CD32Load

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by jotd

yes, I'm currently using your .wav files a VOLUME option would be good. I've PM'd Toni to see if there's a way to do that.

Unfortunately CD32 does not have software controlled CD audio volume. CDTV has it and also most IDE and SCSI drives (with analog output) have software controlled volume. I guess it was too expensive feature for Commodore..

[jotd]

ok I'll use the VOLUME option of ... sox thanks Toni, this replay routine is really top notch stuff.

EDIT with volume at 50% it's really nice. sfx+cd music (but made with modules ) is really excellent. Still some bugs to iron out and the "loop" CD play feature to implement, and time for release.

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by jotd

The only possible thing on a non-CD32 amiga would be to send commands to the CD-ROM and mix the sound externally. But it probably requires to know the CD-ROM driver, etc... so no way.

Playing CD audio using direct hardware access would be quite easy with A600/A1200/A4000 internel IDE.

It probably is common enough to be worth the trouble. I can write example code, similar to CD32 CD play example but much less complex because TOC read and playback start is much simpler in ATAPI (SCSI) compared to CD32.

Every common IDE/SCSI hardware is emulated in UAE which makes implementing direct hardware access relatively easy. (IO is known, used chip registers are known etc..) So in theory it is not that difficult to create hardware specific "CD audio drivers". Main problem in my opinion is to be able do it without confusing native driver and allowing return back to OS. Fortunately CD audio playback is "fire and forget". (Unless autorepeat is wanted)

[jotd]

Aaah if you write such a code, then I'll try to do something with it. Most Amiga CD drives are IDE anyway. All users would need would be to externally mix the audio. Not a big deal.

[Amigajay]

Mentioned it in the other thread, but Lemmings would make a great next project for your CD audio treatment, the game has sfx or music option, pretty sure its only a one load per level so no data access until level finish or fail, plus plenty of cd audio from pc engine, 3do, pc versions.

[jotd]

nice idea. The only issue is: CD32 doesn't have a keyboard, and passwords are a pain to enter with the keyboard already, so with Earok Virtual keyboard feature it will be next to horrible (well it's great already, but the passwords are loooooooong and the VK method is a nice trick but needs the letters to be selected by scrolling on all letters...)

If I do that, I'll nuke the damn passwords to 1 => 120

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by jotd

nice idea. The only issue is: CD32 doesn't have a keyboard, and passwords are a pain to enter with the keyboard already, so with Earok Virtual keyboard feature it will be next to horrible (well it's great already, but the passwords are loooooooong and the VK method is a nice trick but needs the letters to be selected by scrolling on all letters...)

If I do that, I'll nuke the damn passwords to 1 => 120

Whdload supports the cdtv version which is the same as the cd32 one, joypad is used to enter passcodes

[earok]

Agreed with AmigaJay, CDTV version would be the best way to approach it. From memory, VK didn't work for Lemmings at all since it immediately treats the last entered character as "enter" (and with VK, you need to be able to scroll through characters after entering them).

One more thing to consider, I believe that the WHDLoad slave for Lemmings CDTV doesn't use the "LEMMINGS_PLANETSIDE" patch in the CD32 ROM, which is primarily useful for joypad support. Of course, there's Virtual Mouse support in CD32Load as well, but the implementation in the ROM is probably much better than my hacky attempt to replicate it!

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by earok

One more thing to consider, I believe that the WHDLoad slave for Lemmings CDTV doesn't use the "LEMMINGS_PLANETSIDE" patch in the CD32 ROM, which is primarily useful for joypad support. Of course, there's Virtual Mouse support in CD32Load as well, but the implementation in the ROM is probably much better than my hacky attempt to replicate it!

Yeah i thought of that, but at least it has the A-Z on screen so people can still use a mouse to enter passcodes instead of a keyboard.

[jotd]

Lemmings CDTV added to the todo list

[turrican3]

Do you have news j-f ???
About games, i think about :
unreal because the sfx are special (1 meg)
ninja warriors because the music is incredible but just sfx in-game
barbarian no music in game
fire and brimstone incredible intro music but no music in-game
silkworm no music in-game
lotus 2 perhaps the best lotus but no music in game !!!
prince of persia could use the music from the snes

if you need cd32 bootable iso of those games i could make them.


