MiniMig NTSC

[Darrin]

yaqube wrote:
I'm still working on the ECS. It's almost done but there are some things to do yet (i.e. full super hires support in Denise).

I decided to try to find the reasons why some games don't work. I've already found some incompatibilities and fixed them (i.e. NZ Story scrolls fine now) but there are still some. I have an almost fully working Action Replay and some debugging stuff build into my MiniMig. I hope it will help to hunt bugs quickly. If you can report which game and in what way does not work it will be very helpful.

I'm quite busy now but expect new firmware with sourcecode in a few weeks.

I've got my Minimig on order from Amigakit.  You're doing some great work there.  I look forward to trying your ECS code out.  Cheers.   :-)

[Darrin]

freqmax wrote:
If anyone wishes to "create floppies" then you would have to  handle the FAT16 allocations and clusters etc..

I guess a easy way to get around this would be to stick your SD card in your PC and use UAE to "create a floppy" and move it to the card.

I could live with that as long as I could get to write to existing disk images for the purpose of saving games.

[Darrin]

TheDaddy wrote:

What is the story with the compatibility, with games that don't want to work like:

Cannon Fodder 1

I just played a couple of levels of Cannon Fodder 1 on my Minimig.  Are there any other problems apart from having to keep reinserting disk #1?

[Darrin]

amigadave wrote:

I know that interest is shifting to the NatAmi, but the MiniMig is still a good project and should not be abandoned.

Plus the Minimig is actually here.  :-)

One thing that I'm learning is that if we can't have a hard drive emulation soon then can we have 2 floppy drives emulated please?  The Minimig has its own version of "disk swapper's wrist".   :-D

[Darrin]

straycat wrote:
@ Darrin:
Cannon Fodder seems to be an interesting one. The Minimig wiki reads "Loads fine, but after a few minutes of action, mouse becomes uncontrollable dashing a round the screen. (Possibly a faulty mouse)." from one submission. My own experience has been the loading coming to a standstill around the point it prompts for the 2nd disk when the game's still loading (after the intro sequence). I've only tried downloaded ADFs from the net though, not my own copy. Darrin: are you using a ACube 1.1 Minimig?

Sorry, I only just saw this post.

Yes, I'm using a v1.1 with a KS1.3 ROM and the NTSC core from this thread, but with the jumper set for PAL (not NTSC as in the Jpeg that comes with the core's instructions).

I'm sure that there are going to be differences between the ADF images used as some problems I report come after the crack intros.  I have a lot of original disks which I can try and make ADFs from instead of using cracked ones, but when I tried to install them using WHDload I discovered that a lot of my disks now have read errors (which was a major reason for wanting to get a Minimig).

I can send you the Cannon Fodder ADFs I used if you would like to test them.  Unfortuneately I'm in Brazil for the next 3 weeks, so I hope you don't mind waiting.  :-)

[Darrin]

@yaqube

I have to tell you thanks for releasing that core because it was the only way I could use my Minimig on my widescreen LCD.

Do you have plans to do the same modification to the latest core from Dennis?  It pains me to have to go back to an old CRT again now that I have been spoilt.  :-D

I look forward to seeing more releases from you so that I can re-check the games on my list that don't work.

Cheers.

[Darrin]

Oh, and if you want a tester for any new code then feel free to use me.  I promise I wont demand the source code every time you change one line.   :-)

[Darrin]

straycat wrote:

If it's no trouble that would be excellent - and of course I can wait a few weeks  :-)

OK, I get home on the 29th, so PM me your email address before then.

It's a shame that it's probably illegal to set up a database of working and tested ADFs.  It's going to be a pain if some versions of a game work and others don't due to hardware banging intros.

[Darrin]

boing4000 wrote:

I understand what you're saying.

What I'm saying is that if he wants to throw out cores that he's "tinkering" with to a few people for testing and not as a public release then I'll be happy to help and I don't want (or need or know what to do with) the sources.

This modification is the most important one so far to me, and I'll have to stop using Denis' update until it's modified to include this code.  I just can't go back to a CRT when the Minimig looks so good on the widescreen LCD.  :-)

[Darrin]

alexh wrote:
MiniMig?? Widescreen? LCD? Looks good?? Surely not.

Stretched, scaled, distorted, looks bad is more what I would expect.

Actually, that's what I was expecting, but I can't notice it.

Honestly, if I didn't know that the games were designed for a regular "square" CRT then I wouldn't know any better.  Of course, some widescreens have different "stretch" modes and some scale better than others.  I'm using a cheap 25" LCD from Tiger Direct and I'm really impressed.

Of course, I can always switch the "stretch" off if I need too.

[Darrin]

Here's Defender of the Crown:

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b134/darrin01311/100_1273s.jpg

Note that the Minimig pic doesn't fill the whole screen, so even though the image is "stretched", it is not stretched over the whole display.  That probably helps.