technically impossible or at least doesn't really make sens."

I have since discovered that devilultionX simply displayed the banners saying hellfire, but I think it was playing the original diablo game.
My audio test was simply to see if the voices worked, and the the first NPC I came across talked fine - so I assume it worked.
I then figured out, if I remove the hfxxxxx.mpq and hellfire.mpq from the directory, only then does the game launch with the Diablo banner.
so, I set up two directories, one with diablo (which only plays the original diablo) and the other with diablo+hellfire which only plays hellfire.

so the solution, if you are missing a file, get it from the iso on archive.org

for what its worth, I can't recall the game not playing correctly from my CD back in the 1990s (under win95).

My info came from microsoft copilot - here is an excerpt from the reply
"Why Some Call It “Hi-Res”

• Early Hellfire CDs (pre-Press 2) stored voices in 22 kHz ADPCM. Later “Press 2” discs bumped them to 44 kHz in the same MPQ.
• Players who ripped from a later-press CD noticed fuller, less “gritty” audio—so they labeled hfvoice.mpq “hi-res,” even though it’s just the same file name at a higher sample rate.
  Why You Might Not See It on Your CD
• Original Press 1 Disc
• Many first-print Hellfire CDs only included 22 kHz voices under the same file name, but some installers lumped those into hellfire.mpq instead of hfvoice.mpq.
• Installer Bundles
• Modern GOG/Battle.net installers often merge hfvoice.mpq contents back into hellfire.mpq or hfmusic.mpq to simplify packaging."

Obviously I own a copy of hellfire that is a first pressing

[AJenbo]

My info came from microsoft copilot

AI's are notoriously wrong about Diablo 1... and many other things. It's likely to just parrot your question back at you rephrased as a confident answer. I won't trust a word of it, for one thing ADPCM support was added to the MPQ format around Diablo 2. Since your files are the same size they obviously do not contain compressed audio or any other data differences.

"Why Some Call It “Hi-Res”

No one does, this is just pure hallucination.

If any other "info" came from AI's then please let us know so we don't go on a wild goose chase.

hfvoices.mpq contains the Monks dialog, so won't affect any NPC, but your game will probably crash if you play the monk. I suggest showing the size / hash of the hellfire.exe instead.

I have since discovered that devilultionX simply displayed the banners saying hellfire, but I think it was playing the original diablo game.

it would have been running Hellfire, some work has gone into decoupling things for the next release but current releases do not have the ability to do what you describe.

so, I set up two directories, one with diablo (which only plays the original diablo) and the other with diablo+hellfire which only plays hellfire.

you can switch from the settings menu, no need for two installations. You can also make short cuts with --hellfire or --diablo.

[StephenCWills]

I just downloaded the iso from archive.org - it had these timestamps

Mode                 LastWriteTime         Length Name
----                 -------------         ------ ----
--r---        16/11/1997   6:56 AM       65502336 hellfire.mpq
--r---         5/11/1997   4:19 AM       37658368 hfmonk.mpq
--r---         5/11/1997   4:13 AM       34379360 hfmusic.mpq
--r---         5/11/1997   4:16 AM       37743520 hfvoice.mpq

My CD rip had these

-a----        13/11/1997   5:03 PM       65502336 hellfire.mpq
-a----         4/11/1997   5:49 PM       37658368 hfmonk.mpq
-a----         4/11/1997   5:43 PM       34379360 hfmusic.mpq

The only ones that match up with my CD are hfmonk.mpq and hfmusic.mpq from your CD rip.

hellfire.mpq: 1997-11-15 15:26:26.000000000 -0500
hfmonk.mpq: 1997-11-04 12:49:28.000000000 -0500
hfmusic.mpq: 1997-11-04 12:43:38.000000000 -0500
hfvoice.mpq: 1997-11-04 12:46:26.000000000 -0500

That said, I did go out and try a couple different ISOs from archive.org, and they both matched my disc's timestamps exactly. I couldn't find any other timestamps at all besides these four.