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Author Topic: Amiga 4000 - Simcity 2000 wont load most times  (Read 1619 times)

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Offline arongoochTopic starter

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Amiga 4000 - Simcity 2000 wont load most times
« on: April 02, 2017, 06:40:05 AM »
Hi, recently I got an old and bad condition A4000 back to life. Has 16MB Fast and 3640 CPU card with native RGB output being used. All capacitors replaced on main board and cpu card etc.

This machine is running really well but most times when I switch on the machine and trying running Simcity 2000 absolutely nothing happens. No errors or crashes but game wont run. Trying to run again I get an error message which comes up saying "Could not initialise Music System. Close all music programs and restart!". This message only comes up if trying to run the game the second time after it initially fails. When the game is first time loaded I notice roughly 400KB's go missing from Fast RAM but nothing else happens.

Turning off the computer for a good 30 seconds and turning back on, "sometimes" if i am lucky Simcity 2000 will then run and play but most times not.

I would really appreciate any ideas or help on this one, cheers :)
 

Offline fishy_fiz

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Re: Amiga 4000 - Simcity 2000 wont load most times
« Reply #1 on: April 02, 2017, 10:16:26 AM »
Sounds like audio is being initialized on 1st run, hence the error message.
As for the actual problem, I suggest checking Snoopdos for some clues.
Near as I can tell this is where I write something under the guise of being innocuous, but really its a pot shot at another persons/peoples choice of Amiga based systems. Unfortunately only I cant see how transparent and petty it makes me look.
 

Offline Matt_H

Re: Amiga 4000 - Simcity 2000 wont load most times
« Reply #2 on: April 02, 2017, 03:39:54 PM »
Sim City 2000 is quite buggy. There is a patch on Aminet that fixes the most grevious bugs. Could also be a screen mode problem - hold shift while double clicking the icon to bring up a screen mode requester and pick a new mode.
 

Offline Oldsmobile_Mike

Re: Amiga 4000 - Simcity 2000 wont load most times
« Reply #3 on: April 02, 2017, 04:29:47 PM »
Sounds like the game isn't releasing all its resources after it runs for the first time. Is this an original copy or something downloaded from some website, WHDLoad, etc.? If possible you may want to look for a WHDLoad version, which may be able to address some of the bugs.
Amiga 500: 2MB Chip|16MB Fast|30MHz 68030+68882|3.9|Indivision ECS|GVP A500HD+|Mechware card reader + 8GB CF|Cocolino|SCSI DVD-RAM
Amiga 2000: 2MB Chip|136MB Fast|50MHz 68060|3.9|Indivision ECS + GVP Spectrum|Mechware card reader + 8GB CF|AD516|X-Surf 100|RapidRoad|Cocolino|SCSI CD-RW
 Amiga videos and other misc. stuff at https://www.youtube.com/CompTechMike/videos
 

Offline arongoochTopic starter

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Re: Amiga 4000 - Simcity 2000 wont load most times
« Reply #4 on: April 04, 2017, 01:48:29 AM »
Spent a bit of time on this and still not working the way it should.

I installed the patch from Aminet and I believe this made the game run a tad more smoother, on slightly, than what it did when it does actually run.

Holding shift when I launch the game only brings up the single screen output I have on the machine, "PAL: High Res Laced". Im assuming this would default to this anyway upon loading the game? None the less I still get main issue of the game most often not running.

This version of S2K is off of the net via 3 ADF install disks. I have noticed there is a buggy corrupted version floating around on the net but this one is not from that installation where disk 2 is corrupted on the install process.

Finally to SnoopDos. I load this everytime before I start the game to capture anything. When the game works it shows it accessing numerous libraries etc then shows files it's loading from the SimCity2000 directory until the game has loaded. Unfortunately if S2K doesn't load... SnoopDos becomes unresponsive. I can select the window no problems but the buffer window cant be scrolled up/down and nothing operates. I can get back to WB and run other programs etc so the machine certainly hasn't crashed or anything. Upon S2K not loading I can sort of read the current page in SnoopDos and it does seem to stop at a file it's reading from the S2K directory which is "fonts/new_york/44". I have confirmed the file is in the directory too.
 

Offline Matt_H

Re: Amiga 4000 - Simcity 2000 wont load most times
« Reply #5 on: April 04, 2017, 02:26:15 AM »
What's your Chip RAM situation? How much do you have free when trying to start the game?
 

Offline bbond007

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Re: Amiga 4000 - Simcity 2000 wont load most times
« Reply #6 on: April 04, 2017, 02:37:23 AM »
Quote from: Matt_H;824095
Sim City 2000 is quite buggy. There is a patch on Aminet that fixes the most grevious bugs. Could also be a screen mode problem - hold shift while double clicking the icon to bring up a screen mode requester and pick a new mode.


