Amiga puzzle - disconnected worlds! help?

[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.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

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.

Why, then, do you bother complaining that "I can only see little squares instead of proper icons" when you refuse to install the tool that would fix that for you? GAAAAAHH.  I give up.

[Blizz1220]

I like squares , reminds me of 90s and KillNewIcons experiment :lol:

@AmigaBruno

There are games you can play on hard drive without use of WHDLoad as
I said.Dungeon Master II for example,Gloom,games that came on 7-8
floppies etc.They have option to install to hard drive without use of
WHDLoad and most of them were ECS games so you can play them
with 2 Mb without problems.Play with those in mean time.Deluxe Galaga
should be one of those games too.Or you can use WHDLoad to install
all games you will play in the future and then just transfer when card
arrives.Or just play Deluxe Galaga :roflmao:

[AmigaBruno]

I like squares , reminds me of 90s and KillNewIcons experiment :lol:

@AmigaBruno

There are games you can play on hard drive without use of WHDLoad as
I said.Dungeon Master II for example,Gloom,games that came on 7-8
floppies etc.They have option to install to hard drive without use of
WHDLoad and most of them were ECS games so you can play them
with 2 Mb without problems.Play with those in mean time.Deluxe Galaga
should be one of those games too.Or you can use WHDLoad to install
all games you will play in the future and then just transfer when card
arrives.Or just play Deluxe Galaga :roflmao:

I don't really care about the small square icons anymore.

So, now all I can do is look on ADF download sites for games that came on a minimum of 7 floppy disks, then they will probably install onto HD. This would mean that Alien Breed isn't compatible and neither is Elivira Mistress of the Dark, but Elvira 2 might have an HD installer. It would be better to have a proper list of these games. Who can give me a list?

[giZmo350]

This always works for me.....  http://hol.abime.net/advsearch

[AmigaBruno]

This always works for me.....  http://hol.abime.net/advsearch

OK, thanks for that!

Meanwhile, I've just visited a well known download site which has lots of ADF files, spotted one game which said HD, then searched for and found a lot more ADF files which also said HD. I have now downloaded four games from there which all seem to be installable to HD. These are Elvira, Flashback, Champions of Krynn, and Gloom Special Edition 97. Next I'll copy these to USB and try to install them onto CF card from my Gotek drive.

[AmigaBruno]

Unfortunately, I couldn't install most of those HD installable games, or they didn't work after installation. Gloom Special Edition 97 crashed my A1200, Elvira wouldn't install, while Legend of Kyrandia asked for a Disk 0.  

Eventually, I decided it was time to order one of the new ACA 1221 accelerator cards from Amigakit, but then I found out that the date they were due to be in stock had been changed from September 1 to 3.

This delay, the pre orders, and the fact that they only had a prototype on display at the Amiga 30th event in Peterborough made me decide to go for a 2Mb PCMCIA MELcard instead. I should receive it on Wednesday or Thursday this week, so that will solve the immediate problem with WHDload on my A1200.

My main problem now is to avoid playing with my new RAM upgrade card too much if it arrives on Wednesday, because that could prevent me getting ready in time to go for a night out.

[paul1981]

Unfortunately, I couldn't install most of those HD installable games, or they didn't work after installation. Gloom Special Edition 97 crashed my A1200, Elvira wouldn't install, while Legend of Kyrandia asked for a Disk 0.  

Eventually, I decided it was time to order one of the new ACA 1221 accelerator cards from Amigakit, but then I found out that the date they were due to be in stock had been changed from September 1 to 3.

This delay, the pre orders, and the fact that they only had a prototype on display at the Amiga 30th event in Peterborough made me decide to go for a 2Mb PCMCIA MELcard instead. I should receive it on Wednesday or Thursday this week, so that will solve the immediate problem with WHDload on my A1200.

My main problem now is to avoid playing with my new RAM upgrade card too much if it arrives on Wednesday, because that could prevent me getting ready in time to go for a night out.

