NOVICE WHD Game help... PLEASE!

[vroom6sri]

Hello out there Amigos!

I have resurected my old A1200 and kitted it out with a nice HD. However, all my old games are ruined from storage in the loft (we all know those bad "ticking" noises from the disk drive that mean the disk is dead!) so have started building my collection up via downloaded WHD versions of my games. The problems I am having (apart for memory capacity) are with the following games;
Pinball Fantasies - Gets past title screen to where you would insert one of the table disks but nothing happens.
Elfmania - Seems to need any disk in the drive to work but it doesn't.
Nitro - Falls back to Workbench with a DOS error stating can not find "high".

Can anyone help please?

Sorry if this is the wrong place for this enquiry - please forgive.

[Codetapper]

Download the installers for all 3 games off the website and update your slaves. Elfmania will be fixed by that, Nitro probably has the high score file in the installer and Pinball Fantasies is hopefully just an old slave you have...

[vroom6sri]

Thanks for your reply. Won't I need my originals to be working in order to update the slaves (sorry for my ignorance - I have not done one single proper WHD install due to my knackered disks and ignorance)? I've mamnaged to resurrect about 80% of my DOS disks using Disksalv but the non-dos ones hang on boot, ticking very badly in the drive.

Does anyone have the missing "high" file for Nitro? If so could someone perhaps E-mail it to me?

Thanks again.

PS - Is it a common (fixable) problem that some games load badly with WHDload? I find Zeewolf2 and the early Lemmings games take a long while to load with lots of screen flashing.

[Mad-Matt]

Make sure preload tooltype is set in the game icon

[Galahad/FLT]

Its to do with your lack of extra memory. Because WHDLoad cannot load the whole game into memory, hence the flashing, because its switching back to the OS to load the files.

[vroom6sri]

Thanks for all the replies so far. Much appreciated.

I'm pretty sure that PRELOAD is enabled on both of them. Is it a "smart" tool in so much as it will only be enabled IF memory is suficient?

Mr Galahad, Sir... Respect to you and Fairlight for some cracking little tunes and Amiga cracks. Thank you.

Can anyone out there provide me with the files/updates to get these 3 running properly?

Thanks again all. I am loving having my Amiga back at last!

[Mad-Matt]

wow, long time no see galahad , are you back or just stopping by to see what ya have missed ;)

[kriz]

vroom6sri: check the www.whdload.de homepage, and see if you got the latest versions...

I have problems with preload option on some games btw... I just remove it :)

[Codetapper]

I have problems with preload option on some games btw... I just remove it :)

Erm, Preload is probably the one tooltype you should NEVER remove. If a game can preload the files to ram you will have a much faster loading game, and much less likely of any problem happening. Games without Preload set mean they will switch the operating system in and out to load files, meaning a much more glitchy game and more chance of it not working properly.

I simply cannot see any legitimate reason you would remove Preload as if you don't have the ram it will treat the game as if you hadn't used the Preload tooltype anyway...

[Galahad/FLT]

wow, long time no see galahad , are you back or just stopping by to see what ya have missed ;)

im back ;)

[kriz]

Codetapper: thx!

[vroom6sri]

Thanks for all the help so far. I got Nitro working by copying and renaming the (kgs)HIGH file from Killing Game Show so I assume it was/is the High Scores file.

Still struggling with PBF & Elf Mania but I'm gonna try PBF without Preload in case I don't have enough mem. One thing I'm curious about IRO PBF though... when I was able to play it from floppy it would ask you to insert a Table Disk (2 on each disk) but with the WHDload version wouldn't it look to the Amiga that both disks were inserted? How do you tell it which one you would like?

Finally, IRO the bad loaders like Lemmings and Zeewolf2, Preload is set as a tooltype but as I only have Chipmem can the WHDload versions not use all of it? The README files mention that Chipmem AND Fastmem are required. Am I anywhere near right?

[Codetapper]

Still struggling with PBF & Elf Mania but I'm gonna try PBF without Preload in case I don't have enough mem.

As I said above, removing PRELOAD is a complete waste of time. If you don't have the memory, WHDLoad ignores this tooltype anyway. Trust me on this and just leave it...

Still struggling with PBF & Elf Mania but I'm gonna try PBF without Preload in case I don't have enough mem. One thing I'm curious about IRO PBF though... when I was able to play it from floppy it would ask you to insert a Table Disk (2 on each disk) but with the WHDload version wouldn't it look to the Amiga that both disks were inserted? How do you tell it which one you would like?

Press Help in Pinball Fantasies to switch disks.

Finally, IRO the bad loaders like Lemmings and Zeewolf2, Preload is set as a tooltype but as I only have Chipmem can the WHDload versions not use all of it? The README files mention that Chipmem AND Fastmem are required. Am I anywhere near right?

Nope, leave PRELOAD alone! WHDLoad will allocate all the memory it needs for the game first, then buffer as many files in the spare memory as possible if there is any left. If you remove Preload you are just making the game switch the O/S in and out for EVERY load, completely pointless and stupid.

This is hopefully the last time I have to say this: NEVER remove PRELOAD!

[Galahad/FLT]

Ian, I was thinking of removing PRELOAD from my installs. Do you think I should? ;)

[T_hairy_bootson]

Ian, I was thinking of removing PRELOAD from my installs. Do you think I should? ;)

You should, it's such a pain turning it off everytime on my A2k because it doesnt have enough memory to support it. :spin

[Slayer]

Slayer laughs

[killergorilla]

You should, it's such a pain turning it off everytime on my A2k because it doesnt have enough memory to support it. :spin

You are joking right....... :blased

CT made it quite clear you don't need to :D

[T_hairy_bootson]

You are joking right....... :blased

CT made it quite clear you don't need to :D

Galahad made me say it :help

[Galahad/FLT]

I think we all should, WHDLoad would run nicer without it. PRELOAD sucks! :)

[vroom6sri]

OK, still with PBF... I've tried the HELP button trick but to no avail. I have noticed that, after the intro, the PBF logo appears on the left side of the screen. Then the screen goes blank as the HD is accessed again for a brief spell but after it's finished, the screen stays black and the music continues to play. What's going on???!?:nuts