I think the Mac version under Shapeshifter runs better...
 

Offline arongoochTopic starter

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Re: Amiga 4000 - Simcity 2000 wont load most times
« Reply #7 on: April 04, 2017, 03:59:26 AM »
Seems like success after many trials. I found that the new_york/44 font was corrupted. I copied it back from the disk and it did not work so I cloned and renamed a smaller font "26" to 44 and the game has loaded and run every single time now. Absolutely baffles me how it would run occasionally though. I mean I played it for 6 hours yesterday once running and it was good. Today until I fixed the font it would not run a single time at all.

Unfortunately this does seem like a poor port to the Amiga but I do like the fact it is an Amiga version albeit it running fairly slowly. Still playable though. I have been meaning to try the ShapeShifter Mac version and will get around to that some day soon I hope.
 

Offline arongoochTopic starter

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Re: Amiga 4000 - Simcity 2000 wont load most times
« Reply #8 on: April 04, 2017, 04:01:57 AM »
I had/have roughly almost all of the 2MB chip ram available before trying to run the game.
 

Offline utri007

Re: Amiga 4000 - Simcity 2000 wont load most times
« Reply #9 on: April 04, 2017, 06:03:41 AM »
Quote from: arongooch;824155
I had/have roughly almost all of the 2MB chip ram available before trying to run the game.


Sincity 2000 is one of those games wich get nice speed up with FBLit. Screen scrolling is much smoother.
ACube Sam 440ep Flex 800mhz, 1gb ram and 240gb hd and OS4.1FE
A1200 Micronic tower, OS3.9, Apollo 060 66mhz, xPert Merlin, Delfina Lite and Micronic Scandy, 500Gb hd, 66mb ram, DVD-burner and WLAN.
A1200 desktop, OS3.9, Blizzard 060 66mhz, 66mb ram, Ide Fix Express with 160Gb HD and WLAN
A500 OS2.1, GVP+HD8 with 4mb ram, 1mb chip ram and 4gb HD
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Offline arongoochTopic starter

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Re: Amiga 4000 - Simcity 2000 wont load most times
« Reply #10 on: April 05, 2017, 10:55:42 AM »
I've been seeing the FBlit speed up method on several forums. I think I might give that a try sometime as well. Cheers.
 

Offline BozzerBigD

Re: Amiga 4000 - Simcity 2000 wont load most times
« Reply #11 on: April 05, 2017, 02:23:39 PM »
It works at a good speed on a 060 with the patch. However, the music is buggy and always stops playing at some point!
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."

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Offline arongoochTopic starter

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Re: Amiga 4000 - Simcity 2000 wont load most times
« Reply #12 on: April 07, 2017, 08:31:53 AM »
I think I have this playing quite well now on this 25MHz 68040 machine. Ive used FBlit and I think it does seem to be working slightly. If im even running it correctly that is? I just run it then FBlit and then run S2K. But the game is definitely playable if slightly on the slow side.

I am planning to do the 3640 33MHz upgrade very soon so will see how it plays at 33MHz providing all goes well with that hack.
 

Offline utri007

Re: Amiga 4000 - Simcity 2000 wont load most times
« Reply #13 on: April 07, 2017, 08:48:16 AM »
You need to add simcity to fblit list on it's settings. Have you configured fblit? Difference is noticeable. Screen scrolling is much smoother.
ACube Sam 440ep Flex 800mhz, 1gb ram and 240gb hd and OS4.1FE
A1200 Micronic tower, OS3.9, Apollo 060 66mhz, xPert Merlin, Delfina Lite and Micronic Scandy, 500Gb hd, 66mb ram, DVD-burner and WLAN.
A1200 desktop, OS3.9, Blizzard 060 66mhz, 66mb ram, Ide Fix Express with 160Gb HD and WLAN
A500 OS2.1, GVP+HD8 with 4mb ram, 1mb chip ram and 4gb HD
Commodore CDTV KS3.1, 1mb chip, 4mb fast ram and IDE HD
 

Offline paul1981

Re: Amiga 4000 - Simcity 2000 wont load most times
« Reply #14 on: April 07, 2017, 04:39:35 PM »
Quote from: arongooch;824295
I think I have this playing quite well now on this 25MHz 68040 machine. Ive used FBlit and I think it does seem to be working slightly. If im even running it correctly that is? I just run it then FBlit and then run S2K. But the game is definitely playable if slightly on the slow side.

I am planning to do the 3640 33MHz upgrade very soon so will see how it plays at 33MHz providing all goes well with that hack.


Check the following post for getting FBlit to work. It will happily not work and not tell you, so check it out:

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showpost.php?p=678615&postcount=3

You'll know when it's working because 256 colour screens will be much quicker.