Amiga puzzle - disconnected worlds! help?

[AmigaBruno]

I can now tell  you that I've transferred lots more games, selected either because I played them before, or they sounded interesting, under WinUAE and tested them under WinUAE.

I found out that most of the games wouldn't run in 2Mb RAM. Almost all of them will run in 4Mb RAM, but I found that Dungeon Master 2, Eye of the Beholder 2, Galdregon's Domain, and Bloodnet wouldn't  run even in 4Gb.

I also found out that my Kickstart 3.x A1200 ROM image is invalid!

I feel like playing around with SKick and various ROM images, which may then run ADF files from my Gotek USB drive.

I now plan to buy a RAM upgrade for my A1200, but I don't know how long one of those ACA 1221 accelerator cards would take to arrive because I don't know how many people have ordered one already. This means I'm not sure what kind of RAM upgrade to buy.

[AmigaBruno]

Try playing around with the "Preload" option in WHDLoad.  You might be able to save a little bit of memory that way.  Also boot with no startup-sequence, etc.  But you probably already know that, already.  

I've just read about the "Preload" option, which I assume comes under Information for each game's launcher icon, so I'll try that. Booting with no startup-sequence only seems to give me a full screen Amigashell window with a 1> prompt. I thought the next stage would be navigating to the WHDload games, but it didn't seem to work. I don't think it knew about WHDload at all. Typing LoadWB after this does bring up the Workbench, but doesn't allow me to run these games either.

[AmigaBruno]

Now I've just tried editing the "Preload" under Information, but I found that in most cases it was total gibberish. I only found one game "Dalek Attack" where the Information ended with PreloadSize=. The number in this case was 1820479, which seems to mean more than the RAM left after loading Workbench. I changed this number to 10000, then I got the error "(object not found) on reading Disk.1". This was a game which I could run under WinUAE with 4Mb RAM. I also tried booting without startup-sequence again. I used AmigaDOS commands to navigate to the directories for some games and found that WHDload tried to run them. Unfortunately, I got errors such as "object not found" for AlienBreed3DDemoLatestAGA and "object is not of required type" for Defender Of The Crown. After this I checked I could run Defender Of The Crown from cracked ADF files using my Gotek USB drive.

So, it looks like I'm due for a frustrating few days at least until I can get either a 2Mb Melcard, or an ACA 1221 accelerator, unless I put up with using WinUAE in the meantime. Unfortunately, as well as the weekend, there's a public holiday here on Monday, August 31.

[AmigaBruno]

Dungeon Master 2 and  Bloodnet at least can be installed without
WHDLoad (if memory serves) and you won't need more memory than 2 Mb.

As for accelerator card I'd say Blizzard1220/28/4-8Mb or Blizzard1230/56(
I really think it's 56 and not 50 , A1200 can only be something divided by
14 but not an expert)/8-16 Mb if you can find them anywhere.Or even just
regular 4 Mb Fast Ram Board (still gives 2 x speed and almost all works).

Booting without startup-seq is only needed if game needs more CHIP ram.
Try booting with this :

(DH0 should be your system partition)
C:Setpatch QUIET
C:Version >NIL:
FailAt 21

C:Assign C: DH0:C (just in case,WHDload is there)
C:Makedir RAM:ENV
C:Makedir RAM:T
C:Assign ENV: RAM:ENV
C:Assign T: RAM:T
C:Assign Devs: DH0:devs
C:Assign Fonts: DH0:Fonts
C:Loadwb
C:EndCli

Make sure you use 4 color Workbench to save Chip Ram.

OK, thanks! I'll try that startup-sequence. I'm using a 4Gb CF card from Amigakit and I'm not sure what the startup-sequence contains. I'm also using a 4 colour Workbench. Obviously, I should try and stop the Workbench using as much RAM as I can.

[AmigaBruno]

The PRELOADSIZE is only a reference number for the load meter (aka progress bar) when you load a game from double clicking its icon. Altering this won't achieve anything.

In that case, I have no idea how to adjust it.

I've just seen something called X-Bench, which I may have heard of before, but I didn't know what it was. It seems to be a text based program selector, which obviously saves RAM, and seems to be able to run WHDload programs, according to the screen which appears briefly at 1:20 in to the video below, but you can still load Workbench when you want. I'll look into this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dThjTd8237w

[AmigaBruno]

Just remove whole PRELOAD line from icon.

It tells game to load all game data in memory and start it from
there to avoid accessing hard drive (in case it's slow).

