WHDLoad-games working on a 2MB ChipMem A600HD

[Allen1]

Originally Posted by e5frog

Well, I can't contact him if he's got nothing for sale, unless you still have his e-mail address?
I managed to get the postage down on the 6MB card to $10 instead of $35 - so it's "only" $85 - now I feel like going for that...

Shouldn't be a problem with a 6MB card instead, right?

...and hope that a A608 will turn up eventually.

Hi there e5frog,

the idea of showing you that link was so that you could maybe check now and then to see if he was selling more cards in the near future, he often only puts one card up at a time and when its sold he sometimes waits a few days and puts another one up and maybe get yourself a bargain. I don't know if there will be more to come but I do know that what he supplies is OK.

About the 6mb card, I am unsure as to whether it will work on an Amiga, I am under the impression that a 4mb card is as high as an Amiga 600 will go/recognise but I may be wrong about that so maybe a new thread asking how much PCMCIA Sram memory can an Amiga 600 use etc.

If the Amiga can use all of the 6mb and it is the right type of memory as it seems to be then that price is very good but you need to find out if an Amiga can handle it first.

[e5frog]

I don't know about "bargain", the two 2MB cards up there now had a BIN of $39.95, not a whole lot more. I'll keep an eye on them and see where it ends up, the seller has at least two more cards anyway.

I was under the impression the Amiga 600 could handle 8MB RAM via PCMCIA...

But if it doesn't work it could be hard to sell again, unless these are known to work on A1200 or so.


BTW I'm adding some more games in the thread starting message. I have also tried to run the "Add36k" before attempting to start some games but it always crashes.

[Allen1]

I know that it took me a while to find a card at a reasonable price and that they are pretty scarce at times hence the variation on prices, in the end I set a price limit and stuck to it, fortunately for me it paid off and I got a card for less than someone else paid on another auction I was watching. The 4mb Sram limit does look right according to wikipedia its a shame that there is a limit but 4mb was a lot of memory when the 600 was made.

Here's a piece from the wikepedia page (the rest of the page is full of good info on the 600):-

RAM could be upgraded to a maximum of 2 MB "chip" RAM using the trapdoor expansion slot. An additional 4 MB of "fast" RAM could be added in the PC card slot using a suitable SRAM card to realize the originally intended capacity of 6 MB. However, more "fast" RAM could be added with unofficial memory or CPU upgrades. For example, the A608 board adds up to a maximum of 8 MB additional RAM by connecting over the original 68000. Likewise, CPU upgrades could accommodate up to 128 MB RAM.

Some really serious money would be needed for a lot of that

[alexh]

Originally Posted by e5frog

Shouldn't be a problem with a 6MB card instead, right?

Won't work.

Originally Posted by e5frog

I was under the impression the Amiga 600 could handle 8MB RAM via PCMCIA...

Nope.

Originally Posted by e5frog

unless these are known to work on A1200

Nope too.

Originally Posted by e5frog

I have also tried to run the "Add36k" before attempting to start some games but it always crashes.

I remember it working fine on my A600. Maybe you downloaded it wrong, or uncompressed it incorrectly? Try unarchiving it on the Amiga?

[e5frog]

I've read that Wikipedia-text before - I even added/edited the text about the A608... lucky me not to have bought that 6MB card then... Guess I should arrange to get one of those 2MB cards.

I downloaded it from Aminet and unpacked it on the PC, 7zip was supposed to be able to handle it but it didn't so I downloaded some other program just to do that and then transferred it via SD-card through a PC-card adapter - it does it's job but crashes with guru after trying to start a game.
I previously tried adding it to start automatically with WHDLoad, it added the memory but then crashed.

Did you run it under KS3.1+WB3.1? Perhaps it needs something I have removed in my startup-sequence (see first message in this thread)?

Guess I don't need to care about it when I get a 2MB SRAM card.


Adding more games to the list...

[alexh]

Originally Posted by e5frog

Did you run it under KS3.1+WB3.1?

Yes.

[e5frog]

Any ideas of any games (preferably one of the tested above) that would benefit from 36kB extra?

