Amiga puzzle - disconnected worlds! help?

[AmigaBruno]

Oh for the love of...

http://bfy.tw/1WUO

And just stick them in Devs:kickstarts, as already mentioned above.

Of course, I knew there were Amiga Kickstart ROM images out there, but WHDload expects to have ROM images of specific versions and names. I haven't got a list in front of me, but I don't think all Kickstart 1.3 ROMs are the same version. For most purposes users only need to consider if the ROM is 1.2, 1.3, 2.04, 2.05, 3.0, or 3.1 though. They're all listed on http://cloanto.com/amiga/roms/

The link I posted later on in my message gives details that users can copy the images from an Amiga Forever DVD and then rename them, so long as the version of WHDload is at least 16.5. Fortunately, my pre installed version is later than 16.5. The system ROMs can be a bit difficult to find but are in Amiga Files\Shared\rom

AFAIK I just have to copy one of two of these Kickstart ROM files, as well as the rom.key file and the mysterious .RTB files from Aminet, then a lot of other games will run.

[Blizz1220]

You need more memory that's for sure , otherwise clicking twice
will do nothing.

Those names are only names.In reality that's Kick 1.2 1.3 and 3.0 as
extracted from real Amiga.

[AmigaBruno]

I can now tell  you that I've transferred lots more games, selected either because I played them before, or they sounded interesting, under WinUAE and tested them under WinUAE.

I found out that most of the games wouldn't run in 2Mb RAM. Almost all of them will run in 4Mb RAM, but I found that Dungeon Master 2, Eye of the Beholder 2, Galdregon's Domain, and Bloodnet wouldn't  run even in 4Gb.

I also found out that my Kickstart 3.x A1200 ROM image is invalid!

I feel like playing around with SKick and various ROM images, which may then run ADF files from my Gotek USB drive.

I now plan to buy a RAM upgrade for my A1200, but I don't know how long one of those ACA 1221 accelerator cards would take to arrive because I don't know how many people have ordered one already. This means I'm not sure what kind of RAM upgrade to buy.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Try playing around with the "Preload" option in WHDLoad.  You might be able to save a little bit of memory that way.  Also boot with no startup-sequence, etc.  But you probably already know that, already.  

[AmigaBruno]

Try playing around with the "Preload" option in WHDLoad.  You might be able to save a little bit of memory that way.  Also boot with no startup-sequence, etc.  But you probably already know that, already.  

I've just read about the "Preload" option, which I assume comes under Information for each game's launcher icon, so I'll try that. Booting with no startup-sequence only seems to give me a full screen Amigashell window with a 1> prompt. I thought the next stage would be navigating to the WHDload games, but it didn't seem to work. I don't think it knew about WHDload at all. Typing LoadWB after this does bring up the Workbench, but doesn't allow me to run these games either.

[Blizz1220]

Dungeon Master 2 and  Bloodnet at least can be installed without
WHDLoad (if memory serves) and you won't need more memory than 2 Mb.

As for accelerator card I'd say Blizzard1220/28/4-8Mb or Blizzard1230/56(
I really think it's 56 and not 50 , A1200 can only be something divided by
14 but not an expert)/8-16 Mb if you can find them anywhere.Or even just
regular 4 Mb Fast Ram Board (still gives 2 x speed and almost all works).

Booting without startup-seq is only needed if game needs more CHIP ram.
Try booting with this :

(DH0 should be your system partition)
C:Setpatch QUIET
C:Version >NIL:
FailAt 21

C:Assign C: DH0:C (just in case,WHDload is there)
C:Makedir RAM:ENV
C:Makedir RAM:T
C:Assign ENV: RAM:ENV
C:Assign T: RAM:T
C:Assign Devs: DH0:devs
C:Assign Fonts: DH0:Fonts
C:Loadwb
C:EndCli

Make sure you use 4 color Workbench to save Chip Ram.

