How to convert WHDLoad images into ADF floppies?

[isamu]

Hi guys. I was wondering if anyone can tell me if it's possible to convert WHDLoad games to ADF files? There are ADF games that are not working in FS-UAE but my WHDLoad versions work fine. In case you're wondering, I'd rather use floppies at the moment due to lack of savestate support on the WHDLoad side.

[jkg]

I dont think that is possible.. Not in a generic way at least.

What games are you thinking of? Other people may have solutions for specific games, either getting them to work from ADF or some sort of savestate hack with whdload (again game specific).

[isamu]

Originally Posted by jkg

I dont think that is possible.. Not in a generic way at least.

What games are you thinking of? Other people may have solutions for specific games, either getting them to work from ADF or some sort of savestate hack with whdload (again game specific).

My Turrican 1 2 and 3 floppies don't work. The whd versions work. To fair, the floppies are cracks

[FrodeSolheim]

Please consider using the open amiga game database with your floppy-based games. Then, if you find non-working games there, those can be fixed for everyone

[mailman]

Originally Posted by isamu

Hi guys. I was wondering if anyone can tell me if it's possible to convert WHDLoad games to ADF files? There are ADF games that are not working in FS-UAE but my WHDLoad versions work fine. In case you're wondering, I'd rather use floppies at the moment due to lack of savestate support on the WHDLoad side.

Well, if the game uses disk images and their size is 901120 bytes then it wouldn't be a problem to save these images back to disks. After all they are just standard disk images renamed to the corresponding Disk.1, Disk.2 and so on. Unfortunatelly given example of Turricans is not one of these games and it is not easy to transfer them back. A lot of knowledge is needed, and as jkg said - it is next to impossible for a regular Amiga user to do it.

[isamu]

Thank you gentlment, I appreciate it.

Frode, Toni or anyone else reading this....please PLEASE see what you can do about getting savestates working in WHDLoad. So many of my adf images are crap and don't work properly. I'd love to just stick to WHDload from now on because I know those work. If we can get savestates working there we're golden!

[FOL]

Originally Posted by isamu

Thank you gentlment, I appreciate it.

Frode, Toni or anyone else reading this....please PLEASE see what you can do about getting savestates working in WHDLoad. So many of my adf images are crap and don't work properly. I'd love to just stick to WHDload from now on because I know those work. If we can get savestates working there we're golden!

You could always create bootable floppies, that have all files needed on x amount of disks. It would boot extract all files to ram (if you have atleast 6 - 10 megs), then execute WHDload from there.
This method works great, myself and horace created over 50+ of these types of disks in the past for use with PSPUAE.

It then works to savestate as it saves the memory contents and as everything is in ram all is good.

[isamu]

Originally Posted by FOL

You could always create bootable floppies, that have all files needed on x amount of disks. It would boot extract all files to ram (if you have atleast 6 - 10 megs), then execute WHDload from there.
This method works great, myself and horace created over 50+ of these types of disks in the past for use with PSPUAE.

It then works to savestate as it saves the memory contents and as everything is in ram all is good.

Thank you FOL, that sounds like a great solution. But I'm confused and don't know how to create bootable floppies from my WHDLoad images. Can you tell me how to accomplish this task?

I extracted the files from my Turrican II WHDLoad archive. The archive contains the following files:

60000
Disk.1
Manual
Manual.info
ReadMe
ReadMe.info
Turrican2.info
Turrican2.Slave

[FOL]

Originally Posted by isamu

Thank you FOL, that sounds like a great solution. But I'm confused and don't know how to create bootable floppies from my WHDLoad images. Can you tell me how to accomplish this task?

I extracted the files from my Turrican II WHDLoad archive. The archive contains the following files:

You need to LHA the files up (multi lha's if required), so they will fit on disk. Also you need c: dir with basic stuff in (WHDLoad, execute, assign etc etc). You need a devs folder for your kickstarts (depending on if game needs kickstarts). Also you need s dir, for your startup-sequence.
You then setup your startup sequence to extract the lha archives to ram:, then tell it to cd to ram: and execute whdload.

It sounds complicated, but once you do it once, then you have a template.
If I recall, I went through the whole of A, B, C of WHDLoad in a few hours.
It was more an idea, so you had instant loading. No waiting for disk as everything was in RAM and you could savestate.

