CD32Load

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by earok

I thought Turrican 1 worked for some reason so I started investigating, it actually needs the KillAGA utility to run on a real console (presumably Tude or something similar would also work). I've chucked a test version in the Zone for you - note that this version does break CDTV compatibility. Regarding Turrican 2, for some reason I'm using the WHDLoad slave of the Turrican 2 CDTV release on my compilation, I'm not entirely sure why I did that.

Thanks for that, tested on a real CD32 and it runs, red and blue for the fire buttons work fine, tiny bit of graphical errors but nothing worth worrying about.

For completists it would be great to get the remaining non-working CDTV games running on the CD32 at some point.

Originally Posted by earok

Totally weird that Sim City doesn't work, it's actually referred to by volume name ("SIM_CITY") in the CD32 extended rom, so compatibility was at least planned. I may need to look into this deeper.

Yeah I grabbed this compatible list off a site that said it tested them, but I'm sure i read it did work somewhere else, I'll get around to burning them all and do some testing in a couple of weeks to let you know.

Originally Posted by earok

Indiana Jones / Loom are non-English releases right? I wonder if it's possible to graft English and/or other language support into them.

Yeah both German i think.

Originally Posted by earok

I would add Wrath of the Demon to the non-working list, since controls are totally messed up (AFAIK it expects a CDTV control in mouse mode to play).

Ok thanks for the info.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by earok

Tried to give it a go on Hard N Heavy - it seemed to work up until the first level loaded, and then simply froze. Not sure if this is relevant but the slave is very old (2000)

I did a single file AGA fix yeara ago for Hard n heavy

[jotd]

about Loom & Indy CDTV, I think you just have to replace data files (except executable) by english floppy versions and it will work (be sure to XFD unpack the files if you take them from a whdload install)
@earok: if you can help me to fill the .csv file that would be cool. I could improve my script to help you generate your menus, even for non-CD32load stuff.

[nujack]

Originally Posted by earok

@Nujack Steve's suggested that himself, unfortunately without an FMV module myself I don't have any way to test.

AFAIK WinUAE already supports FMV-emulation. Furthermore I can do the Tests for you or maybe sent you my module for tests.
There is only one game available(CannonFodder) which supports the FMV-module officially and it would be great to see the new clips in a better quality.

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by nujack

AFAIK WinUAE already supports FMV-emulation. Furthermore I can do the Tests for you or maybe sent you my module for tests.
There is only one game available(CannonFodder) which supports the FMV-module officially and it would be great to see the new clips in a better quality.

I owned one when they came out, i was royally annoyed when i put Cannon Fodder and no FMV intro came up.

Btw The Final Gate supports it to, it replaces the CDXL video when the FMV card is detected.

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by earok

@Stingray Given it a try with Custom2=1, both on 1.0 and your brand new 1.01, it still does the same thing on CD32Load (crashes to rainbow screen).

Not surprising as I just updated the patch to use WHDLoad v17+ features to display the options in the splash window and added a few blitter waits, there were no major changes and the update didn't have anything to do with CD32Load.

What exactly is a "rainbow screen"? Screen with changing colors?

I may check CD32Load later as I'm curious what's happening,

[jotd]

FMV modules were VERY rare right?

in James Pond 3 startup sequence the programmers complain that CBM did not provide them any FMV module
"how CBM expects the game to work with FMV is beyond me guv" (something like that)

[jotd]

Originally Posted by StingRay

Not surprising as I just updated the patch to use WHDLoad v17+ features to display the options in the splash window and added a few blitter waits, there were no major changes and the update didn't have anything to do with CD32Load.

What exactly is a "rainbow screen"? Screen with changing colors?

I may check CD32Load later as I'm curious what's happening,

CD32Load ignores V17+ features, should work without trouble.
The "rainbow screen" is a "blitz" triggered by CD32load to display errors. ATM I did not add an error message display system with fonts, etc. If someone has this handy I'll gladly include it in CD32LOAD.

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by jotd

CD32Load ignores V17+ features, should work without trouble.

Which it does using WHDLoad.

Originally Posted by jotd

I did not add an error message display system with fonts, etc. If someone has this handy I'll gladly include it in CD32LOAD.

What are the requirements? Does it need to be system-friendly? If not I can adapt the debug output from my demo-OS for your needs.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by StingRay

Not surprising as I just updated the patch to use WHDLoad v17+ features to display the options in the splash window and added a few blitter waits, there were no major changes and the update didn't have anything to do with CD32Load.