The PCMCIA card will work, but it is slow when compared with trapdoor ram. But being as though you don't have any trapdoor ram card/accelerator then I suppose it's better than nothing.
So after installing the PCMCIA card, you should have 4MB ram in total (2MB Chip, 2MB Fast). 6MB would be far more desirable, but oh well.

Another thing, when you do buy a real accelerator card then don't continue to use the PCMCIA ram card, as doing so will slow your computer down as PCMCIA ram is only 16-bit.

[AmigaBruno]

The PCMCIA card will work, but it is slow when compared with trapdoor ram. But being as though you don't have any trapdoor ram card/accelerator then I suppose it's better than nothing.
So after installing the PCMCIA card, you should have 4MB ram in total (2MB Chip, 2MB Fast). 6MB would be far more desirable, but oh well.

Another thing, when you do buy a real accelerator card then don't continue to use the PCMCIA ram card, as doing so will slow your computer down as PCMCIA ram is only 16-bit.

Of course, I knew this. However, as most games were written for the A500 with Kickstart 1.3 OCS and 512K or 1Mb of 16 bit RAM why should it matter? Perhaps the loading times will just be longer. According to the eBay seller, almost all games run in 4Gb, with only about 10 games requiring 8Gb. I wish I could find a current list of which games require how much RAM. Even by using Relokick and/or NTSC with ADF images from my Gotek drive, I'm getting weird effects with the speed and pitch of the music in Defender of the Crown, while under WinUAE parts of the game, such as the opening text featuring Robin Hood and setting the scene that it's 1149AD, whizz by too fast to read them as well as the trumpet players at tournaments going at a faster speed.

Another slight problem is that the WHDload (pre installed with permission from the programmer), on the card I bought from Amigakit at the Amiga 30th event in Peterborough on 02-08-15 is V16.9, which seems to be about 2 years old, but one or two games have demanded V17 at least. This means I could ruin the whole card trying to install a later version. After that, I may have to buy a new card and do a FitzSteve type installation with ClassicWB Lite. I think I should play it safe by not trying to upgrade WHDload.

BTW, it will be very interesting to read from anyone on here when they actually receive their ACA 1221 accelerator. I don't think this will be at least until September 5, but I'll be very busy on that day. I'm expecting another delay to be announced, but I could be wrong.

[AmigaBruno]

Today I have received my 2Mb MELcard. I'm going to plug it in and see what happens. I read somewhere that I need to format it first. I'll search for some instructions before trying this.

That didn't take long! It seems I may either only need to insert the card or run Prepcard, which is supplied with Workbench, to set it up as storage or RAM.

[AmigaBruno]

I thought I should let you know that I plugged in the 2Mb SRAM card with the Amiga A1200 turned off as advised, turned on the A1200 and found that my card was immediately recognised as 2Mb of "other mem".

One by one, I clicked all the little square WHDload icons and nearly all of the games I'd installed worked! These included Beneath a Steel Sky, Lure of The Temptress, Elvira Mistress of The Dark, Eye of The Beholder, and K240.

As previously under WinUAE with 4Mb, games which required the Kickstart image kick40068.a1200 wouldn't work. These were Der Clou, Der Clou AGA Profi Disk, and Eye of The Beholder II. I copied this image off my Amiga Forever DVD and have even tried copying and renaming it with the extension .A1200 as well as .a1200 with the .RTB file named accordingly, but this had no effect. Perhaps the image file got corrupted when I copied it off my DVD. I'll try to reinstall it.

Games which had some problems with RAM were AlienBreed3DAGAFixed "Can't allocate ShadowMem", and Dungeon Master 2 "Can't allocate ExpMem".

Unfortunately, while testing a lot of these games, I noticed that the screen often went black for about one second or less in the middle of the games. I suppose this is due to either the new 2Mb RAM not being ChipMem/Graphics Mem or it being 16 bit instead of 32 bit.

I'll try to tear myself away from WHDload now to get ready for a night out, but I could do some more with it while I'm getting preloaded (i.e. with alcohol), which is much easier than preloading with WHDload. :laughing: