A500 and games (not working)

[nickoteen]

Hiya there ...
 
A noob seeking help here !
Here's the case. I have an A500 unit (m.b. rev 6A), a nice little PC-Amiga Explorer setup, file transfer working, no problems, but ...
 
Some games I transfered to fdds work without a problem (Another World, Dune, Monkey Island to name just a few), some won't work at all (Canon Fodder, Lotus Esprit, Prince of Persia, Turrican(s) ... etc.). The intro/cracktro loads fine, but than the screen (usually) goes black, fdd light glows orange, and nothing happens. The Amiga freezes as far as I can tell.
 
I have a ks 2.04 so I thought, ok, I must be having a compatibility issue here, and got my self a nice little ks switcher board and installed both, 1.3 and 2.04 ks, but to no avail. Games that didn't work on 2.04, won't work on 1.3 either.
 
The ADF's are fine, checked with WinUAE. They work in the emulator, but won't start on a real hardware. Any ideas greatly appreciated.

[nickoteen]

Ah, yes, 4got to mention, 1 MB of ram. It's a german A500, so It must be a PAL machine.

[nickoteen]

Well, as I mentioned, adfs work in winuae, so  ... no. Although, I DL-ed 2-3 versions of Turrican II (I REALLY wanted to be able to play this particular game on a real hw), but none of them worked. I also tried three different adf versions of State of Art's Spaceballs, but none worked. Won't start. Other demos, like Arte, Elysium (sanity), Mega Demo II (alcatraz) work just fine. Really puzzled here.

[nickoteen]

I'm located in Europe. Thanks for the offer of making a copy, but I'm much more interested in why some stuff works and other doesn't.  Could it be a compatibility issue still ? Newer Agnus, Denis, Paula chip(s) ? Maybe ? I'm a noob, so don't laugh.

[nickoteen]

Yes, I have. In addition to df0, I also have df1 and df2 external drives. I do have another A500 unit, older one (rev 5A) but without a fdd built in. Will try those troubleing games on this unit. If turns out they work, then I guess there is something faulty with my current Amiga. Then again, I have over 60 disks transfered using Amiga explorer that run just fine. Weird.

[nickoteen]

Hm, well, I haven't tried unplugging the drives, but I have tried switching them off (I have 2 Cumana external drives which both have small on/off switches located at the back side of the casing). And yes, the disks are (should be) ok becouse they are brand (never before used) new.

[nickoteen]

The best Amiga 500 setup for classic Amiga games is Kickstart 1.3, 512k chip, 512k fast, normal Denise, 512k Fat Agnus. Anotherwards, nothing fancy, a stock Amiga 500. Also, make sure your disk drive can read past track 82. Newer Amiga disk drives will not read past track 82, so many games, especially with copy protection, will not work, because the copy protection tells the drive to load code from track 83, 84, or 85. So, make sure that the disk drive in your Amiga 500 computer can read past track 82. Just google for the drives specs on the internet.

Crap. Some of the games I transferred usig AExplorer, after loading intro and me clicking the left mouse button make a floppy drive produce a sound similar to: trrrrrrrrr (like there's something very strange going on while trying to read the disk). Could it be this "past track 82" thing ?
 
Otherwise the fdd works just fine, loads WB and a hole pile of other disks, without any problems.

[nickoteen]

The best Amiga 500 setup for classic Amiga games is Kickstart 1.3, 512k chip, 512k fast, normal Denise, 512k Fat Agnus. Anotherwards, nothing fancy, a stock Amiga 500. Also, make sure your disk drive can read past track 82. Newer Amiga disk drives will not read past track 82, so many games, especially with copy protection, will not work, because the copy protection tells the drive to load code from track 83, 84, or 85. So, make sure that the disk drive in your Amiga 500 computer can read past track 82. Just google for the drives specs on the internet.

I know Denise, Fat Agnus and Lisa are main components of OCS/ECS chipset (right ?), but I don't know what are "normal" Denise and 512k Fat Agnus. What other Denis/Agnus chips are there ?  I bought my Amiga from a guy (it's been opened, can tell by looking at the bottom silver sticker being damaged), so maybe ... ah, I don't know, looking (grasping ? ) for straws here, just trying to figure out why 15 out of 20 top games on my "I REALLY want to play list" games don't work.
 
Thanks for your suggestions anywayz.

[nickoteen]

If your A500 has the original floppy drive inside you won't have a problem reading past track 82. I think it was mainly the later A1200s which were burdoned with crappy disk drives.
 
I'm sorry for asking the obvious a lot, but have you given your disk drive heads a clean? I have inherited around 10 A500s as well as other Amigas over the years and every single one of them had problems reading disks before I put a floppy drive cleaning kit through them, which fixed them all. You can get these on eBay or from a local computer supplies or stationary shop if you're lucky. They look like a floppy disk with a white pad inside them, and you put some drops of cleaning fluid in them before running it through the drive for half a minute or so. With the Amiga, just keep rebooting after it tries reading the disk, and do it about 20 times so it has a good scrub.