What exactly is a "rainbow screen"? Screen with changing colors?

I may check CD32Load later as I'm curious what's happening,

I would have thought rainbow screen would be typical moving contents of $dff006 into a colour register, maybe a remnant left over in the game itself?

[jotd]

@Stingray: no, no OS friendly that's the point
@Galahad: that's my poor man's debug, with color codes / "blitz" stuff.

[earok]

@amigajay
- Upgrading all non-working CDTV games to work on a CD32 would be a worthy project. I'll keep it in mind for the future. I do especially like the idea of doing upgraded conversions (eg porting the data files as per JOTD's suggestion)

@jotd
- I'll take a look at WOTD floppy myself at some stage. Could it be something to do with the POTGO writes..?
- Will find some time soon to populate your CSV with my control suggestions. My "160 games" needs a proper rebuild at some point, as well as a lot more games added (maybe merge it with your compilation?) so we could use it for that. Is it worth including Jungle Strike OCS in there? The CD32 AGA version is only a couple of meg and should work fine.
- I should have asked - does this work with JST loaders too, or just WHDLoad?
- Also does it support whdload slaves that load from individual files, if not is there plans to do so? I tried to test with Moonstone but didn't have any luck.

@nujack
- Hold on to your FMV module, I know they're worth a fortune If there's no issues with WinUAE support I'll investigate at some stage.



Edit:
Whitesnake's list is slightly out of date, several of the games on it DO now have full CD32 pad support in WHDLoad (North & South, 1943 etc) but it's still a great list of games that could use CD32 pad support.

[SolderPCB]

earok does it work for BMX Simulator? it requires Space / N / S keys

I remember you tried a joy2key program before.

or North Sea Inferno.

[Retro1234]

Ive tested a few games and they seemed to work well - paused key can be a bit funny on games anyway - press to fast and your not paused etc. I realy hope to see this for non CD32 I tried CD32load on A1200 but no luck

[earok]

@ransom unfortunately Mega seems to have some weird issues from time to time :S give it a little while and try again

@booboo are there any that aren't on JOTD's compatibility list a page or two back? If so please let us know what they are.

[jotd]

hi

So many questions! So much activity! that's good

Originally Posted by earok

@jotd
- I'll take a look at WOTD floppy myself at some stage. Could it be something to do with the POTGO writes..?

Maybe. You can run it with NOJOYPAD and it won't try to remap. Well, not very good, but that's a test. And I just got an idea: if BLUE button is remapped to $00/NIL, I could avoid tampering with POTGO and that would make some games run better (maybe). I saw Jim Power controls behaving strangely too.

Originally Posted by earok

- Will find some time soon to populate your CSV with my control suggestions. My "160 games" needs a proper rebuild at some point, as well as a lot more games added (maybe merge it with your compilation?) so we could use it for that. Is it worth including Jungle Strike OCS in there? The CD32 AGA version is only a couple of meg and should work fine.

A merge would be cool. Remember that each game must be tested or the CD will work for some games and won't for others, which will be annoying.
And a too big list will be unpractical with AGS (do you have a more recent version as source code suggests there is one? /a doc on the controls?).

Originally Posted by earok

- I should have asked - does this work with JST loaders too, or just WHDLoad?

whdload only. JST native slave structure has too many functions and is too complex. However, if we have source for JST slave it's easy to convert it to WHDLoad. Do you have "SWOS" in mind? because whdload version crashes badly on JST/CD32LOAD (but maybe I'll find a way to fix it)

Originally Posted by earok

- Also does it support whdload slaves that load from individual files, if not is there plans to do so? I tried to test with Moonstone but didn't have any luck.

Yes, it works for some (ex: Arkanoid). Moonstone locks up indeed, but that's probably for some other reason. I recently fixed a bug related to file-based loaders, but did not find any improvements... Still searching.
When Bert releases his version (if he does it) compatibility will raise
(however some slaves work with JST but not with CD32load! strange. but the first step is making them work with JST)

[Amiga1992]

AGS is really annoying, slow and complicated. It would be great if we can come up with a better front-end for CD32 multigame compilations.

[jotd]

We could just ... load workbench and click on the scripts...

