A500 and games (not working)

[nscaleworld]

The best Amiga 500 setup for classic Amiga games is Kickstart 1.3, 512k chip, 512k fast, normal Denise, 512k Fat Agnus.  Anotherwards, nothing fancy, a stock Amiga 500.  Also, make sure your disk drive can read past track 82.  Newer Amiga disk drives will not read past track 82, so many games, especially with copy protection, will not work, because the copy protection tells the drive to load code from track 83, 84, or 85.  So, make sure that the disk drive in your Amiga 500 computer can read past track 82.  Just google for the drives specs on the internet.

[nscaleworld]

If you really like a game, just buy it on eBay.  All of my favorite Amiga games are complete, with their original boxes, and they are in brand new condition.  Whenever another Amiga fan comes over to the house and sees my Amiga room, they are absolutely amazed at my Amiga software collection.  There is nothing like having the real game in your hands.  I see boxed Amiga games all the time on eBay for $5 to $20 each, that is how I got a lot of my games.

[nickoteen]

The best Amiga 500 setup for classic Amiga games is Kickstart 1.3, 512k chip, 512k fast, normal Denise, 512k Fat Agnus. Anotherwards, nothing fancy, a stock Amiga 500. Also, make sure your disk drive can read past track 82. Newer Amiga disk drives will not read past track 82, so many games, especially with copy protection, will not work, because the copy protection tells the drive to load code from track 83, 84, or 85. So, make sure that the disk drive in your Amiga 500 computer can read past track 82. Just google for the drives specs on the internet.

Crap. Some of the games I transferred usig AExplorer, after loading intro and me clicking the left mouse button make a floppy drive produce a sound similar to: trrrrrrrrr (like there's something very strange going on while trying to read the disk). Could it be this "past track 82" thing ?
 
Otherwise the fdd works just fine, loads WB and a hole pile of other disks, without any problems.

[nickoteen]

The best Amiga 500 setup for classic Amiga games is Kickstart 1.3, 512k chip, 512k fast, normal Denise, 512k Fat Agnus. Anotherwards, nothing fancy, a stock Amiga 500. Also, make sure your disk drive can read past track 82. Newer Amiga disk drives will not read past track 82, so many games, especially with copy protection, will not work, because the copy protection tells the drive to load code from track 83, 84, or 85. So, make sure that the disk drive in your Amiga 500 computer can read past track 82. Just google for the drives specs on the internet.

I know Denise, Fat Agnus and Lisa are main components of OCS/ECS chipset (right ?), but I don't know what are "normal" Denise and 512k Fat Agnus. What other Denis/Agnus chips are there ?  I bought my Amiga from a guy (it's been opened, can tell by looking at the bottom silver sticker being damaged), so maybe ... ah, I don't know, looking (grasping ? ) for straws here, just trying to figure out why 15 out of 20 top games on my "I REALLY want to play list" games don't work.
 
Thanks for your suggestions anywayz.

[nscaleworld]

I know Denise, Fat Agnus and Lisa are main components of OCS/ECS chipset (right ?), but I don't know what are "normal" Denise and 512k Fat Agnus. What other Denis/Agnus chips are there ? I bought my Amiga from a guy (it's been opened, can tell by looking at the bottom silver sticker being damaged), so maybe ... ah, I don't know, looking (grasping ? ) for straws here, just trying to figure out why 15 out of 20 top games on my "I REALLY want to play list" games don't work.
 
Thanks for your suggestions anywayz.

The 512k Agnus is 8370. The normal Denise chips are 8362R6 and 8362R8 (Half-Bright Denise). These numbers are for the NTSC versions of the chips. Check the Big Book of Amiga Hardware website for the PAL versions. Give me a list of the games you like and I will make the disks, test them on my stock Amiga 500, and then I will ship them to you, just pay me for postage  Also, I do have a spare 8370 Agnus chip I can mail to you for FREE, but, I do not know if it will also work in PAL mode.

[nscaleworld]

A Teac fd-235hf 3218-u pc disk drive works very well with Amiga computers, and they fit the Amiga 500 nicely.  They do read out to track 85.  You can find these disk drives in PC recycle centers.  I buy them by the box-load  

[Cammy]

If your A500 has the original floppy drive inside you won't have a problem reading past track 82. I think it was mainly the later A1200s which were burdoned with crappy disk drives.

I'm sorry for asking the obvious a lot, but have you given your disk drive heads a clean? I have inherited around 10 A500s as well as other Amigas over the years and every single one of them had problems reading disks before I put a floppy drive cleaning kit through them, which fixed them all. You can get these on eBay or from a local computer supplies or stationary shop if you're lucky. They look like a floppy disk with a white pad inside them, and you put some drops of cleaning fluid in them before running it through the drive for half a minute or so. With the Amiga, just keep rebooting after it tries reading the disk, and do it about 20 times so it has a good scrub.

[nickoteen]

If your A500 has the original floppy drive inside you won't have a problem reading past track 82. I think it was mainly the later A1200s which were burdoned with crappy disk drives.
 
