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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Gaming => Topic started by: arongooch on April 02, 2017, 06:40:05 AM
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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 :)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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What's your Chip RAM situation? How much do you have free when trying to start the game?
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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...
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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.
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I had/have roughly almost all of the 2MB chip ram available before trying to run the game.
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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.
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I've been seeing the FBlit speed up method on several forums. I think I might give that a try sometime as well. Cheers.
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It works at a good speed on a 060 with the patch. However, the music is buggy and always stops playing at some point!
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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.
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You need to add simcity to fblit list on it's settings. Have you configured fblit? Difference is noticeable. Screen scrolling is much smoother.
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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 (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.
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Many thanks Paul1981. I checked the Fblit GUI and Simcity 2000 was already in the include list. I found it worked just by leaving the Fblit GUI open and then running Simcity 2000. Definitely a noticeable difference!
The game is most definitely playable now. I also did the 3640 processor card 33MHz overclock and this helps a bit too. Very happy now, cheers everyone for the help.
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Cheers also Utri007
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You're welcome. :)
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You're welcome. :)
One thing more. Speed up is not something like 10%, it is about 2x. So it should really be much faster. Scrolling is almost smooth with 640 x 512 screen.
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It's very hard to say if it's double the original scroll speed but perhaps close too. It's most definitely a noticeable difference when using FBlit.
Im now trying to get this game to work on a Vampired 600 via the RTG output but is being an absolute pain. Shapeshifter and the Mac version of S2K is not cooperating either unfortunately. Will probably start a new thread on that one soon.