BTW:
Working games tested so far:

- Arkanoid
- Assassin
- Agony
- Pang
- Magic Pockets
- Addams Family
- Jaguar XJ220 (note: old Mr Larmer slave works, newer does not)
- Robocop 3
- Desert Strike
- First Samurai
- Lotus 2
- Lotus 3
- Chuck Rock
- Chuck Rock 2
- Goal! (note: old Mr Larmer slave works, newer does not)
- James Pond
- QWAK
- Kick Off 2 (cannot save of course!)
- Full Contact
- Xenon 2
- Jungle Strike
- Supercars 2
- Superfrog
- Zool (AmigaFun)
- Z-out
- Shinobi
- Supercars
- BattleSquadron
- Arkanoid 2
- Deliverance
- Killing Game Show
- DataStorm
- Cool Spot
- Leander
- Risky Woods
- R-Type
- R-Type 2
- Alien III
- Dynablaster
- Frenetic
- Klax
- Ninja Warriors (create NinjaWarriors.save empty)
- Nitro
- Toki
- X-Out (old 2 disk slave, did not test Stingray's slave)
- Gauntlet II
- Oh No More Lemmings (0.3. Tested with non-data disk version that asks for password).
- Woodys World
- North Sea Inferno
- Pinball Dreams (from CD32LOAD V0.05)
- Castle Kingdoms
- Death Trap Also
- Elvira Arcade
- Indianapolis 500
- Mortal Kombat
- Mercs
- F-16 Combat Pilot (probably needs a keyboard!!)
- Beast Busters
- Shadow of the Beast
- Pacmania
- Jim Power (need to map Pause, and HELP to levelskip)
- Arkanoid 2 (space: pause)
- Battle Squadron: map F1->F4/pause does not remap

gfx corruptions:

- BodyBlowsGalactic: gfx trashed, plays very fast
- Overdrive (Team 17) (beam delay loop problem on WinUAE)
- Apocalypse seems to load and handle keyboard just fine, but has severe graphical glitches during gameplay?
- Myth (system 3) (beam delay loop problem on WinUAE)
- After Burner 89
- Dogs of War: ok but cannot remap keys: needs keyboard

starting up but crash along the way:

- Chase HQ II locks up splash screen while music is playing
- Thunderhawk shows the Core logo, second screen: name entry OK then crash in cd32load RNC decrunch routine
- Gods: crash just before the game menu (like in JST)
- Unreal (locks up on "present" screen)
- Hard N Heavy: locks up just after first level loads
- BodyBlows: resets just before fight
- Lemmings (2 disk version, slave 1.4). crash after intro: cd32load overwritten + debug key
- Prime Mover: HALT lockup during load

non-working at all:

- Final Fight: wrong version!
- After Burner 88: 0,1,2, backspace pauses, retest NOVBRMOVE: division by zero should be OK!
- Lotus I: wrong version / reboots
- Great Courts: illegal
- Prince Of Persia: illegal instruction in $4
- Ikari Warriors: reboot
- Mega Lo Mania: HALT3
- MrNutz: HALT3
- Chaos Engine 2: HALT3
- Wrath of the Demon: problem with controls
- Road Rash: illegal
- Chase HQ: illeg CCCCCCC 1FFxxx
- Aaargh! reboots!!
- Robocop: HALT
- Brat: abort after a GetFileSize
- Alien Breed: nasty lockup
- Project-X SE: run time error relocate
* Beach Volley Works. Gamepad mapping a bit temperamental, intro seems to run slow
* * Citadel seems to crash sometime during the intro (we get a blank screen instead of the FMV stuff, but the sound continues)
* Epic works, but seems to have severe keyboard handling issues (I didn't test past the name-entry screen)
* Alcatraz Works, sluggish during gameplay though (intro + menus are silky smooth). Keyboard issues. Maybe for the compatibility list?


OSEmu/Kickemu games won't work (there's a check at startup)

[Amiga1992]

But can't OSEmu/Kickemu installs be bettered/reworked? I thought it was an easy way to make some games work, but on limited memory systems, they don't work.

About the frontend, I have been thinking about making one on my own for some time, perhaps I manage to do it this year. Something simple and to the point, quick and easy to use. 2016 project i guess

[Amigajay]

Yeah i too dislike the large list menu's, far too slow and put me off using them, i'd rather a simplistic quick loading menu, even something as simple as the Dangerous Streets/Wing Commander disc, select the grey tab and hey presto.