[AmigaBruno]

Now I've just tried editing the "Preload" under Information, but I found that in most cases it was total gibberish. I only found one game "Dalek Attack" where the Information ended with PreloadSize=. The number in this case was 1820479, which seems to mean more than the RAM left after loading Workbench. I changed this number to 10000, then I got the error "(object not found) on reading Disk.1". This was a game which I could run under WinUAE with 4Mb RAM. I also tried booting without startup-sequence again. I used AmigaDOS commands to navigate to the directories for some games and found that WHDload tried to run them. Unfortunately, I got errors such as "object not found" for AlienBreed3DDemoLatestAGA and "object is not of required type" for Defender Of The Crown. After this I checked I could run Defender Of The Crown from cracked ADF files using my Gotek USB drive.

So, it looks like I'm due for a frustrating few days at least until I can get either a 2Mb Melcard, or an ACA 1221 accelerator, unless I put up with using WinUAE in the meantime. Unfortunately, as well as the weekend, there's a public holiday here on Monday, August 31.

[paul1981]

Now I've just tried editing the "Preload" under Information, but I found that in most cases it was total gibberish. I only found one game "Dalek Attack" where the Information ended with PreloadSize=. The number in this case was 1820479, which seems to mean more than the RAM left after loading Workbench. I changed this number to 10000, then I got the error "(object not found) on reading Disk.1". This was a game which I could run under WinUAE with 4Mb RAM. I also tried booting without startup-sequence again. I used AmigaDOS commands to navigate to the directories for some games and found that WHDload tried to run them. Unfortunately, I got errors such as "object not found" for AlienBreed3DDemoLatestAGA and "object is not of required type" for Defender Of The Crown. After this I checked I could run Defender Of The Crown from cracked ADF files using my Gotek USB drive.

So, it looks like I'm due for a frustrating few days at least until I can get either a 2Mb Melcard, or an ACA 1221 accelerator, unless I put up with using WinUAE in the meantime. Unfortunately, as well as the weekend, there's a public holiday here on Monday, August 31.

The PRELOADSIZE is only a reference number for the load meter (aka progress bar) when you load a game from double clicking its icon. Altering this won't achieve anything.

[AmigaBruno]

Dungeon Master 2 and  Bloodnet at least can be installed without
WHDLoad (if memory serves) and you won't need more memory than 2 Mb.

As for accelerator card I'd say Blizzard1220/28/4-8Mb or Blizzard1230/56(
I really think it's 56 and not 50 , A1200 can only be something divided by
14 but not an expert)/8-16 Mb if you can find them anywhere.Or even just
regular 4 Mb Fast Ram Board (still gives 2 x speed and almost all works).

Booting without startup-seq is only needed if game needs more CHIP ram.
Try booting with this :

(DH0 should be your system partition)
C:Setpatch QUIET
C:Version >NIL:
FailAt 21

C:Assign C: DH0:C (just in case,WHDload is there)
C:Makedir RAM:ENV
C:Makedir RAM:T
C:Assign ENV: RAM:ENV
C:Assign T: RAM:T
C:Assign Devs: DH0:devs
C:Assign Fonts: DH0:Fonts
C:Loadwb
C:EndCli

Make sure you use 4 color Workbench to save Chip Ram.

OK, thanks! I'll try that startup-sequence. I'm using a 4Gb CF card from Amigakit and I'm not sure what the startup-sequence contains. I'm also using a 4 colour Workbench. Obviously, I should try and stop the Workbench using as much RAM as I can.

[AmigaBruno]

The PRELOADSIZE is only a reference number for the load meter (aka progress bar) when you load a game from double clicking its icon. Altering this won't achieve anything.

In that case, I have no idea how to adjust it.

I've just seen something called X-Bench, which I may have heard of before, but I didn't know what it was. It seems to be a text based program selector, which obviously saves RAM, and seems to be able to run WHDload programs, according to the screen which appears briefly at 1:20 in to the video below, but you can still load Workbench when you want. I'll look into this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dThjTd8237w

[Blizz1220]

Just remove whole PRELOAD line from icon.

It tells game to load all game data in memory and start it from
there to avoid accessing hard drive (in case it's slow).

I think that might not be the problem , WHDLoad is smart enough
to know if you don't have enough memory so it ignores PRELOAD.
In case of bigger games it can take some time to PRELOAD (if a game
is say from CD32 version and has lots of data).

[AmigaBruno]

Just remove whole PRELOAD line from icon.

It tells game to load all game data in memory and start it from
there to avoid accessing hard drive (in case it's slow).