EDIT:- With turricanII, if you use CDTV version, you can run it without WHDLoad. Just dump everything in ram: and run it from there.

[TEOL]

I remember getting that rubbish to play but impressive looking game Citerdel in English running on ADF by getting the missing disk number from the WHDLoad and renaming it to the same as the other disks of the cracked version but I kept the disk number of the missing disk though then I put .adf on the end of the filename.

That missing disk actually worked to run the cracked version so I have a full cracked version of Citerdel to play although who would want to play that crap when Behind The Iron Gates is a much better FPS game on non AGA hardware.

But the fact that it can be done putting WHDLoad onto an ADF has been proven but for it to work it has to be dumped disk files on your WHD.

PD 1 disker games may not have the Disk.1 ect but thats because it's on one disk so in therory if you don't get those type of files on a 1 disker you can just drag the files on a formatted floppy and try to boot it and it should run.

The only one I'm sure about is what I did to get Citerdel English working though.

[FOL]

Originally Posted by TEOL

I remember getting that rubbish to play but impressive looking game Citerdel in English running on ADF by getting the missing disk number from the WHDLoad and renaming it to the same as the other disks of the cracked version but I kept the disk number of the missing disk though then I put .adf on the end of the filename.

That missing disk actually worked to run the cracked version so I have a full cracked version of Citerdel to play although who would want to play that crap when Behind The Iron Gates is a much better FPS game on non AGA hardware.

But the fact that it can be done putting WHDLoad onto an ADF has been proven but for it to work it has to be dumped disk files on your WHD.

PD 1 disker games may not have the Disk.1 ect but thats because it's on one disk so in therory if you don't get those type of files on a 1 disker you can just drag the files on a formatted floppy and try to boot it and it should run.

The only one I'm sure about is what I did to get Citerdel English working though.

You can tell lha to create multi lha files of a size you choose. i.e. 700kb.

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by isamu

please PLEASE see what you can do about getting savestates working in WHDLoad.

Save states do work with WHDLoad, they have just been forcefully disabled when using temporary hard drives (as FS-UAE Launcher uses for automatic WHDLoad support) as there is a chance of getting corrupt save files if the WHDLoad game keeps files open when the state is saved.

If the game just loads into memory and don't uses the file system, it'll probably work fine. (The worst thing that can happen is that your save game for the game gets corrupt, see http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=862610 for more details).

So if you want to void your warranty, you can enter the following into advanced settings in FS-UAE Launcher:

unsafe_save_states = 1

(But this is obviously not supported)

[isamu]

Originally Posted by FrodeSolheim

Save states do work with WHDLoad, they have just been forcefully disabled when using temporary hard drives (as FS-UAE Launcher uses for automatic WHDLoad support) as there is a chance of getting corrupt save files if the WHDLoad game keeps files open when the state is saved.

If the game just loads into memory and don't uses the file system, it'll probably work fine. (The worst thing that can happen is that your save game for the game gets corrupt, see http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=862610 for more details).

So if you want to void your warranty, you can enter the following into advanced settings in FS-UAE Launcher:

unsafe_save_states = 1

(But this is obviously not supported)

NOW you tell me! LOL

That's great Frode, thanks for letting me know. I have applied that "unsafe_" string and tried out a few games so far.....Lotus, Shadow of the Beast, Lotus 2, Indy The Last crusade and Faery Tale. All saving and loading states just fine so far. Gonna try a bunch more and see what happens....fingers crossed

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by isamu

Gonna try a bunch more and see what happens...

All games you test will most likely work fine, at least seemingly. If the game has a "real save game feature" and you spend hours playing - say, an adventure game - please make sure you use the game's save game function once in a while (and backup the state dir), so you can go back to that one if your save state gets corrupt.

[isamu]

Originally Posted by FrodeSolheim

All games you test will most likely work fine, at least seemingly. If the game has a "real save game feature" and you spend hours playing - say, an adventure game - please make sure you use the game's save game function once in a while (and backup the state dir), so you can go back to that one if your save state gets corrupt.

Thanks Frode and keep up the outrageously great work m8!