I think that might not be the problem , WHDLoad is smart enough
to know if you don't have enough memory so it ignores PRELOAD.
In case of bigger games it can take some time to PRELOAD (if a game
is say from CD32 version and has lots of data).

In most cases there is no line saying Preload, it's several lines of obscure characters warning me not to edit them, with a lot of occurrences of the Icelandic Ð character. Am I supposed to delete all these lines?

I've just tried X-Bench as well. Unfortunately, it turned out to be V0.99 from around Christmas 2014, so not finished. I hope to find a later version. So far, I've only tried it running from Workbench, so that wouldn't save me the RAM eaten up by Workbench. Sadly, I found I was unable to click the names of the WHDload files I needed to run because those files didn't appear! I could only see the corresponding .info files. When I clicked these alone or in combination with RUN or EXECUTE, nothing happened. The documentation and videos talk about typically having 4Mb RAM, though.  

I have now decided to get a RAM upgrade, but the question is whether it should be a MELcard or an ACA 1221 accelerator. There may be a delay in the ACA 1221 arriving, due to how much interest there is and how many pre orders have been made.

[AmigaBruno]

Ah , those strange characters are newicon , if you are fine with seeing
little square instead picture of icon you can remove them or download
newicons workbench patch from Aminet.

Yes , 4 Mb is enough for most games.You can install some games with
just 2 Mb and play from hard drive.Mostly ones that are not NDOS and
have installer on first or last floppy in the meantime.

So far, I can only see little squares instead of proper icons.

I'm looking for a list of WHDload games and demos which will run on an A1200 with only 2Mb fitted, but at the moment I can't find one, so it's just pure luck that any of them work. Not long ago, there were some lists of these games under eBay CF cards, but now there are no lists saying 2Mb. There doesn't seem to be any pattern to which games work and which don't.

[AmigaBruno]

As has already been suggested, install the Peter K. icon.library to correctly view NewIcons-format icons.

And for the love of god, get more memory! You know you need more memory. We know you need more memory. I do not understand why you are wasting so much time struggling with this and banging your head against a wall when simply adding more memory would solve 100% of your problems.

Well, maybe not 100%, but close to it, as far as your Amiga is concerned.

I'll explain how I see the situation and how I feel about it.

I don't think there's any point me installing the Peter K. icon library, because I can already see some icons I need to click on, but also because I think this would use more RAM.

Of course, I need more RAM, but I can't get any for at least a few days. Also, I'm not sure what kind of RAM upgrade to get, because a MELcard could be with me on Wednesday or Thursday, while the new ACA 1221 may take some time, depending on how many people have pre ordered one. The ACA 1221 is totally superior to the MELcard, but there was only a prototype at the Amiga 30th event in Peterborough. It is supposed to be available on September 1, so there may be a disastrous announcement that it's not available on that date, or sold out, waiting for more stock. According to the Vesalia website, this accelerator has facilities which you have to pay extra after buying it to unlock!

While I'm waiting, I'd like to play at least a variety of games which will run in 2Mb on my Amiga A1200, otherwise I can only play them using WinUAE, which obviously doesn't feel the same at all. I'm also exploring the possibilities of using more Kickstart image files under Skick, which may enable me to run more ADF games from my Gotek drive.

[AmigaBruno]

I like squares , reminds me of 90s and KillNewIcons experiment :lol:

@AmigaBruno

There are games you can play on hard drive without use of WHDLoad as
I said.Dungeon Master II for example,Gloom,games that came on 7-8
floppies etc.They have option to install to hard drive without use of
WHDLoad and most of them were ECS games so you can play them
with 2 Mb without problems.Play with those in mean time.Deluxe Galaga
should be one of those games too.Or you can use WHDLoad to install
all games you will play in the future and then just transfer when card
arrives.Or just play Deluxe Galaga :roflmao:

I don't really care about the small square icons anymore.

So, now all I can do is look on ADF download sites for games that came on a minimum of 7 floppy disks, then they will probably install onto HD. This would mean that Alien Breed isn't compatible and neither is Elivira Mistress of the Dark, but Elvira 2 might have an HD installer. It would be better to have a proper list of these games. Who can give me a list?

[AmigaBruno]

This always works for me.....  http://hol.abime.net/advsearch

OK, thanks for that!

Meanwhile, I've just visited a well known download site which has lots of ADF files, spotted one game which said HD, then searched for and found a lot more ADF files which also said HD. I have now downloaded four games from there which all seem to be installable to HD. These are Elvira, Flashback, Champions of Krynn, and Gloom Special Edition 97. Next I'll copy these to USB and try to install them onto CF card from my Gotek drive.

