SRAM with WHDload - machine freeze?

[gingerbeardman]

I have a 2MB SRAM card that when inserted into my A600 shows an extra 2MB of memory that is used by various parts of Workbench.

However, when i come to run a game through WHDload 16.9, the machine freezes on the WHDload game info screen.

Taking out the SRAM card and everything loads - albeit more slowly.

SRAM is not write protected. WHDload is the unregistered version. The game I am testing with is Wizball.

Any ideas?

Can't help but feel as a relative Amiga newbie I'm missing something...?

matt

[Cammy]

Hi Matt. I have an A600 with an A603 (so 2MB Chip) and 2MB PCMCIA SRAM too. I have Kickstart and Workbench 3.1 in mine though, and I have registered WHDLoad. I just tested Wizball on my setup and it worked perfectly.

I'm not sure why it won't load on your system, but it might be worth upgrading to 3.1 just in case that's what fixes the problem, and it's a much better operating system anyway. I think if the game is loading without the SRAM card, it wouldn't be related to WHDLoad being unregistered, but that's still something you should consider for the other benefits (faster loading, more games supported).

I also use a CF card as my hard drive. Have you made sure the MaxTransfer settings are set to 0x1FE00 ? Check with HDToolBox in the Tools drawer of your Workbench's boot partition. If you're using a CF card without this setting, it can cause all sorts of read errors.

I hope you get it working!

[gingerbeardman]

Hi Cammy,

Thanks for the reply.

I'd not read about MaxTransfer before, so have just made sure that was set correctly (it wasn't) but the problem persists.

I'm working on my CF card in UAE to speed things up, and that exhibits the same problem when FastRAM/SRAM is anything other than "None".

Also, my error, the games I am testing with are Wizkid (freeze with SRAM, runs without) and Sensible Soccer IntEd (freeze with SRAM, black screen without SRAM)

Any other ideas?

Thanks,
matt

[gingerbeardman]

OK, debugging with Vert from WHDLoad.

Wizkid runs fine if I run it from the command line, so it seems to be a software/config issue after all. Still unsolved, but one step closer.

other tests:
Sensible Soccer International Edition 512KB - runs OK
Sensible Soccer International Edition 1MB - fails with "address error"
Sensible World of Soccer 96/97 - "cannot allocate ShadowMem"

I've ran PrepCard on my SRAM and tried removing PRELOAD from the game icons. No difference.

Can this thread be moved?

[gingerbeardman]

Thanks for moving the topic.

I have just finished testing my Memory and SRAM with MemCheck - no errors found.

Also, I am now also a registered user of WHDLoad.

[Retro1234]

Originally Posted by gingerbeardman

I'd not read about MaxTransfer before, so have just made sure that was set correctly (it wasn't) but the problem persists.

Have a looke here
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=52988

Originally Posted by gingerbeardman

Wizkid runs fine if I run it from the command line, so it seems to be a software/config issue after all. Still unsolved, but one step closer.

When you say from command line do you mean Shell WB or booting without Startup-Sequence? and im guessing when you run from command line you dont use Preload

[Wepl]

have you tried option nomemreverse?

[gingerbeardman]

Hurrah! Progress.

Managed to get Wizball to load from double click by enabling the following in WHDLoad.prefs
NoMemReverse ;do not allocate memory reverse

Now to address the ShadowRam and Address errors for Sensi/SWOS...

(I am also now using WHDLoad 17)

I'll mark this SOLVED and start a separate thread.

Thanks,
matt