Hmm .. it did cross my mind (while reading your posts) that maybe my fdd is the cause of my problems. I mean, my every Aexplorer transfer is finished succesfully (transfered 100%), but maybe some of the times the fdd doesn't write the data 100% accurately. I'll try and find a cleaning kit and use it. There are also new a500 drives I stumbled upon on ebay, so I'm thinking of maybe ordering one as well.
 
Once again, thankz 4 all your replyz folkz.

[nickoteen]

I've found that emulators sometimes are less finicky and sometimes more so than real hardware. It's basically black magic.
 
I'm not sure why multiple versions wouldn't work though. Where in the world are you located? I could probably make you a copy and mail it or something, though I can only test it on my 1200, so that's not a guarantee it'd work.

Err, since I've exhausted all my options by now (changed the floppy drives used to write adfs to disks (external, internal), changed the homemade null modem cable with a factory one, changed the floppy disks themselves (a new unopened box with another new unopened box), I think I'll take your offer and ask you not to make a copy of some games for me, since that would involve time and money, but to send a few adfs to my email just to check whether maybe there's something wrong with my adfs.
So, if it's not to much of a trouble, could you send me at least one of the following 880K adfs please: Turrican 2, North & South, Prince of Persia, Syndicate, Cannon Fodder, Lotus Esprit Turbo Challange, Moonstone ...
 
Any of them will do. I'm loosing my mind here trying to figure out WHY some of the games work and a whole lot of them won't work on my machine. Thanks in advance.

[nickoteen]

yeah for sure.
Let me try transferring one to disk later today, to verify it works, and then I'll email the same disk image to you. Might not be until this evening.
 
Can you email me at runequester@gmail.com ?

Thanks a bunch ! Take your time ...

[nickoteen]

No, I haven't. But I don't think the diskettes are the problem here. Every sigle game that doesn't work loadz the intro/cracktro just fine. Every one of them. After I select the "Start game" option, the Amiga freezes. Every g.d. time, right after. So, it's either the adf(s) (which run normally when opened under winUAE ... go figure), or the Amiga itself. The diskettes are alright, brand new. The Amiga Explorer transfer is alright. No problems there. In addition to a whole lot of games that just freeze after the intro, there's a whole LOT of them that work without a problem. Transfered over a nullmodem cable, started on a real Amiga, working like a charm, some 60 or so of them.
 
It's not the non working games that I'm worried about, I've got enough allready to play around with. It's the question whether my Amiga is faulty or not, that's what's really bugging me.

[nickoteen]

No, It's an Amiga 500, although (I think) a newer model, because it has a fullname logo on the top right corner. Not just a "C", but a "C" Commodore Amiga 500 logo, like in the following picture:
 
http://www.google.hr/imgres?q=amiga+500&um=1&hl=hr&sa=N&biw=1920&bih=1003&tbm=isch&tbnid=ktf1NDDW3cKL9M:&imgrefurl=http://www.pugo.org/collection/computer/99/&docid=0gjt8OMFFVLIrM&imgurl=http://www.pugo.org/media/collection/computer/commodore_amiga_500.jpg&w=500&h=325&ei=XsEDUL-qH-Tf4QSQvbX_Bw&zoom=1
 
Also, I do have a KS switcher board with 1.3 and 2.04 roms installed. I should try it without the ks board you say ? Any particular reason why I should suspect the switching board ?
 
How do I know if the additional 512kb was set as fast or chip ram ? As for testing the RAM, I will test it, have plenty of utils on the disks. The thing is, I even changed the memory expansion board with another one (have 2 amigas, the other one for parts mainly), but it didn't help. Two different ram cards ... they can't both be faulty ... right ?
 
I'm very close to tipping my hat too and saying fairwell to my Amiga as someone mentiond it earlier on The Org. ( Won't do it offcourse, but it's a very nerve consuming business I'll admit to that. )

[nickoteen]

Hvala.
 
What do you mean by "if the board has been modified ... " ? What board ? The morherboard ? I've seen it naked plenty of times so far and it doesn't look like it has been touched by anyone. No hw alterations as far as I can tell. How can one tell anyways ? Maybe I'm not looking at the right angle.

[nickoteen]

Can you tell me what is the exact filename of one of the ADF games that do not work and I can try it on one of my Amigas.
I know of one game "Final Fight" that refused to work on all of my Amigas until I got NTSC A1000. This was the only one that the Final Fight worked. I gont know why, my A500 was about same spec before I modified it to 1MB chip ram.

Ok, to name just a few:
 
Turrican II - The Final Fight_Disk1.adf
Syndicate_Disk1.adf
Cannon Fodder 2_Disk1.adf
Prince of Persia.adf
Lotus Turbo Challenge 2.adf
 
the intro loads fine, but afterwards it's just black screen and nothing happening.
 
Opposed to those, these work without any problems:
 
Another World_Disk1.adf (and 2)
Loom_Disk1.adf (2,3)
Leisure Suit Larry 1 - In the Land of the Lounge Lizards (remake)_Disk1.adf (2,3,4)
Dune_Disk1.adf (2,3)
Secret of Monkey Island, The_Disk1.adf (2,3,4)
 
and many others ...