I'm sorry for asking the obvious a lot, but have you given your disk drive heads a clean? I have inherited around 10 A500s as well as other Amigas over the years and every single one of them had problems reading disks before I put a floppy drive cleaning kit through them, which fixed them all. You can get these on eBay or from a local computer supplies or stationary shop if you're lucky. They look like a floppy disk with a white pad inside them, and you put some drops of cleaning fluid in them before running it through the drive for half a minute or so. With the Amiga, just keep rebooting after it tries reading the disk, and do it about 20 times so it has a good scrub.

Hmm .. it did cross my mind (while reading your posts) that maybe my fdd is the cause of my problems. I mean, my every Aexplorer transfer is finished succesfully (transfered 100%), but maybe some of the times the fdd doesn't write the data 100% accurately. I'll try and find a cleaning kit and use it. There are also new a500 drives I stumbled upon on ebay, so I'm thinking of maybe ordering one as well.
 
Once again, thankz 4 all your replyz folkz.

[nickoteen]

I've found that emulators sometimes are less finicky and sometimes more so than real hardware. It's basically black magic.
 
I'm not sure why multiple versions wouldn't work though. Where in the world are you located? I could probably make you a copy and mail it or something, though I can only test it on my 1200, so that's not a guarantee it'd work.

Err, since I've exhausted all my options by now (changed the floppy drives used to write adfs to disks (external, internal), changed the homemade null modem cable with a factory one, changed the floppy disks themselves (a new unopened box with another new unopened box), I think I'll take your offer and ask you not to make a copy of some games for me, since that would involve time and money, but to send a few adfs to my email just to check whether maybe there's something wrong with my adfs.
So, if it's not to much of a trouble, could you send me at least one of the following 880K adfs please: Turrican 2, North & South, Prince of Persia, Syndicate, Cannon Fodder, Lotus Esprit Turbo Challange, Moonstone ...
 
Any of them will do. I'm loosing my mind here trying to figure out WHY some of the games work and a whole lot of them won't work on my machine. Thanks in advance.

[runequester]

yeah for sure.
Let me try transferring one to disk later today, to verify it works, and then I'll email the same disk image to you. Might not be until this evening.

Can you email me at runequester@gmail.com ?

[nickoteen]

yeah for sure.
Let me try transferring one to disk later today, to verify it works, and then I'll email the same disk image to you. Might not be until this evening.
 
Can you email me at runequester@gmail.com ?

Thanks a bunch ! Take your time ...

[orange]

have you tested the diskettes with x-copy?

[nickoteen]

No, I haven't. But I don't think the diskettes are the problem here. Every sigle game that doesn't work loadz the intro/cracktro just fine. Every one of them. After I select the "Start game" option, the Amiga freezes. Every g.d. time, right after. So, it's either the adf(s) (which run normally when opened under winUAE ... go figure), or the Amiga itself. The diskettes are alright, brand new. The Amiga Explorer transfer is alright. No problems there. In addition to a whole lot of games that just freeze after the intro, there's a whole LOT of them that work without a problem. Transfered over a nullmodem cable, started on a real Amiga, working like a charm, some 60 or so of them.
 
It's not the non working games that I'm worried about, I've got enough allready to play around with. It's the question whether my Amiga is faulty or not, that's what's really bugging me.

[orange]

so, its not A500+ ? I'd try it without the ROM switcher, using only KS1.3 chip.
is additional 512Kb set as FAST, not CHIP ram?
I remember having problems with K3.1 in A500, due to missing some resistor set on board.

you can test RAM with some utility from aminet.

[nickoteen]

No, It's an Amiga 500, although (I think) a newer model, because it has a fullname logo on the top right corner. Not just a "C", but a "C" Commodore Amiga 500 logo, like in the following picture:
 
http://www.google.hr/imgres?q=amiga+500&um=1&hl=hr&sa=N&biw=1920&bih=1003&tbm=isch&tbnid=ktf1NDDW3cKL9M:&imgrefurl=http://www.pugo.org/collection/computer/99/&docid=0gjt8OMFFVLIrM&imgurl=http://www.pugo.org/media/collection/computer/commodore_amiga_500.jpg&w=500&h=325&ei=XsEDUL-qH-Tf4QSQvbX_Bw&zoom=1
 
Also, I do have a KS switcher board with 1.3 and 2.04 roms installed. I should try it without the ks board you say ? Any particular reason why I should suspect the switching board ?
 
How do I know if the additional 512kb was set as fast or chip ram ? As for testing the RAM, I will test it, have plenty of utils on the disks. The thing is, I even changed the memory expansion board with another one (have 2 amigas, the other one for parts mainly), but it didn't help. Two different ram cards ... they can't both be faulty ... right ?
 
I'm very close to tipping my hat too and saying fairwell to my Amiga as someone mentiond it earlier on The Org. ( Won't do it offcourse, but it's a very nerve consuming business I'll admit to that. )

[orange]

if the board was modified to see expansion as CHIP RAM, it would do it for both cards. and some games need 512 FAST RAM. you can see type of RAM with command: avail

srecno..