I'll try this one instead then...
ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/amiga/utiliti...hes/add36k.lha

But it says:

Add36k should only called after boot, when no window but the standard
AmigaDos-Window is open.
When there are other windows open when Add36k is called, your Amiga will
surely take a very long trip to India.

How the heck is that supposed to work then, I would need to type manually in CLI then to run the game from there as well...
Can't really open any windows with that little amount of space and to have the window with the .info-file open when executing it is not recommended...

Crashes in WinUAE as well - please inform how you use it.

EDIT: Yup, if I open a Shell-window and write everything from there - it seems to work - not very convenient but it works. I thought I should check all the memory hungry programs later and see if there are any that should be able run on a 2MB A600. It would be possible to have script files on SYS:root I guess and only execute those. Is there a smooth way to execute a text file with the CLI-commands entered?
For example a textfile like:
add36k
cd sys:whdload/abcd/abc-game
whdload abc-game.slave

called sys:abc-game

...and run it just by typing execute (?) abc-game in the CLI window?

It would just be "necessary" for those few games that lack just that little to run.

[e5frog]

I checked the first game on the list Another World... it's only needs 1280kiB - but 768kiB of that needs to be expansion memory - I guess NOT ChipMem... If ChipMem had been allowed it would have been possible to run it - right?

So, looking in http://whdload.de/games.csv I can search for ,0, and I'll find all the games that require no Expansion memory, these should work if the total memory requirement is below 2MB...
Any games that require Expansion memory won't work - right?


However Bubble Bobble seems to run fine and it is said to require 4kiB Expansion memory... any thoughts on that? As does CannonFodder2 which also works and on CannonFodder2AL it says 512,508,1020 - 508kiB Expansion memory but that runs as well.

It seems it's a bit unclear.

So in conclusion, the ones that don't require Expansion memory according to the guide may work (if below 2MB) and the other ones below 2MB probably won't but there's a chance they will... So you basically have to test everything below 2MB anyway just to make sure.

[e5frog]

I have asked about booting with no startup-sequence to save on memory, is it possible to get a better result than 1 987 680 free bytes?
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=687226

[e5frog]

I am now done testing all the games I have currently installed, please help me extend the list if you're running WHDLoad on a 2MB A600.

[Galahad/FLT]

I see that Cannon Fodder works on your setup.

This is a 1meg game, but the way the game was installed was by ripping the disk filesystem to real files as opposed to just disk images.

Might be beneficial to look through the lists of WHDLoad games to see which ones have been ripped as real files as they technically should work.

Streetfighter 2
Spellbound
Charcarodon White Sharks
Nightbreed: Interactive Movie

All ripped to files, so technically they should work on your system.

Perhaps this might be an idea for the future to try and offer an option to rip more games to files as there is a much better chance of them loading on low mem systems.

[e5frog]

Well, as far as I can see Cannon Fodder "only" requires 1088 kB - which gives plenty of free room left over with a 2MB A600.

Streetfighter 2 should work as well judging from memory requirements, as should Spellbound, Carcharodon (only 512kB) and NightbreedMovie (512)...

Largest game successfully run by me on this setup seems to be Cannon Fodder... "Lemmings2 1MB" worked as well with a requirement of 1536kB total RAM memory but it's a little choppy because of loading while running the intro - not in-game though.

TheThreeStooges though was really terrible, seems to be loading for every little animation and change of screen, really terrible trying to play and according to the information it's not supposed to be that memory hungry. But I understand there are a lot of other factors involved as well.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by e5frog

Well, as far as I can see Cannon Fodder "only" requires 1088 kB - which gives plenty of free room left over with a 2MB A600.

Streetfighter 2 should work as well judging from memory requirements, as should Spellbound, Carcharodon (only 512kB) and NightbreedMovie (512)...

Largest game successfully run by me on this setup seems to be Cannon Fodder... "Lemmings2 1MB" worked as well with a requirement of 1536kB total RAM memory but it's a little choppy because of loading while running the intro - not in-game though.

TheThreeStooges though was really terrible, seems to be loading for every little animation and change of screen, really terrible trying to play and according to the information it's not supposed to be that memory hungry. But I understand there are a lot of other factors involved as well.

The point i'm making, is WHDLoad only needs to load those files it needs at the time of loading, whereas if i'd installed Cannon Fodder as disk images instead of files, I have no doubt you would not be able to play it.

So if you seek out more installs that ripped the disk system of the games, chances are they'll all work on your Amiga and it would be good information to share

[e5frog]

Ahh...

Of the games I've found I was mostly intrested in the ones listed, I didn't have any plans to go through everything I could find...

I'm interested to know though how "Boo Boo" made Gobliins work, I copied the contents of the three disks to a directory, even assigned all the disknames to that directory and tried starting the "loader"-file as it does in the startup-sequence after also setting the stack to 5000 (also as in the startup-sequence). It's the same files that are already in the WHDLoad-install so it should work the same in my opinion...

But all I got was the language selection screen and nothing else happen no matter what button I pressed.

There's a few other games as well that are installable the old fashioned way.

EDIT: Ha... it worked when I pressed 1 on the numeric keyboard when running WinUAE but not the ordinary 1-button. Too bad I have no numeric keyboard on the A600 - but it runs fine without WHDLoad. No need to even do any assigns, just start with the loader-program.
EDIT2: Yes - if I hold shift + 1 it starts! Great to have it on HD, not that changing disks were very messy with this though. Question now is how do I make this work just by double-clicking an icon.

I need to cd gamedir, stack 5000 and then run loader, if I wrote those three lines in a txt-file what shall I do then?

I can use "execute textfilewithcommandsfilename" in Workbench and it starts just fine, I guess I should add some icon to that text-file but how?

[e5frog]

This 2MB SRAM card went cheap... $13.16
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=320563675887

This one got no bids at all - at $9.99
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=110561721388

[e5frog]

Here's the solution how to run Gobliiins (and it seems also Gobliins2 and maybe even Goblins3) from harddrive on your 2MB A600:

Make a text file with this information
cd "directory_name_of_data_files"
newcli
stack 5000
loader
loader menu LG_GB (or this instead of loader to start directly in English)

Add a project icon (either by saving from IconEdit or add icon from a filemanager of your preference) to the file. Write IconX as Tool Type in the icon-Information...
Place file and .info file wherever you want to, double click it to start Gobliiins. You'll loose the benefits of running from WHDLoad though but it runs and it runs very well. If you're using a proper copy you need to be able to get past the copy protection...

[e5frog]

Same method works for Gobliins2 as well as Goblins3.

[Bloodwych]

Not sure if this is feasible, but you could create a tiny RAD: device (0 cylinders, 1 surface or something - about 3k in size) which has boot priority.

Then use a shell script and requester to add a WHDLoad game executable line to a text file which already has the lines, Addbuffers, Add36k etc or whatever else is needed for the environment. Finally, it copies the text file to the RAD: device as a startup-sequence and reboots. It should autoboot straight into the game. Plus if you soft reset the Amiga, it should boot straight back into the game.

I have something similar in the ClassicWB packs, but one person reported the RAD: doesn't mount properly on real Amiga's even though it works in WinUAE fine??

http://classicwb.abime.net/classicweb/multiboot.htm

Not sure if this will squeeze any more mem. Probably won't make much difference. How is it a CD32 can run more games? Is its version of WHDLoad different? Or does it just have fractionally more RAM available?

[e5frog]

That sounds interesting, I just wonder what games that currently won't run or runs jerky that would benefit from it. I'll try some more boots with no startup-sequence and clear as much memory as possible and try it the manual way - if there are a few that runs or runs better it could be worth a try.

CD32 has the same amount of RAM as far as I know but a 68EC020 processor @ 14.3MHz - that might help a little.

[tero]

Originally Posted by Bloodwych

I have something similar in the ClassicWB packs, but one person reported the RAD: doesn't mount properly on real Amiga's even though it works in WinUAE fine??

I use this on a1200/3.1 2mb without problems, and because i am lazy i set an entry in the rightclickmenu. works as designed, and a lot of games starts that won't from wb