Amiga 600, whdload and dissapearing memory

[walterg74]

Hi folks,

I took out my Amigas to start playing around a bit with them, as back in the day all I did was insert disk and play...

I'm trying to understand workbench/whdload and the behaviour I'm seeing on my computer and I am a bit puzzled...

- This is an Amiga 600

- It seems to have 2MB chip (away from home now, but I assume this would have something in the trapdoor right? As these came with 1MB stock? -and also wouldn't that trapdoor mem be fast ram and not chip/graphics as workbench tells me?)

- I fitted one of thise IDE/CF thingys with a car that came pre-loaded

The problem/thing that puzzles me is this:

On bootup, WB says at the title bar i have about 1.5 mb free. As I open the different folders (games, letter, etc.), that amount goes down. And drastically!

As an example, speedball 2. I will open the GAMES icon, mem goes down, then the S icon (that takes forever as there are a lot) and mem goes down in a huge waty! And then i open the Speedball 2 icon.

By the time I can actually see the speedball 2 icon to launch it, the free memory is arounf 200-400 Kb!!

So... WTH??? Is this normal Amiga behaviour? As I read there are lots of games that run with 2MB I would doubt it and think I'm doing something wrong, but don't know what...

Things I tried:

avail flush in a shell: pretty much does nothing..

The clear ram tool: as long as I leave the speedball 2 window open (even if closing all others that open prior to it, does nothing. If closing it then it frees it up.

So, what's going on???

Appreciate the help! :laugh1:

[kolla]

This is all normal behaviour, the WHDLoad icons tend to be rather big, colourful icons that steal away your precious chipram. One way to improve the situation is to replace the icons with simpler icons, or use a dedicated WHDLoad launcher. Also, adding FastRAM helps, which on A600 means either getting hold of an acc-card or RAM card to fit inside the PCMCIA slot. These days, getting an acc-card is easier. Trapdoor RAM is only use to increase chipram from 1MB to 2MB, as you have seen.

[walterg74]

This is all normal behaviour, the WHDLoad icons tend to be rather big, colourful icons that steal away your precious chipram. One way to improve the situation is to replace the icons with simpler icons, or use a dedicated WHDLoad launcher. Also, adding FastRAM helps, which on A600 means either getting hold of an acc-card or RAM card to fit inside the PCMCIA slot. These days, getting an acc-card is easier. Trapdoor RAM is only use to increase chipram from 1MB to 2MB, as you have seen.

Thanks Kolla.. so how do ppl woth 2MB run games? (Whatever games run with 2). Booting/launching differently? Because like I said, i lose all my memory before even launching the game :angry:

[Pat the Cat]

Thanks Kolla.. so how do ppl woth 2MB run games? (Whatever games run with 2). Booting/launching differently? Because like I said, i lose all my memory before even launching the game :angry:

Find the game with a Shell and run it. Or put smaller icons in folders that open a window just big enough to click on the small icon., like Kolle said.

[kolla]

Thanks Kolla.. so how do ppl woth 2MB run games? (Whatever games run with 2). Booting/launching differently? Because like I said, i lose all my memory before even launching the game :angry:

Typically by using a dedicated launcher, like X-bench or Tinylauncher.

http://www.jimneray.com/xbench.html
http://ohmygibs.free.fr/ohmygibs/TinyLauncher.html

I must admit I have not tried any of them though.

[Pat the Cat]

Thanks Kolla.. so how do ppl woth 2MB run games? (Whatever games run with 2).

Games marked OCS only or AGA only will NEVER work no matter what you do. Look for OCS/ECS, should be OK from launch year (1992 onwards) with work.

Not all games distros were tested with all Amigas sadly, but I must admit, I'm impressed with some of the collections. Very slick, very compatible. Sometimes better than original release too.

[walterg74]

Find the game with a Shell and run it. Or put smaller icons in folders that open a window just big enough to click on the small icon., like Kolle said.

Typically by using a dedicated launcher, like X-bench or Tinylauncher.

http://www.jimneray.com/xbench.html
http://ohmygibs.free.fr/ohmygibs/TinyLauncher.html

I must admit I have not tried any of them though.

Thanks guys, I will take a look at the links and also the suggesrions about icons (although still puzzles me that if this is "normal" behaviour, why didmthey make them this big to begin with...).

Kolla, I assume if you never even tried them you have lots of ram? :laugh1:

[walterg74]

Games marked OCS only or AGA only will NEVER work no matter what you do. Look for OCS/ECS, should be OK from launch year (1992 onwards) with work.

Not all games distros were tested with all Amigas sadly, but I must admit, I'm impressed with some of the collections. Very slick, very compatible. Sometimes better than original release too.

Got it, will take a look at that as well. I actually have quite a few Amigas, just the 600 was the one I pulled first to test this, but besides that one I also have an Amiga 1000 with 256+256 and an additional 2MB side expansion for it, a 500+ with 2MB plus a sidecar with HDD + 2MB more, this 600 with 2MB & CF, and a 1200 also with stock 2MB and CF. Also waiting for an NTSC A500 (except the 1000 the other 3 are PAL) which with luck I will get in Feb.
Other tidbits include a Gotek drive, a 2MB PCMCIA RAM card, and waiting (also in Feb) for a Blizzard 1220/4 for the 1200.

