fexinspect

Fexinspect is a program used to inspect level files of the old PC game, Tomb Raider.

Originally written many years ago by a programmer known as Turbo Pascal in Delphi 7.

Final update by me (Revision 20) released in 2020 was compiled in Delphi Community Edition 10.4. See https://www.tombraiderforums.com/showthread.php?t=210367

I haven't looked at this code for years so please don't ask me about the code especially the DirectX stuff which I never learned or understood.

Tomb Raider level files available here.

To compile the code:

1. Download and install the free Delphi Community Edition from https://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi/starter/free-download.

   Installation video

2. (i)Clone this repo or (ii) download the .zip of this repo and extract to a folder on your PC.

3. Must install the janArrayButton component into the Delphi IDE. Source code is included in this repo. See video showing how to install components here.

4. Open the Delphi project file, "fexinspect\fexinspect.dproj".

5. Click Run > Run to build and run the DEBUG configuration or Run > Run Without Debugging to build and run the RELEASE configuration. The fexinspect executable will be created in the bin\Debug or bin\Release folder.

   Run

   Run Without Debugging

Important:

The following 8 files must be in the same folder as "fexinspect.exe" for correct operation.

• "colored.BMP"
• "D3DX81ab.dll"
• "d3drm.dll"
• "trcatalog.xml"
• "Actions.txt"
• "Conditions.txt"
• "FlipEffects.txt"
• "flipeffects2.txt"

ANNOYING DEBUGGING GLITCH:

When using Delphi's debugger to debug fexinspect, fexinspect's DirectX 8.1 viewport did not display. The viewport is where the 3D meshes are displayed.

The viewport for the DEBUG version of fexinspect did always work correctly when it was run standalone but not when run using the debugger in Delphi 12.1 on Windows 11.

I had to change the compatibility for the Delphi IDE executable, "C:\Program Files (x86)\Embarcadero\Studio\23.0\bin\bds.exe", to Windows 8 to get the viewport to display correctly.

Delphi IDE Notes:

Current version of Community Edition as at November 2025 is 12.1 and fexinspect compiles successfully in that version.

Delphi Community Edition basically licensed for non commercial use - revenue less than $5000.00 USD.

The license to use Delphi Community Edition expires after 365 days at which time users have to download and install Delphi Community Edition again if new version available or request new license if same version still available.

Make sure to install the Windows target platform. Fexinspect is a Windows 32 bit program.

If you wish to learn to program in Delphi, I recommend installing the local Help files too. Then when you click on an Object Pascal keyword in the code editor you can press F1 to bring up the help topic for that keyword.