I think that might not be the problem , WHDLoad is smart enough
to know if you don't have enough memory so it ignores PRELOAD.
In case of bigger games it can take some time to PRELOAD (if a game
is say from CD32 version and has lots of data).

In most cases there is no line saying Preload, it's several lines of obscure characters warning me not to edit them, with a lot of occurrences of the Icelandic Ð character. Am I supposed to delete all these lines?

I've just tried X-Bench as well. Unfortunately, it turned out to be V0.99 from around Christmas 2014, so not finished. I hope to find a later version. So far, I've only tried it running from Workbench, so that wouldn't save me the RAM eaten up by Workbench. Sadly, I found I was unable to click the names of the WHDload files I needed to run because those files didn't appear! I could only see the corresponding .info files. When I clicked these alone or in combination with RUN or EXECUTE, nothing happened. The documentation and videos talk about typically having 4Mb RAM, though.  

I have now decided to get a RAM upgrade, but the question is whether it should be a MELcard or an ACA 1221 accelerator. There may be a delay in the ACA 1221 arriving, due to how much interest there is and how many pre orders have been made.

[Blizz1220]

Ah , those strange characters are newicon , if you are fine with seeing
little square instead picture of icon you can remove them or download
newicons workbench patch from Aminet.

Yes , 4 Mb is enough for most games.You can install some games with
just 2 Mb and play from hard drive.Mostly ones that are not NDOS and
have installer on first or last floppy in the meantime.

[AmigaBruno]

Ah , those strange characters are newicon , if you are fine with seeing
little square instead picture of icon you can remove them or download
newicons workbench patch from Aminet.

Yes , 4 Mb is enough for most games.You can install some games with
just 2 Mb and play from hard drive.Mostly ones that are not NDOS and
have installer on first or last floppy in the meantime.

So far, I can only see little squares instead of proper icons.

I'm looking for a list of WHDload games and demos which will run on an A1200 with only 2Mb fitted, but at the moment I can't find one, so it's just pure luck that any of them work. Not long ago, there were some lists of these games under eBay CF cards, but now there are no lists saying 2Mb. There doesn't seem to be any pattern to which games work and which don't.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

So far, I can only see little squares instead of proper icons.

I'm looking for a list of WHDload games and demos which will run on an A1200 with only 2Mb fitted, but at the moment I can't find one, so it's just pure luck that any of them work. Not long ago, there were some lists of these games under eBay CF cards, but now there are no lists saying 2Mb. There doesn't seem to be any pattern to which games work and which don't.

As has already been suggested, install the Peter K. icon.library to correctly view NewIcons-format icons.

And for the love of god, get more memory! You know you need more memory. We know you need more memory. I do not understand why you are wasting so much time struggling with this and banging your head against a wall when simply adding more memory would solve 100% of your problems.

Well, maybe not 100%, but close to it, as far as your Amiga is concerned.

[AmigaBruno]

As has already been suggested, install the Peter K. icon.library to correctly view NewIcons-format icons.

And for the love of god, get more memory! You know you need more memory. We know you need more memory. I do not understand why you are wasting so much time struggling with this and banging your head against a wall when simply adding more memory would solve 100% of your problems.

Well, maybe not 100%, but close to it, as far as your Amiga is concerned.

I'll explain how I see the situation and how I feel about it.

I don't think there's any point me installing the Peter K. icon library, because I can already see some icons I need to click on, but also because I think this would use more RAM.

Of course, I need more RAM, but I can't get any for at least a few days. Also, I'm not sure what kind of RAM upgrade to get, because a MELcard could be with me on Wednesday or Thursday, while the new ACA 1221 may take some time, depending on how many people have pre ordered one. The ACA 1221 is totally superior to the MELcard, but there was only a prototype at the Amiga 30th event in Peterborough. It is supposed to be available on September 1, so there may be a disastrous announcement that it's not available on that date, or sold out, waiting for more stock. According to the Vesalia website, this accelerator has facilities which you have to pay extra after buying it to unlock!

While I'm waiting, I'd like to play at least a variety of games which will run in 2Mb on my Amiga A1200, otherwise I can only play them using WinUAE, which obviously doesn't feel the same at all. I'm also exploring the possibilities of using more Kickstart image files under Skick, which may enable me to run more ADF games from my Gotek drive.