We could use some amiga remix music too.


By the way j-f will it be possible to use switch tracks with others... I mean the command will be : play the cdda from this exact position on the disc or will it be : play the second track or the third track, etc... ????

[jotd]

about the "switch tracks":

I'm not sure I understand. You would like to be able to add a shift so it would allow game compilations. Nice idea (I already thought of that, the gave it up). Well, it's easy to add a CDTRACKOFFSET parameter to shift the CD tracks, yes. I'll implement that.
If the music is not too big you could cram 3 or 4 games on the same disk.

About the requests:

this could go on and on & this is beginning to become off-topic for CD32load thread. CD-Audio in game requests should be done somewhere else. I'll try to start a separate thread about this and the "rules" and how to help me.

[Amigajay]

JOTD is there anyway you could update CD32load to ignore if the system has fastram? i’m updating some of my old CD32 discs, but the only stuff that fails if you have fastram is games loaded with CD32load.

[jotd]

strange, as I just tested (when my CD32 worked, just before it didn't work again) Body Blows Galactic AGA and it worked with the TF328 (whel Lotus Trilogy official CD32 crashed /showed a black screen ). CD32load is designed to use only chip memory. I'm surprised. How many games have you tested that way? which games?

I could test those games with CD32 & fastmem on Winuae. That will crash if fastmem is a problem, then I'm able to fix that, of course

BTW can you check Marble Madness CD32 with audio tracks? that one should work on real hardware.

[jotd]

that's fine by me! I prefer debunking fake bug reports than real bugs, no harm done Can't wait for someone to test MM. I ordered 2 KSS sony lenses, I hope I can fix my consoles ASAP The irony is also that I'm out of CD-Rs and those are hard to come by cheap by now (postage is expensive)

[jotd]

okay, both console(s) fixed. One is used as "production" machine (unexpanded), the other one is used as a "test" machine (terrible fire + IDE to test a lot of variants + keyboard).

This pair is very efficient, and now I can proudly say that the new CD32load (v0.40) works on real hardware with audio tracks.

There are still limitations on the loader (those aren't new) when loading small data parts a lot of times. So currently I can workaround a lot of those using FILECACHE or PRELOAD. For the ones I can't workaround (Mortal Kombat II is one of them), now I can investigate properly.

[Whitesnake]

Someone has possibly brought this up before but doesn't Worms The Directors Cut have non-used CDDA support in the executable ?

I always thought the soundtrack for Worms CD32 was great but not having any CDDA or mod music in Directors Cut was always a let down for me.

When I played around with Worms The Directors Cut a long time ago it always seemed like it was planned to have a CD32 version due to the CD32 Controller support in the executable. I bet it would have had FMV's too.

[earok]

Originally Posted by Whitesnake

Someone has possibly brought this up before but doesn't Worms The Directors Cut have non-used CDDA support in the executable ?

I always thought the soundtrack for Worms CD32 was great but not having any CDDA or mod music in Directors Cut was always a let down for me.

When I played around with Worms The Directors Cut a long time ago it always seemed like it was planned to have a CD32 version due to the CD32 Controller support in the executable. I bet it would have had FMV's too.

Andy Davidson's still around and was working on an update for Worms DC fairly recently. I could ask if he's still working on it and if he can enable CDDA audio like in the original.

[Amigajay]

Yeah Andy sounded upbeat that something would be released, but we haven’t heard from him since, maybe he had problems and stopped working on it?

[jotd]

New 0.41 version released (in the zone ATM, on my website later)

Good news is I found some of the issues that plagued execution on real hardware. Seems that adding a delay before loading helps some games which load very frequently small pieces (when FILECACHE isn't an option because the diskimage is over 901120 bytes).

For instance, Apydia & Shadow of the Beast 3 work perfectly. That makes Lemmings CD32 audio tracks work too (updated iso, got to test myself, though)

But others still refuse to work (MK II, Apano Sin, Another World) though they work perfect on emulation.

compat list (slightly updated): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...4LI/edit#gid=0