Generic WHDLOAD slave

[Gaula92]

Is it possible to have a generic Whdload slave for 17.2 that runs NDOS games?
No need for it to load KS 1.3.
I have been experimenting with a generic slave for Whdload 13.1 wich let me install Lupo Alberto, for example, but that's a DOS game and I had to use this old Whdload 13.1...

thanks!

[StingRay]

Which NDOS game is it you need a slave for?

[Gaula92]

I'd like to experiment with Nicky Boom and Chips Challenge.
Nicky Boom official slave is broken in plain 68000 machines, and Chips Challenge has added blitterwaits wich slowsdown the games on some phases on plain 68000.
Codetapper is going to release a fixed slave for the latter, but I like experimenting

[StingRay]

I will fix the Nicky Boom slave but please create a bug report for things like this. Bugs we don't know about can't be fixed. For Chip's Challenge you may also open a bug report or PM Codetapper here, might be he doesn't even know about the problems with Chip's Challenge.

[Gaula92]

Thanks for the Nicky Boom interest, StingRay!

Codetapper knows about Chips blitterwaits already, I wrote him an e-mail. He told me it would take some days, so I will just wait for it to happen when he has time and will

[StingRay]

Ok, fine then.

I've checked the Nicky Boom slave and can't find anything that should crash on 68000. Except for a non-working quit key on 68000 (I suppose) I can't see anything that's wrong. What actually is the problem with the slave?

[StingRay]

Slightly OT but that game makes me laugh. There is a check if the bootblock checksum is correct (i.e. same as original bootblock checksum) if not the relocation will be done to an odd address. Pahaha, useless protection is useless as it could be spotted in about 2 seconds.

[mailman]

Originally Posted by gaula88@hotmail

Is it possible to have a generic Whdload slave for 17.2 that runs NDOS games?
No need for it to load KS 1.3.
I have been experimenting with a generic slave for Whdload 13.1 wich let me install Lupo Alberto, for example, but that's a DOS game and I had to use this old Whdload 13.1...

It is quite impossible to have generic slave for NDOS games. NDOS means that loading routines are not DOS-like thus each game has to be adjusted for WHDLoad because it may have a different way of loading data.

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by StingRay

Slightly OT but that game makes me laugh.

Interesting, I already found 4 checksum checks in the game code, most probably the WHDLoad version doesn't work correctly because I can't see anywhere that these checks have been disabled.

[Wepl]

Originally Posted by mailman

It is quite impossible to have generic slave for NDOS games. NDOS means that loading routines are not DOS-like thus each game has to be adjusted for WHDLoad because it may have a different way of loading data.

Thanks

[Codetapper]

I should be able to add the code to prevent blitter waits being added to Chip's Challenge tonight.

[Gaula92]

Hey guys, I'm not in a hurry: Codetapper, I mentioned the Chip's blitterwaits patch because I'm experimenting with Amiga a while every day... I don't want to press you guys into patching and fixing the things I find, please do it at your own pace, enjoying, when you feel like it.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by StingRay

Interesting, I already found 4 checksum checks in the game code, most probably the WHDLoad version doesn't work correctly because I can't see anywhere that these checks have been disabled.

What are they doing if tampered in the game ? Just for the record ?

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by gaula88@hotmail

I don't want to press you guys into patching and fixing the things I find, please do it at your own pace, enjoying, when you feel like it.

I actually enjoy working on the Nicky Boom patch as I quite like this game. And since the old patch is, well, not exactly good, I'll completely redo it from scratch, you also have a PM.

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

What are they doing if tampered in the game ? Just for the record ?

One sets level number to 10 so game will crash next time it loads a level, others disable some flags which I don't know what they do and don't care either as I disabled the checksums anyway.

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by StingRay

Slightly OT but that game makes me laugh.

And once again I had a good laugh when I checked the game code. There is code to save all checksums to disk, it will overwrite the hiscores. This code is of course never called but it renders all checksum checks pretty much useless since a) it shows you how many checksums there are (there are 4, I found all of them already) and b) gives you all info you need, i.e. all correct checksums.

What's even worse, even though the manual protection has been disabled the checksums still pass, might be that they are there to make life harder for trainer makers or something.

Edit: That last statement of mine is wrong as I had disabled my "check if checksum checks are passed" code. If the manual protection has been tampered with the checksum checks will NOT pass and disable some flags.

[dlfrsilver]

heh i always thought that nicky was a game with a low protection, but no !
x1 protection on bootblock
x4 checksum shits in the game code

warfff :P