CD32Load

[jotd]

no, no, the TF is reading the CF. It's just that one lousy card reader destroyed one CF, but the 2 others (including one I prepped on Winuae) boot & work fine.

I was just saying that internal HD load routines (lifted from Rob Northen, unlike the CD ones, rewritten by Psygore, probably after reverse engineering Rob Northen CD routines) don't work on the CF. The card boot, but locks up when starting CD32load (at least when CD32load tries to access the disk)

that's why I think I'll merge CD32load changes to JST, which is more adapted to the CF (loading in RAM). If I add some CD32 pad emulation capabilities, it'll recycle JST (again) for TF owners.

[Amiga1992]

I understand what you mean, I guess that's a good compromise!

[spudje]

OK, I'm back. So this is what I have:

WinUAE setup (A600/A1200/A4000 IDE), see attachment. It actually only boots from CF after a reset. Power-on boot runs into the kickstart animation.
My setup has 3 FFS (international) partitions (total CF size is 4GB).

My setup is still on cd32load v0.30.
When running slaves with cd32load from HDD/CF make sure to use all following options:
- IDEHD (without any arguments)
- DISKUNIT=x (where x is your partition number, starting with 0, not the physical drive unit. So, 3rd partition means DISKUNIT=2)
- FILECACHE (no idea whether this is required but I put it in there)

Furthermore refer to the CD32load readme for other options. Some of them made troublesome games run.

Note, I'm running this in WinUAE for quick config, but after that on a physical CD32 with SX32 (Mk1), not with a TF328 (yet). Note on the real CD32 it boots every time from CF, no reboot required.

From my experience still not all CD32load games work from CF/HDD in WinUAE and even less in a real CD32 from CF/HDD.

Hope this helps.

[jotd]

thanks for clarifying DISKUNIT. This isn't my code.

Also, PRELOAD could make some games work even on scsi, for instance, take 1-disked games without any extra files: CD32load loads the only file in memory using OS routines, and doesn't need to read using HW routines again. A few games should work that way (provided enough RAM, ex Magic Pockets), but that's "cheating" and very limited.

[Amiga1992]

So DISKUNIT WAS the partition. I gotta look into it and see if it works. Thanks spudje!

[Amigajay]

@JOTD regarding Global Gladiators i found your old RUGCD iso from last year and took the files from there which had it in the working folder, and even used the same cd32load and startup but still fails on real hardware, the cd32 light kinda dims at the point of failure.

btw i have a TF card installed now, though i doubt fastram effects whdload games as they were written to take advantage of it? plus as i said the other Virgin games are working fine on the same setup, just this little blighter!

Would anyone be willing to burn a beta disc to test on a stock CD32 to see if it works? I would but my TF card has no bevelled edge so is extremally tight and i dont want to be removing it until we have a dedicated cd32 games launcher at some point in the future!

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

Would anyone be willing to burn a beta disc to test on a stock CD32 to see if it works?

YEs, me!

I would but my TF card has no bevelled edge so is extremally tight and i dont want to be removing it until we have a dedicated cd32 games launcher at some point in the future!

Which firmware version do you have? It is possible to have a disable switch now. I have installed one on mine.

Also, I know it isn't ideal, but XBench works OK for the time being. I'm using that.

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by Akira

YEs, me!


Which firmware version do you have? It is possible to have a disable switch now. I have installed one on mine.

Also, I know it isn't ideal, but XBench works OK for the time being. I'm using that.

Cool, thx Akira, here is the link to the test disc -

https://mega.nz/#!lR0FkJQQ!YK4gvX6hs...aeF-cMOsNuF88I

Everything else works bar Global Gladiators, if you could test to confirm it works/doesnt on a stock machine that would be good.

No idea about firmware on my card, no problems with it so not bothered atm, yeah XBench, sure i tried that before to run off disc but dont you need to install everything within an Amiga environment? i couldnt get it working.

I would prefer KGLoad but it hasnt been updated for years, i did use it on my nvidia shield portable.

