HDD/WHDLoad on A500

[Kurasiu]

Hey, thanks for the feedback!

I went with the kipper2k's card, installed the WB3.1 with WHDLoad and everything's great - thanks so much for everyone who replied here!

[Fendrix]

Give us some pr0n

Please

/Fendrix

[Kurasiu]

Ah, I guess my happiness was a bit short-lived, as today I checked several WHDLoad games and applications, and sadly most of them refuse to work.

Stuff like Eye of the Beholder 1 shows a "mismatching file size during data load" error, pointing to either empty file ('') or some random garbage string ('@DJ#FDO' etc.). I googled that it might have something to do with the filesystem on the drive, so I created a new partition with SFS filesystem, but the same thing happens there.

On the other hand - tried Space Hulk, it completely crashes my A500 during loading (when the WHDLoad info window is present).

And the best part? I configured the WinUAE to match my Amiga 500, mounted the CF card there, booted it and bam - all of the WHDLoad installs, that refuse to work on the real system, work like a charm in WinUAE.

I just don't know what to do anymore. Any suggestions?

[Retro-Nerd]

Have you set the correct maxtransfer value of 1fe00 in HDTools for the partitions? Copied files get corrupted with a wrong one.

[Kurasiu]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

Have you set the correct maxtransfer value of 1fe00 in HDTools for the partitions? Copied files get corrupted with a wrong one.

Yes, I forgot to mention it, but indeed, the maxtransfer rate on both partitions is set to 0x1fe00.

The only two WHDLoad installs I managed to run just fine (with saving and stuff) are Ultima IV and Sensible Soccer (512K version).

[Retro-Nerd]

Maybe some game needs exact 1MB chipram (and a few needs even more). You have only 976KB left in your screenshot. Is anything in the WBstartup, how many WB colors have you set (try to reduce). I assume the kickstarts in devs/kickstarts are the proper ones? And a certain amout of WHDLoad slaves still needs a 68020 cpu.

[Kurasiu]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

Maybe some game needs exact 1MB chipram (and a few needs even more). You have only 976KB left in your screenshot. Is anything in the WBstartup, how many WB colors have you set (try to reduce). I assume the kickstarts in devs/kickstarts are the proper ones? And a certain amout of WHDLoad slaves still needs a 68020 cpu.

I guess the kickstarts are valid, as Ultima IV requires the 1.3KS present in dev/kickstarts and runs just fine.

I'm just wondering why they refuse to work on a real system, even though they perfectly work on the same environment in WinUAE. (68000, 1 MB chip + 8 MB fast, the same CF card with WB3.1)

[Retro-Nerd]

WHDLoad is v18.1?

[Fendrix]

Hi.
I have almost the same setup. A500Plus with 2Mb chip + A508IDE with 16Gb CF + Kickstart switch 1.3/3.1, running ClassicWB 68K 3.1.
I'll check those games later.

[Fendrix]

No problem with the games.
I recommend that you do the full 1Mb onboard chipmem + using 1Mb in trapdoor.

/Fendrix

[alexh]

I am pretty sure people here could help supply the missing chips to convert your A500 rev8A into an A500+

You would need an A501+ (or a remake from Kipper2k) too.

But you could try to use some of the tools to reduce chip ram usage. Prior to launching these games. (Downside is that you will have to reboot after playing the game to restore normal workbench)

You can switch off the hard drive cache

addbuffers dh0: -999

You can reduce workbench to 1-bitplane

add36k

Try ClassicWB's Multiboot or TinyLauncher to save memory before launching WHDload?

[Kurasiu]

Thanks for the suggestions! I'll try them later.

Right now someone suggested to use the already in-game installers (like in the case of Eye of the Beholder, Wizardry 6, Ultima 6 and Amberstar) - and indeed, when I install the games using those installers, they work just fine.