Civilization AGA installed to HDD on OS3.9 - green screen

[MarkWatson]

Is there a trick to running Civ AGA under OS 3.9? It runs fine from disks, but if I install to HDD and run it from Workbench I get a green screen then a reboot. The same happens if I run it from WHDload, except it brings up the crashed quit dialog rather than rebooting.

This is with a Blizzard 1260. Its not the 060 by itself that causes it since it runs from disks. I tried using nocache on whdload with no effect.

Thanks,

Mark

[Legerdemain]

Well, actually... or... uhm...

Some parts of Civilization AGA is packed (with some version of PowerPacker, if I am not misstaken, because when wanting to edit the graphic files, for example, one has to unpack them first)...

...on my Blizzard 1230 the game ran perfectly fine for me, from disk and from harddrive, with or without WHDLoad. But on my Blizzard 1260 I've had exactly the same problem as you describe... a green screen as soon as try to run the game from HD (but from disk works just fine).

I'm not sure, but I think I've read somewhere that this is due to the PowerPacked files (or whatever kind of way the files are packed). But I may be way off here...

...besides, the WHDLoad slave should handle this anyways, I am pretty sure (but it doesn't say anything in the WHDLoad installer readme, though)...

[MarkWatson]

The slave does use xfdmaster.library (iirc) to unpack the powerpacker binary. So I doubt its that. Though perhaps the unpacking doesn't work on 060 with xfdmaster either and if I turn off the cache before installing (i.e. unpacking) I'll have more luck. Hmmm, seems doubtful even as I type it!

I'll have another go tomorrow and if I have any luck I'll post back here with how.

Thanks,

Mark

[adolescent]

Sorry to say that I just tested my WHDLoad installed Civilization AGA and it's working fine.  The only tooltype I'm using is PRELOAD.

My guess is either you have an unsupported version, or something went wrong during the install/unpack routine.  Did you log the install and look for any errors?  Care to list your directory and I'll see if the file sizes match mine?

[HellCoder]

Could it be that when running from disks you're launching it with a cold boot and setpatch doesn't get executed ?
I have this problem with settlers, only works if you boot without startup sequence and directly launch the program.
Just quessing here though!

[TiredOLife]

I use a Blizzard 1260 and run 3.9, never had the problems you describe though.
I have just installed Civ AGA normally though.
You could always try getting the latest version of WHD and reinstalling it.

[Ilwrath]

I remember doing a few things to get the CivAGA installed right.  Maybe take a peek at SnoopDOS and see if it's looking for a file or path that isn't quite right.

Seems like there was a patch on Aminet that helped HD installs, too.  

Also, wasn't there a mod to speed up those terribly slow screen fade-in / fade-out routines?  

[MarkWatson]

adolescent wrote:
My guess is either you have an unsupported version, or something went wrong during the install/unpack routine.  Did you log the install and look for any errors?  Care to list your directory and I'll see if the file sizes match mine?

ok here goes, though it looks like the Slave checks the file sizes. I tried replacing CivizationAGA with the packed version from the disk and it complains about invalid file sizes.


387920  CivilizationAGA
 32984  adscreen.lbm
  9660  alexander
 26352  arch.lbm
 14792  back0a.lbm
 11056  back0m.lbm
 12224  back1a.lbm
 18484  back1m.lbm
 21368  back2a.lbm
 14300  back2m.lbm
 15448  back3a.lbm
 23940  birth0.lbm
 49572  birth1.lbm
 39388  birth2.lbm
 21132  birth3.lbm
 22376  birth4.lbm
 24452  birth5.lbm
 27212  birth6.lbm
 26808  birth7.lbm
 27528  birth8.lbm
 20192  blurb0.txt
 14920  blurb1.txt
  8508  blurb2.txt
    56  blurb3.txt
  7236  blurb4.txt
  7252  building
  4432  castle0.lbm
 16148  castle1.lbm
 20612  castle2.lbm
 24176  castle3.lbm
 27540  castle4.lbm
 21648  cback.lbm
 41784  cbacks.lbm
 11172  cbacks1.bbm
 17712  cbacks2.bbm
 14412  cbacks3.bbm
  4076  cbrush0.bbm
  3244  cbrush1.bbm
  6300  cbrush2.bbm
  5172  cbrush3.bbm
  8232  cbrush4.bbm
  7500  cbrush5.bbm
 11212  ceasar
  3068  cele2
 13800  citypix1.lbm
 23844  citypix2.lbm
 23928  citypix3.lbm
   328  credits.txt
 19328  custom.lbm
 21848  diffs.lbm
 22496  discovr1.lbm
 18396  discovr2.lbm
 17536  diskfont.library
  6972  docker.lbm
  3224  elizabeth
   848  error.txt
  5972  evoltn
  2668  explode
   276  fame.dta
  7764  frederic
  8500  ghandi
  2448  ghengis
   968  hamarabi
  2648  help.txt
 25832  hill.lbm
 18364  iconpg1.lbm
 19952  iconpg2.lbm
 18316  iconpg3.lbm
 23484  iconpg4.lbm
 19416  iconpg5.lbm
 21028  iconpg6.lbm
 19476  iconpg7.lbm
 11908  iconpg8.lbm
 22432  iconpga.lbm
 21040  iconpgb.lbm
 18504  iconpgc.lbm
 21544  iconpgd.lbm
 15960  iconpge.lbm
 13220  iconpgt1.lbm
 16680  iconpgt2.lbm
 24260  invader2.lbm
 27048  invader3.lbm
 22152  invaders.lbm
  4372  king.txt
 30708  king00.lbm
 23808  king01.lbm
 22128  king02.lbm
 28632  king03.lbm
 36072  king04.lbm
 27632  king05.lbm
 20600  king06.lbm
 31872  king07.lbm
 24928  king08.lbm
 28980  king09.lbm
 26920  king10.lbm
 25864  king11.lbm
 14708  king12.lbm
 24368  king13.lbm
  1308  lincoln
 10888  logo.lbm
 36520  love1.lbm
 34604  love2.lbm
   764  mao
  2424  map.lbm
  2756  monty
 31324  nGOVT0A.LBM
 28068  nGOVT0M.LBM
 23288  nGOVT1A.LBM
 28460  nGOVT1M.LBM
 28328  nGOVT2A.LBM
 29452  nGOVT2M.LBM
 22520  nGOVT3A.LBM
  1120  napoleon
 12316  nuke
 15548  nuke1.lbm
 16012  planet1.lbm
 36140  planet2.lbm
 18164  pop.lbm
  1060  produce.txt
   760  ramses
 26988  riot.lbm
 26964  riot2.lbm
   872  sadorch
  4280  saladin
  2592  settlers.lbm
  3976  shaka
 15536  slam1.lbm
 12964  slam2.bbm
  7612  slam2.lbm
 18492  sp256.lbm
 18492  sp257.lbm
 12156  sp299.lbm
 43612  spacest.lbm
 13812  sprites.lbm
  1196  stalin
   828  story.txt
  1676  sword
 21728  ter257.lbm
  7272  title
  5328  war
  1860  winspace
 35800  wonders.lbm
 11676  wonders2.lbm

I tried running with no startup sequence, but whdload says it needs AGA! Which seems odd since it has it.

Mark

Thanks,

Mark

[zipper]

I tried running with no startup sequence, but whdload says it needs AGA! Which seems odd since it has it.

Until Setpatch has been run your machine is practically ECS.

[motorollin]

Mark,

Are you using your 3.9 ROMs? Maybe there's something in the ROM the WHDLoad slave doesn't like. Try with a 3.1 ROM and see if that makes any difference.

--
moto

[MarkWatson]

Good idea. I just tried putting back the old 3.1 roms. I've got to burn both to the same chips and add a switch, before all these pins get metal fatigue! Should just be a case of tying the correct address pin to vcc/gnd depending on if I want high or low.

WHDLoad fails with the same crash. Without whdload using 3.0 setpatch (and all the civ assigns) I just got a freeze on a green screen, though I could move the mouse a few minutes.

Think I'll try e-mailing the slave author. Fingers crossed they can spot something in the core dump.

Mark

[adolescent]

@Mark

Odd, all of my files except the CivilizationAGA executable are larger than yours.  Can you check your files to see if they're still crunched?

Edit:  I checked the installer and part of the operation is to use xfdDecrunch to decrunch all of the files.  I don't think this happened during your install.  Try running xfdDecrunch #? on the directory and see.

[adolescent]

BTW, I'm running OS3.9BB2 with the ROM update so I don't think it's anything to do with that.

[MarkWatson]

xfdDecrunch did run, but it only decrunched the CivilizationAGA file. I was wondering why it went through everything if it did not decrunch any. Interesting. Well that definitely sounds plausible...

Can you give me an example file that was larger on yours? LBM files?

Mark

[MarkWatson]

I've been reading a bit more about this on newsgroups. It sounds like the LBM files are compressed using powerpacker and can theoretically be extracted with XFD. Mine are the same size as on the disks (and can't be viewed with multiview) so I guess they must be packed. However xfdDecrunch says "Not crunched" when I run it against them.

So how can I decrunch these files?! I looked at them in a hex editor and they start with "5150 3032" or "PQ20". What packer uses that?

Thanks,

Mark