[Amiga1992]

I mean XBench running off your TF328's CF.
XBench is so slow, I wouldn't dare running it off disc.

I will try this disc later and let you know!

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by Akira

I mean XBench running off your TF328's CF.
XBench is so slow, I wouldn't dare running it off disc.

I will try this disc later and let you know!

Yeah i meant i tried to get them to run off disc ages ago before AGS, but yes off CF is required at some point, but as i said id rather wait until something is up and running someone can post an image before i heave my board out of its socket!

[Amiga1992]

OK tested your disc with no TF328, Global Gladiators stuck on black screen after LED (filter) changed to off.
I guess this is the same behavior you are experiencing?

Just to be thorough, I tried to boot the WHDLoad version off the hard drive, and it acted the exact same way! So maybe it is related to the slave or game images?

(great compilation by the way!)

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by Akira

OK tested your disc with no TF328, Global Gladiators stuck on black screen after LED (filter) changed to off.
I guess this is the same behavior you are experiencing?

Just to be thorough, I tried to boot the WHDLoad version off the hard drive, and it acted the exact same way! So maybe it is related to the slave or game images?

(great compilation by the way!)

Yes it’s the same as I was experiencing. Works fine in winuae using the cd32 config with or without fastram, cd32load or whdload, it’s just on real hw it has a problem.

Thanks for testing though

[jotd]

You can try to start Global Gladiators with CD32load adding the MASKINT6 option, just in case the slave isn't up to date (I'm pretty sure having tested it myself on real HW but maybe it was lost in the official update: have you tested from my latest RUGCD compilation?)

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by jotd

You can try to start Global Gladiators with CD32load adding the MASKINT6 option, just in case the slave isn't up to date (I'm pretty sure having tested it myself on real HW but maybe it was lost in the official update: have you tested from my latest RUGCD compilation?)

The slave I used was the latest on whdload site (1.3) The rugcd iso I had was from last April/May, but as I said GG was in the ‘works’ folder from that disc.

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by jotd

You can try to start Global Gladiators with CD32load adding the MASKINT6 option, just in case the slave isn't up to date (I'm pretty sure having tested it myself on real HW but maybe it was lost in the official update: have you tested from my latest RUGCD compilation?)

Well good and bad news re. GG, the good news is with the MASKINT6 option it now runs! The bad news is the game has no sound at all (sfx or music) now!

Well handy in a way that winuae partly emulates the error but not having any music play with the MASKINT6 present, but it still plays the SFX so at least you could test to try and get the music back which may fix both, any ideas what the problem could be?

[jotd]

thanks for testing. It means that the interrupt handler was not properly patched / there's a second one I didn't see. Worth a revisit of the slave.

[Retro1234]

Does CD32load have any support for OSEmu slaves?

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by jotd

thanks for testing. It means that the interrupt handler was not properly patched / there's a second one I didn't see. Worth a revisit of the slave.

Hi JOTD have you had a chance to look again at this slave?

[jotd]

@Retro1234: if whdload slaves use OSEmu (OS emulation which isn't supported anymore and which doesn't need kickstarts), yes, it will work. Kickemu also work (you need kickstart image).

The only issue is that those slaves generally use small files and CD load is just sloooow on the real machine. And on HD, the kickstart games have a tendency to crash (I have to check again)

@Amigajay: I checked and the interrupt is properly handled (and I'm pretty sure I tested GG on real HW and it worked, maybe a slave update issue got to check that), besides my CD32 CD drive is not working anymore, so I'll have a hard time testing in on the real HW. If only Toni would add the "CIA-B level 6 interrupt of death" in CD32 mode (which would be only useful to test CD32load games...).

One interesting test to do would be to test the games (old versions) with my Terrible Fire to see if interrupt is still active (that would be great if it failed ). That I can do.

[Toni Wilen]

Correct method is to confirm if it is really stuck level 6 interrupt (set for example different COLOR0 value in each interrupt handler) and after it has been confirmed, I need exact same image and then it is my problem to find out why it happens