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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: sim085 on April 07, 2009, 11:01:58 PM
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If a game can be installed with an installer, then should I still install it with WHDLoad?
(guess my question is all in the title)
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It depends where you pretend to play with it. Usually WHDLoad installs fix incompatibilities with kickstarts or chipsets of later generations Amigas and add an exit button, so they can be handy even if the game was already HD installable.
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It depends on the game. Generally the reason for running a game from its default installer is to save memory. Some installed games will reboot your Amiga and run the game without loading Workbench, therefor making them installable and playable on stock standard 2MB systems or whatever they were designed for. WHDLoad-installed games will require more memory because usually you'll be running Workbench in the background, and even if you write a startup-sequence to load the game without Workbench, it'll still need to load WHDLoad in the background, which can be enough to run out of RAM for some games.
The advantages of using WHDLoad to install the game are many though. First, you get a quit key, so you can exit back to Workbench at any time during the game. Several patches can be applied to the games. Many can be forced to NTSC, which is handy for games that have that huge black box at the bottom of the screen. Often there are options for unlimited lives/ammo/credits or whatever. Fixes can be made to games that had bugs in them, keys and buttons can be remapped (very handy when a game uses UP to jump and you're using a control pad with extra buttons). All these options (depending on the game) can be accessed via the icon tooltypes of any WHDLoad-installed game.
One more thing I'll mention, some games still require certain a disk to be in the floppy drive when the game is installed or they won't run. (For example; Super Stardust, Super Street Fighter II, Mr. Nutz I think). WHDLoad fixes this! It's now possible to run Super Street Fighter II on an unexpanded CD32 for the first time ever (since the commercial CD32 version was never released) thanks to WHDLoad.
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WHDLoad installs almost always bypass that annoying enter-word-3-on-page-54 copy protection. End of discussion, if you ask me :-)
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Matt_H wrote:
WHDLoad installs almost always bypass that annoying enter-word-3-on-page-54 copy protection. End of discussion, if you ask me :-)
HAHAHAHAHA, Pirates anyone? :lol:
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It all Depends.
For instance, the Hired Guns WHDload installer is totally bugged out and won't run on my 060 unless I turn off the caches of my 060.
But the normal Hired Guns installer that comes with the game works perfectly on every Amiga. No need to disable caches or AGA or any weird stuff like that. It just works.
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Thank you very much for all the answers. I have some games like lemmings which I will definitely install with WHDLoad because of the exit option :) However at this point I am inclined to also install other games (such as Colonization) that did come with an installer also WHDLoad ... like that I will have everything using the same system. My only problem is that there is no WHDLoad version of SimCity ... but .. well I can always play it from disk :)
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I agree, it depends on the game... On rare occasion, the games' installer will work for me, but 99% of the time, it won't. Alll sorts of things can 'break' a game... I happily played Syndicate for years using the 'official' installer, then one day it wouldn't work, can't remember if it was OS3.9 that broke it, or what...
As for WHDLoad bypassing manual protection...thank goodness :) Sometimes, the manual protection is just insane... who's played Worms CD32 lately? Featuring the world-famous 'shiny-black-on-not-too-shiny-black' (TM) code sheet... I have an original with code sheet, but I can never get it to run. AAAaarghhh! I just play worms Dir. cut on my 1200 instead....
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And it depends if you are registered user of whdload or not :D
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Well, to tell you the truth IMHO registering WHDLoad is a MUST !!! :-D
You have to do it, it's a wonderful piece of software, worth every penny.