Whdload Game Installers update + free game

[lempkee]

Whdload is one of the most active websites we have for software so i will try to post updates here regulary, anyway this time it is:

Virtual Karting 2 (Islona) done by Psygore
Skrull (16-32Bit Diffusion) done by Psygore
Pick 'n' Pile (Ubi Soft) done by Psygore


Whdload And its 1600+ installers Can be Found here


Virtual Karting 2 is freely downloadable from here

[Roj]

I realize that this is a non-issue under emulation, but for actual Amiga hardware it would be nice if the WHDLoad team would embrace USB devices in future releases. Thanks to the Algor I've disconnected and put away my old Wizard mouse in favor of a Logitech optical USB, which is about the most comfortable mouse I've ever used. From what I've read on the WHD mailing list, some of those guys don't even know what USB is, let alone understand why it would be useful to use modern USB controllers with the classic games. It would really breathe new life into them.

As it stands, WHD freezes when either Miami or Poseidon is running while playing a game. It's easy enough to quit Miami, but quitting Poseidon shuts off all the controllers I'd normally be using.

[selco]

WHDload is a nice program. Yes, I know... I should register! If the auhtor could provide a CD with the installers and if possible the games that have been made freely available, that would be great. Then I would order it and register immediatelly!

[selco]

@ Roi:
There was something about an interrupt issue. Would be really nice if that could be solved. It freezes on every network activity, not only if Miami online AFAIK. I have envoy running in my LAN for instance and my sons A1200 freezes all the time. he has to remove his PCMCIA network card, than everything is fine.

[lempkee]

pcmcia cards must be taken out yes , unless u have the timer fix or sw solve.

Software fix for this is on AMINET and its easy to use.

as for poseidon, i use poseidon here and i dont need to turn that OFFLINE to use whdload, but miamidx must be offline.

the interuppt fixes are supposedly beeing looked at but since this is an hard way to go and would most likely cripple more games, well i rather not see it fixes (as i know what the consequences will be) , but for whdload NG ,i hope for this to be fixed + RTG and usb etc support..


AS for you who want the installers on a cd, buy aminet cds then, the latest have em all i guess (except for the last ones...after the cd was printed, also magazines have theese installers there) and for freely games ermm thats a hard one as you can read from the sites around, its not legal to redistrubute any of em without some sort of an agrement, hence u are better of downloading it yourself.

beyond all this, if 15 usd is too much for you or anyone to pay for a sw that will make all your old amiga games work on hdd + on a highly hacked one, well thats your loss i guess!!!.

and for USB mouse , did you know that you have to RECODE every single game to get your mouse to work with the game? , sorry but i think that will never happen unless usb creators will make some sort of mouseport emulation (which will ofcourse slow down your setup even more etc....)

[FuZion]

I registered to WHD & don't regret it for one moment.

It's a great piece of software. It would be nice if 'things' could be done but, as it stands, it plays games how they need to be played & that does me fine. :-)

[Roj]

and for USB mouse , did you know that you have to RECODE every single game to get your mouse to work with the game? , sorry but i think that will never happen unless usb creators will make some sort of mouseport emulation (which will ofcourse slow down your setup even more etc....)

I've just run WHD on UAE under WarpUp, and was able to use my USB mouse to control the game without any recoding. The only problem is speed of course, but that's about the best an unoptimized UAE can do on a 233MHz CSPPC, but there's got to be a way that WHD can make it work. Oh well... hopefully it won't have any problems with OS4.

[Roj]

I registered to WHD & don't regret it for one moment.

It's a great piece of software. It would be nice if 'things' could be done but, as it stands, it plays games how they need to be played & that does me fine. :-)

I definitely agree. I suspect that sentiment got lost somewhere in my feature request, which I certainly didn't intend. WHD is a fantastic piece of work. I've just upgraded my system one time too many and broke it.

[Zadoc]

as for poseidon, i use poseidon here and i dont need to turn that OFFLINE to use whdload, but miamidx must be offline.

Another problem with Amiga USB stuff is simply the Zorro card interrupts themselves.  Just having my Highway card installed without starting Poseidon breaks many games in WHDLoad.

I'm not sure if this affects Z3 slots, Algor Cards, Subways, or anything else, but in my configuration (Highway card in a Z2 slot in the Z4 busboard) just having my Highway installed is causing interrupt problems.

I've been thinking about just connecting a bare A1200 or A500 to my TVCard's switchbox just to relive the old games once in a while.  Which is a shame as WHDLoad worked so well before installing the Highway card - but there's no way I'll live without my Highway installed :-)

[lionstorm]

I registered recently for 10Euros (special offer with amiga arena) got quickly the key and it is great (just slowdown in SWOS) money well spent.
Lio

[platon42]

I don't think that's correct. The Highway interrupts are completely disabled until the software enables them (i.e. starting Poseidon) -- otherwise these interrupts could freeze the machine. And even if there are spurious interrupt signals (!) (which is very unrealistic because the MACH chip really forbids them), they should be catched by the default interrupt handler and not crash the machine.

It would be cool, if you could check that is indeed the Highway that's causing the problems and Poseidon is not running while playing
WHDLoad games.

As for disabling Poseidon: The next release has a new version of the AddUSBHardware command with a "REMOVE ALL" option, effectively turning off Poseidon. This allows the stack to go offline via shell scripts.

About running USB input devices for games: Poseidon is a software that heavily relies on multitasking and as most games disable the OS and multitasking, this is a no-go. Moreover, WHDLoad would either have to feed the input a MMU based custom chip emulation (dead slow) or patch each hardware hacking port request.

The solution indeed is to use a fully fledged emulation like UAE. For example, I've been playing Puzzle Bobble on MAME via an USB joypad the last few days

[lempkee]

yes platon but WHDLOAD is not a pure emu and thats what makes it so good compared... ie it only do what its asked to do , unlike MAME or uae  who has a major bloated exe/files in most of the times..

remeber every whd install is made for 1 game only...

[platon42]

Hi lempkee,

> yes platon but WHDLOAD is not a pure emu

I never said anything like that. In fact, I wouldn't consider it an emulation at all. It runs the game in a MMU protected sandbox. AFAIK the allocated chip mem and sections of the fastmem are mapped to a temporary buffer and all the hardware environment is "backed up", before the game is run. When the game has to load stuff from the HD, the whole system is temporary restored from the buffers, multitasking is enabled and after the loading has been completed, the game and its data is restored back in its original position. This is all major magic, because actually some of the hardware registers cannot be read back. So WHDLoad games run on the CPU and are NOT emulated. Optionally, parts of (old versions of) the kickstart are emulated or mapped via the MMU.

Again, the game in the sandbox knows/sees nothing about the system and applications that were run before WHDLoad and vice versa.

About the MAME binaries being huge -- if you see the list of CPU's and GPU's and other custom hardware being emulated, using large lookup-tables for speed etc., it is not too surprising, that the binaries are that big. Anyway, it's real fun playing these old games on MAME.

[haymiggan]

Who needs USB Input devices for WHDLOAD when you can use a Playstation joypad directly plugged into your amiga using the MD/Genesis-> PSX converter!

I just played Ruff N' Tumble (died on world 3, level 2...damn those bats!) with my Playstation joypad... totally rules

Cheers!
Povl

[lempkee]

haystack:i agree


plato: dood, i know and i hope whdload gets ppc native soon with rtg...

(ie so u can use WHDLOAD in Os4 on an a1 without using uae or such.... or in morphos with no emu etc...)

a long shot maybe...but lets see