[AmigaBruno]

Unfortunately, I couldn't install most of those HD installable games, or they didn't work after installation. Gloom Special Edition 97 crashed my A1200, Elvira wouldn't install, while Legend of Kyrandia asked for a Disk 0.  

Eventually, I decided it was time to order one of the new ACA 1221 accelerator cards from Amigakit, but then I found out that the date they were due to be in stock had been changed from September 1 to 3.

This delay, the pre orders, and the fact that they only had a prototype on display at the Amiga 30th event in Peterborough made me decide to go for a 2Mb PCMCIA MELcard instead. I should receive it on Wednesday or Thursday this week, so that will solve the immediate problem with WHDload on my A1200.

My main problem now is to avoid playing with my new RAM upgrade card too much if it arrives on Wednesday, because that could prevent me getting ready in time to go for a night out.

[AmigaBruno]

The PCMCIA card will work, but it is slow when compared with trapdoor ram. But being as though you don't have any trapdoor ram card/accelerator then I suppose it's better than nothing.
So after installing the PCMCIA card, you should have 4MB ram in total (2MB Chip, 2MB Fast). 6MB would be far more desirable, but oh well.

Another thing, when you do buy a real accelerator card then don't continue to use the PCMCIA ram card, as doing so will slow your computer down as PCMCIA ram is only 16-bit.

Of course, I knew this. However, as most games were written for the A500 with Kickstart 1.3 OCS and 512K or 1Mb of 16 bit RAM why should it matter? Perhaps the loading times will just be longer. According to the eBay seller, almost all games run in 4Gb, with only about 10 games requiring 8Gb. I wish I could find a current list of which games require how much RAM. Even by using Relokick and/or NTSC with ADF images from my Gotek drive, I'm getting weird effects with the speed and pitch of the music in Defender of the Crown, while under WinUAE parts of the game, such as the opening text featuring Robin Hood and setting the scene that it's 1149AD, whizz by too fast to read them as well as the trumpet players at tournaments going at a faster speed.

Another slight problem is that the WHDload (pre installed with permission from the programmer), on the card I bought from Amigakit at the Amiga 30th event in Peterborough on 02-08-15 is V16.9, which seems to be about 2 years old, but one or two games have demanded V17 at least. This means I could ruin the whole card trying to install a later version. After that, I may have to buy a new card and do a FitzSteve type installation with ClassicWB Lite. I think I should play it safe by not trying to upgrade WHDload.

BTW, it will be very interesting to read from anyone on here when they actually receive their ACA 1221 accelerator. I don't think this will be at least until September 5, but I'll be very busy on that day. I'm expecting another delay to be announced, but I could be wrong.

[AmigaBruno]

Today I have received my 2Mb MELcard. I'm going to plug it in and see what happens. I read somewhere that I need to format it first. I'll search for some instructions before trying this.

That didn't take long! It seems I may either only need to insert the card or run Prepcard, which is supplied with Workbench, to set it up as storage or RAM.

[AmigaBruno]

I thought I should let you know that I plugged in the 2Mb SRAM card with the Amiga A1200 turned off as advised, turned on the A1200 and found that my card was immediately recognised as 2Mb of "other mem".

One by one, I clicked all the little square WHDload icons and nearly all of the games I'd installed worked! These included Beneath a Steel Sky, Lure of The Temptress, Elvira Mistress of The Dark, Eye of The Beholder, and K240.

As previously under WinUAE with 4Mb, games which required the Kickstart image kick40068.a1200 wouldn't work. These were Der Clou, Der Clou AGA Profi Disk, and Eye of The Beholder II. I copied this image off my Amiga Forever DVD and have even tried copying and renaming it with the extension .A1200 as well as .a1200 with the .RTB file named accordingly, but this had no effect. Perhaps the image file got corrupted when I copied it off my DVD. I'll try to reinstall it.

Games which had some problems with RAM were AlienBreed3DAGAFixed "Can't allocate ShadowMem", and Dungeon Master 2 "Can't allocate ExpMem".

Unfortunately, while testing a lot of these games, I noticed that the screen often went black for about one second or less in the middle of the games. I suppose this is due to either the new 2Mb RAM not being ChipMem/Graphics Mem or it being 16 bit instead of 32 bit.

I'll try to tear myself away from WHDload now to get ready for a night out, but I could do some more with it while I'm getting preloaded (i.e. with alcohol), which is much easier than preloading with WHDload. :laughing: