UFO Enemy Unknown A500

[bsa starfire]

Hi Folks,

I bought a copy of UFO for my 500 all nice and boxed and complete. It works fine(if glacially slow!). However a few things I have read on the 'net say it has music.
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=30047

The wiki entry says the 500 version has improved sound quality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO:_Enemy_Unknown

My copy has no music and just the very occassional bloop & ping sound effect. Whats the deal?
The game is on 5 disks, Acid Software release 1994. The back of the box says :Amiga A500 plus, A600, A1200. Required 1meg. Recommended joystick(!!!). Now that's weird as it's totally mouse controlled!
Is there a different version to this one with the music?

Best,
Chris

[lilalurl]

Just some guessing there:

- Improved sound quality probably only refers to some higher sample rates, so don't expect any major improvement compared to the PC version.

- How much RAM has your A500? 1Mb?

[2] Game requires a min. 1Mb ram. Extra memory is recommended, however, to access additional features (e.g. playback of music & sound FX simultaneously in-game, HD gameplay).

http://hol.abime.net/1788

If so, I guess the game gives priority to SFX and that's why you don't hear music.

[Lord Aga]

Is it just my imagination or does AGA version have totally different music ?

[lilalurl]

If you play on an A500 with extra RAM, you will have to set Music + SFX in the options in the Geoscape section of the game if you want to hear both.

Originally Posted by Lord Aga

Is it just my imagination or does AGA version have totally different music ?

Indeed.

The ECS version seems to have some "adapted for the Amiga" renditions of the original music.
But the AGA version sounds a bit weird. I recognise a few loops/samples/gimmicks but the themes themselves sound like messed up renditions .

It seems (from my quick tries) that the CD32 version has more tunes than the AGA Version. But even that version does not provide music during the battlescape sequences apparently (the only options during those are related to the scrolling).



I have had two issues with the ECS version (IPF 1677):

1) If I install on HD (I have a WB 3.1 installation) it installs fine, but if I run the main icon it states that "Geoscape is not executable, Battlescape is not executable" and keeps repeating itself.

2) If I play from disks, it gets stuck before starting a battlescape sequence (on disk 3 apparently). The disks are not write-protected as asked by the game. I tried on an A1200 + Fast RAM configuration, the same with CPU caches disabled and Enhanced in the Display options when booting, and with an A500 + 8Mb FastRAM. Same result each time (I extracted fresh IPF images each time).


Anyone got experience on real hardware? bsa starfire maybe, depending on how far you went in the game?

[bsa starfire]

Originally Posted by lilalurl

I have had two issues with the ECS version (IPF 1677):

1) If I install on HD (I have a WB 3.1 installation) it installs fine, but if I run the main icon it states that "Geoscape is not executable, Battlescape is not executable" and keeps repeating itself.

2) If I play from disks, it gets stuck before starting a battlescape sequence (on disk 3 apparently). The disks are not write-protected as asked by the game. I tried on an A1200 + Fast RAM configuration, the same with CPU caches disabled and Enhanced in the Display options when booting, and with an A500 + 8Mb FastRAM. Same result each time (I extracted fresh IPF images each time).


Anyone got experience on real hardware? bsa starfire maybe, depending on how far you went in the game?

Hi, I'm playing off floppies(backup's or original disks, as instructed on startup) on a 1meg 500 with kick1.3. I had trouble with disk 3 at first, had to copy it 3 times to 3 different disks before it worked right. I put this down to the fact I am using old re-cycled magazine cover disks tho. It also hung just before geoscape until I finally got lucky with a good disk. I have played 6 missions so far, including 1 terror attack(had to make a fresh disk 5 too to get that working!), glad I decided to save really often. Once you get used to the speed it's all good, I had the game running all day yesterday, just played a bit, went do something else then come back to it between jobs. It's an awesome game, lots of atmosphere, I know I will be putting a ton of time into this one.
Hope you get it working on your systems.
Best,
Chris

[lilalurl]

Thanks for the details.


The thing is I am emulating, so having issues on disk 3 is really weird
Even more if you have had issues on real hardware (maybe as you said due to "recycled" disk but still...)

I just noticed that there is no Whdload slave for the ECS version. Perhaps with a reason.


I guess it would need someone with enough technical knowledge to take a further look into the matter.




From your post I guess you never played the game on another platform before.
I can confirm you will probably spend a lot of time on it
It is one of those games that you start playing the evening, look at the time and think "oh it is already midnight. Just one more battle/turn". And in the end you notice it is already dawn outside...


I'll let you play the Amiga version(s) ofc, but if you ever want to, take a look at
- the DOS versions. Try to get a version from v1.0 to 1.2 because the next patches change some sound effects and not really in an enjoyable way, even if there are some user patches to rever those changes.

- the Windows version. You can use it with UFOexternder and get a lot of fixes and improvements such as having the music from the Playstation version and keyboard shortcuts:
http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=UFOextender
Download here:
http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?t...:UFOLoader.zip

You can get the music from the Playstation version here if you don't want to rip from an ISO:
http://www.xcomufo.com/x1music.html

Although I am of those purists who have a slight preference for the original DOS version for the Battlescape sections:
[ Show youtube player ]



And when you have finished UFO, don't forget to try the direct sequel Terror From the Deep. Pretty much the same game, although a lot of action takes place underwater. A bit less impressive than UFO in terms of atmopshere but a really enjoayble game. No Amiga version though.

[Zetr0]

I have always felt that the Playstation version has the best music, sadly the game is quite buggy - often crashing when assaulting 3 level UFO's!

but the music, divine!

More often I would play the Amiga version and have the Playstation disk CDDA music being played from my CDROM =)

[lilalurl]

Well, as I said above I have a slight preference for the original DOS music (nostalgia probably and it has a really eerie feeling) but the Playstation is indeed really a pleasure to listen to.

For those who would not know, the music for the Playstation version was done by none other than Allister Brimble:
http://www.mobygames.com/game/playst...efense/credits

[Lord Aga]

Wow, now you got me curious I'll have to fire up the PS and have a looksy (hearsy).

Regarding UFO on A600, it works just fine on real hardware. Installed on a HD (CF). Fine, meaning it does run and it doesn't crash. But it is slow as mud Geoscape takes ages to move. A1200 with fast RAM is the way to go for UFO.

[Zetr0]

I really wish they had brought out a version that would work on a graphics card - not for any reason other than to have 256 colours on an A2000 or perhaps a hack-patch for a Indivision ECS to display 256 colours - this would be a delight

I could finally have a 256 colour UFO running on my 040@33 A2000.... I am just not happy with it running my several other machines... clearly

I would suspect that the screen modes can be promoted with something like New Mode - I should give this a go at some point.

[4mat_]

I recently stumbled across the a1200 version on YouTube as a video had (incorrectly) credited the music to me. I worked on the a500 version which, as stated above, has renditions of the pc tracks. (think I had about 50kb per song or less, not much at least) afaik the team I was working with only did the a500 version so I don't know anything about the aga one.

[lilalurl]

Originally Posted by 4mat_

I recently stumbled across the a1200 version on YouTube as a video had (incorrectly) credited the music to me. I worked on the a500 version which, as stated above, has renditions of the pc tracks. (think I had about 50kb per song or less, not much at least) afaik the team I was working with only did the a500 version so I don't know anything about the aga one.

Thanks for precising that.

It seemed a bit weird that an artist made a pretty correct rendition of the original for the A500 version and decided to make some completely different music for the AGA version.

The video may have used the credits we have currently on HOL:
http://hol.abime.net/1789

I am not sure where those were taken from. I'll ask the other members if they know and change the credits accordingly.

Originally Posted by Lord Aga

Regarding UFO on A600, it works just fine on real hardware. Installed on a HD (CF). Fine, meaning it does run and it doesn't crash. But it is slow as mud Geoscape takes ages to move. A1200 with fast RAM is the way to go for UFO.

So you manage to launch the game from HD. That's interesting. I'll try to run with a different emulated processor. Or perhaps starting with a WB 2.0 disk. I guess the result will be interesting.

[Lord Aga]

Originally Posted by lilalurl

So you manage to launch the game from HD. That's interesting. I'll try to run with a different emulated processor. Or perhaps starting with a WB 2.0 disk. I guess the result will be interesting.

Yes, it just works. No hassle.
But, I forgot to mention my A600 is running WB 2.1. And it has 2MB chip + 4MB fast. Don't know if that makes any difference.

[lilalurl]

Well, at least it will give me a good reference when I do a battery of tests. If I cannot manage to get the game to work with a similar configuration I will have to point it out to Toni.

[blade002]

Be careful with this game, on a slow Amiga the think times between each round become more and more long until you end up waiting 10 minutes at time but that's much later into the game.

Once I accelerated my Amiga back in the day it lessened the wait time by about 95%, the change was astonishing!!

[lesta_smsc]

Yeah, game far too slow to be enjoyed on 'standard' Amigas. Reminded me of the game Syndicate!

[mailman]

Originally Posted by bsa starfire

Hi Folks,

I bought a copy of UFO for my 500 all nice and boxed and complete. It works fine(if glacially slow!). However a few things I have read on the 'net say it has music.
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=30047

The wiki entry says the 500 version has improved sound quality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO:_Enemy_Unknown

My copy has no music and just the very occassional bloop & ping sound effect. Whats the deal?

I guess your Amiga has not enough memory to run the music.

[lilalurl]

Originally Posted by lilalurl

I have had two issues with the ECS version (IPF 1677):

1) If I install on HD (I have a WB 3.1 installation) it installs fine, but if I run the main icon it states that "Geoscape is not executable, Battlescape is not executable" and keeps repeating itself.

2) If I play from disks, it gets stuck before starting a battlescape sequence (on disk 3 apparently). The disks are not write-protected as asked by the game. I tried on an A1200 + Fast RAM configuration, the same with CPU caches disabled and Enhanced in the Display options when booting, and with an A500 + 8Mb FastRAM. Same result each time (I extracted fresh IPF images each time).

Well, the not executable files issue was easy to solve: the files were simply missing the executable flag.


Lord Aga, do you remember if you had this issue when you installed and first played the game and solved it this way?
Otherwise it would mean there is an issue when installing the the game with an A1200 (or Winuae has that issue).


UFO ECS installed on an A1200 HD runs fine and you can enter the Battlescape sections without issues.

There is music played during the Battlescape section, unlike the AGA version.

[Lord Aga]

Huh, what, no.

On A600 (2.05 ROM, 2.1 WB, 2CHIP + 4FAST) it simply installs (original installer, not WHDload) and plays. I was horrified by its slowness and surprised with the different music (than the AGA version) but apart from that there was nothing unusual. Nor were there any interventions necessary.

On A1200 (3.0 ROM, 3.0 WB, 2 CHIP + 4 FAST) back in the days, I had the first AGA version, and then the platinum version, and both of them ran without any problems (platinum version was significantly faster, optimized?). Must have finished them a hundred times

[idrougge]

I installed the A500 version on my Furia A600. The file protection flags were, as stated before, incorrect, so I fixed them using "Protect ALL #? +rwe" and the game could start.
However, the game usually locks up when building the first base, or at the very least when switching to the very first interception screen.

Any tips?