Amiga 600HD game compatibility?

[orb85750]

Why is my Amiga 600HD so incompatible with many A500/2000 games?  For Christ sake, it has a 68000!!

[retrogeeks]

KS 2.x, ECS chipset, No Fast ram (unless you add some) can be factors.

[ChaosLord]

Your hard drive buffers are using to much memory.  Just add 1MB or more of fastram and you are all set.

[orb85750]

Your hard drive buffers are using to much memory.  Just add 1MB or more of fastram and you are all set.

I have the trap door memory expansion, so I doubt the memory is the problem.  Some games work absolutely fine.  Others don't work at all, even though they work fine on my A500 (with 2.0 ROM). For example, Qix won't load at all (blinking "software error" red text on black background).  Bionic Commando loads and the music starts, but the graphics are completely garbled, with 100 horizontal lines in various colors going through the screen.  Thoughts?

[ChaosLord]

What country are you in?
Do you have a PAL or NTSC Amiga?
How much ram do you have?
Are you using a "boot 1.3" utility?

Part of the reason I said you need extra ram is so that you can softboot kickstart 1.3 because some games absolutely require it.  There are a few games that require kickstart 1.2.  So a kickboot util is a great thing to have.

[retrogeeks]

The memory in the trap door on the 600 gives it 2mb chip ram, still no fast ram. (unless some board I am unaware of) I forgot about the kick start, I seem to remember using relokick from a Amiga Format disk back in the day.

[orb85750]

NTSC.  OK, right, chip ram.  Hmmm.... How do I get fast ram into this machine?  The PCMCIA slot? Any good sources?  The games work fine on my A500 with 2.0, so the OS must not be the issue, right?  Could the ECS chipset be the problem or is it almost certainly a ram issue?

[Crumb]

Use WHDLoad if you find some fastram. You can use iGame too if you disable screenshot preview (you'll need some extra MCCs, I recompiled and uploaded to Aminet special 68000 versions). You could buy A608 expansion, it works great.

Or load KS1.3 (I softboot it by software) and use a degrader.

[orb85750]

Use WHDLoad if you find some fastram. You can use iGame too if you disable screenshot preview (you'll need some extra MCCs, I recompiled and uploaded to Aminet special 68000 versions). You could buy A608 expansion, it works great.

Or load KS1.3 (I softboot it by software) and use a degrader.

I prefer not to use WHDLoad.  Shouldn't I be able to get this machine fully compatible with the same disks that work on my OS2.0 A500?

[Cammy]

Are you using original or cracked versions of those games? Qix and Bionic Commando? I can test these games on my Amigas and see what happens for me too, but to be 100% sure I'll need to know the exact versions of those games you're trying. Here are the systems I have set up for testing:

A500 512kChip/512kFast Kickstart 1.3
A500 512kChip/512kFast Kickstart 3.1 and 1.3 on a ROM Switcher
A600 1MBChip/2MBFast (PCMCIA SRAM) Kickstart 2.05
A600 2MBChip/2MBFast (PCMCIA SRAM) Kickstart 3.1 and 1.3 on a ROM Switcher
A1200 2MBChip/32MBFast 030/28 Kickstart 3.1
A1200 2MBChip/128MBFast 030/50 Kickstart 3.1

I have a feeling it may be the lack of FastRAM causing it though, but we'll see what I can find out.

[orb85750]

Are you using original or cracked versions of those games? Qix and Bionic Commando? I can test these games on my Amigas and see what happens for me too, but to be 100% sure I'll need to know the exact versions of those games you're trying. Here are the systems I have set up for testing:

A500 512kChip/512kFast Kickstart 1.3
A500 512kChip/512kFast Kickstart 3.1 and 1.3 on a ROM Switcher
A600 1MBChip/2MBFast (PCMCIA SRAM) Kickstart 2.05
A600 2MBChip/2MBFast (PCMCIA SRAM) Kickstart 3.1 and 1.3 on a ROM Switcher
A1200 2MBChip/32MBFast 030/28 Kickstart 3.1
A1200 2MBChip/128MBFast 030/50 Kickstart 3.1

I have a feeling it may be the lack of FastRAM causing it though, but we'll see what I can find out.

Thank you.  Those are both originals.  I bought the Bionic Commando way back in 1989 (I think) soon after I bought my first A500, which is still mint.  :-)

[ChaosLord]

@Orb

Based on the info you have given, my diagnosis is that the floppy drive in the A600 is not entirely compatible with the floppy drive of the A500.  They probably installed the same kind of lame drive that caused all the problems on the A1200.

I will bet that if you load a cracked copy on both machines that it will work on both machines.

[Matt_H]

@Orb

Based on the info you have given, my diagnosis is that the floppy drive in the A600 is not entirely compatible with the floppy drive of the A500.  They probably installed the same kind of lame drive that caused all the problems on the A1200.

I think that's unlikely, otherwise we'd have heard a lot more about it in 1992. The 1200's floppy issues didn't appear until the Escom era. Of course, if that 600 has had it's floppy replaced during its lifespan, there's that possibility.

I think it could still be a kickstart issue. The 500 probably has 37.175 and the 600 probably has 37.300 or 37.350. There could be subtle changes between both of those 2.0 chips that cause 1.3-era stuff to fail. Orb, can you softkick 1.3? Try SKick on Aminet.

[ChaosLord]

If his A500 was PAL and his A600 was NTSC (or vice versa) then that would perfectly explain all his problems.

Did anyone install a PAL switch into your A500 or A600?

I just tested my Bionic Commando and Qix and they are both NTSC.  But you may have different versions than me.

Have you tried using Degrader (or similar util) to disable 1 MB of your A600 chipmem?  You don't normally need to do that but Bionic Commando is very old and its by Capcom so you'd better try it.

[orb85750]

If his A500 was PAL and his A600 was NTSC (or vice versa) then that would perfectly explain all his problems.

Did anyone install a PAL switch into your A500 or A600?

I just tested my Bionic Commando and Qix and they are both NTSC.  But you may have different versions than me.

Have you tried using Degrader (or similar util) to disable 1 MB of your A600 chipmem?  You don't normally need to do that but Bionic Commando is very old and its by Capcom so you'd better try it.

I have two A600 (one with the standard OS 2.0x (2.05?) and another with OS 3.1).  Both games fail to load properly in exactly the same way on both machines.  I have tried them with and without the trap-door memory expansion.  It makes no difference.  I have not tried a degrader or any softkick stuff from the web.  (At the moment, I don't have an easy way of getting such software onto the machine.)  I suppose that one should always have an A500 or A2000 on hand if one wants *seamless & easy* compatibility with some older games?