I think with all this, I should be able to do *something* :lol:

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Thanks guys, I will take a look at the links and also the suggesrions about icons (although still puzzles me that if this is "normal" behaviour, why didmthey make them this big to begin with...).

Kolla, I assume if you never even tried them you have lots of ram? :laugh1:

Most of these old games were made to run directly from floppy disk (without the operating system being loaded), so originally they probably only required 1MB of ram.  By running them through WHDLoad you're talking about (first) loading the entire operating system (which can consume a lot of memory depending on the version, screen resolution and number of colors, etc.), on top of whatever the requirements of the game are.

All of the previous suggestions are good: add more memory, boot from the shell, use simpler icons, use a custom launcher, etc. You can also try reducing the requirements of Workbench (for example: lower resolution, 2 color screen, remove everything from WBStartup).

RAM is cheap. Just buy more.

[Pat the Cat]

Yeah, start small, work up. Makes sense.

The A500 should be most compatible, but some stuff will only run on A1200, of course. Not very well on some titles, I've been told Civilization is hugely slow without lots of fast RAM on that Amiga (boo! hiss! Love that game).

A little 4MB PCMCIA would do you well, the snag is, lot of them don't work in Amigas as fast RAM. A600s and A1200s, that is. Some of them PCMCIA expansions spring into life with an accelerated Amiga, or even just one with fast RAM somehow, but they're you go - you haven't got an accelerated Amiga or some fast RAM in to begin with (A1200 you can do that thru trapdoor, A600 you cannot, although ACA600 Vampire is the oddity here I've been told).

[kolla]

Kolla, I assume if you never even tried them you have lots of ram? :laugh1:

Yes, my A600 has an acc board with 32MB

[UberFreak]

Games marked OCS only or AGA only will NEVER work no matter what you do.

OCS games work just fine on my A600 with WHDLoad.

[Pat the Cat]

OCS games work just fine on my A600 with WHDLoad.

Some of the original releases will not. ECS does break some games of the period. I guess WHDload itself selects correct chipset or similar. This is why ECS Amigas can drop down into OCS and switch between PAL and NTSC? Kind of fail safe to use for issues like that.

Yeah, OK, OCS only should work, but you might have to manually select that, and if the code is really buggy and accidently flips wrong bits, it still won't work in every case. I forget why exactly. Most of that probably fixed now anyway, maybe all of it. Maybe it is if the code keeps flipping switch between chip sets, that could be it. Real OCS machine would not care?

[paul1981]

@walterg74

Your problem is that there are too many drawers in one window. Each drawer has a .info file associated with it which contains a graphic of the icon for the drawer. If you have hundreds in one window your machine will run out of chip RAM, despite all the icons being the same. Personally I'd delete all the drawer .info files as they're pointless and only slow down directory reads of your games. Use a file manager to navigate through your games such as DOPUS, then set a custom button up in your file manager called WHDLoad and have it launch your slaves at the touch of a button.
On such a low spec Amiga as yours, use AGLaunch or TinyLauncher or XBench right from bootup instead of loading Workbench. You can run WHDLoad this way with 2MB chip RAM but it's hardly fun and a lot of slaves require a 68020 CPU and more RAM.

Your best choice here is to buy an ACA 620 card. That will run all the non-AGA games as it has a 68020 CPU with plenty of FastRAM.

Another choice is a 2MB or preferably 4MB PCMCIA card. But again, due to lack of 68020 there's a good chunk of slaves that will not work unless the slave authors fix them for 68000's. When I last fiddled with a 68000 WHDLoad machine which was 5 years ago I'd say a quarter of games wanted a 68020...this might be better now, I'm not sure.

[walterg74]

@walterg74

Your problem is that there are too many drawers in one window. Each drawer has a .info file associated with it which contains a graphic of the icon for the drawer. If you have hundreds in one window your machine will run out of chip RAM, despite all the icons being the same. Personally I'd delete all the drawer .info files as they're pointless and only slow down directory reads of your games. Use a file manager to navigate through your games such as DOPUS, then set a custom button up in your file manager called WHDLoad and have it launch your slaves at the touch of a button.
On such a low spec Amiga as yours, use AGLaunch or TinyLauncher or XBench right from bootup instead of loading Workbench. You can run WHDLoad this way with 2MB chip RAM but it's hardly fun and a lot of slaves require a 68020 CPU and more RAM.

Your best choice here is to buy an ACA 620 card. That will run all the non-AGA games as it has a 68020 CPU with plenty of FastRAM.

Another choice is a 2MB or preferably 4MB PCMCIA card. But again, due to lack of 68020 there's a good chunk of slaves that will not work unless the slave authors fix them for 68000's. When I last fiddled with a 68000 WHDLoad machine which was 5 years ago I'd say a quarter of games wanted a 68020...this might be better now, I'm not sure.

Thanks Paul, I will read up some (a lot of) info to know how to actually do those things, and I will give it a try but is is nice to know why the computer behaves like that just by opening folders... seems pretty crappy and never would have thought it worked this way.

In any case, jus thapoened to pull out the 600 and play around with it, but I also have a 1200 that, while,right now is also stock, I will be geting in a few weeks a Blizzard 1220/4, which will give me the upgraded 68020 as well as 4MB more