Software Failure

[Disney Rob]

I am sure this has been covered many many times in the past, but I could not find anything on about it, so sorry for rehashing old news but....
I have started to fool around with WINAUE and I am getting some games to work, but others not so much.

It seems a lot of them hand on the AMIGA loading screen, and no matter what I do, they do not advance.
Also sometimes I get a black screen with the following message:
Software Error Press left Mouse Button Error 8000 Task 00011720
I press the left mouse button and the computer freezes. How can I get beyond the load screen , and the error screen in these games?
I thank you for the help.

[digitalMedic]

You may want to post your config file and the log files of the session that happens when you experience a crash. Not sure anyone can help without knowing what you have set up and what games are crashing. Otherwise, the people on here are amazing when they help, especially Toni.

[DamienD]

Heya Disney Rob,

Welcome to EAB

From what you've said, probably a wrong Kickstart or not enough RAM has been used for these games. Are they OCS / ECS games or AGA?

...but yes, please let us know exactly which games and what configuration you've set

[AMIGASYSTEM]

You're probably using an inadequate AMiGA model.

From QuickStart Menu you have to choose:


- Games OCS/ECS -> AMiGA 500 (512KB Chip RAM + 512 KB Slow RAM)
- Games AGA -> AMiGA 1200 (basic)


Games WHDLoad ECS/OCS/AGA -> AMiGA 1200 (4/8 MB Fast RAM)

[Disney Rob]

Okay here goes... Hope this will help
Model A500
Configuration 1.3 Rom OC5 512 KB Chip + 512 KB Slow ram (most common)

Kickstart 1.3 (34.5) (A500-A2500-A300-CDTV)

CPU 68000 Fastest Possible
Chipset OCS Chipset Extra A500
Advanced ChipSet Compatible Settings
Rom Main Rom File KS Rom v1.3
Ram 512


Games are ADF file extension
Have I downloaded the wrong games. If so, where can I find the correct ones.

I hope this is enough information If not please tell me what else you need to know.

[DamienD]

No need for "Fastest possible" if you are playing A500 or even the majority of A1200 games.

Also most A500 games run with "ECS Agnus" just fine, only a few very old games usually require "OCS".

Please list the games / files that you're having trouble with using with this configuration; as this will really help us to give advice

[Toni Wilen]

I don't think you have "slow ram" (or any ram expansion) enabled because software failure task value is in chip ram.

[Disney Rob]

My friends my deepest thanks.
I changed my config setting to ECS ANGUS, and all the software errors have gone away.
I went from about 10% games working to about 90%
I will live with 90%.
Some of the games I have just might not be compatible, but enough of them are to get me going here
Again I thank you.

[AMIGASYSTEM]

Can you write down some 10% game names that don't work?

[Disney Rob]

I will go through and try each game and see which ones do not work. Right off the bat I can see Secret of Monkey Island, and Shuttle. Both these games after loading go to a black screen and stay there. At first I thought it took a while to load, but the screen stayed black for about three minutes. But as I said I will try to come up with a listing of the allgames that crash

[Mclane]

Change to A500+ and you should see some more games working, the reason is that the a500 was the initial model, it was superseded by the 500+ so more titles were targeted for that machine which had minor differences.

Some stuff ie AGA software need the A1200 mode, its normally A500+ with a bit of extra ram just to be sure, keep it simple and as close to how the machine came initially and you won't go far wrong...

If you do need to use the A500 config then avoid using 2 drives as it will break some games...

[Toni Wilen]

Almost nothing was targeted for A500+ because everyone had A500s and lots of games don't like KS 2.0.

Usual problem is too many floppy drives, sometimes even single extra drive is too much (each drive uses some RAM), as a workaround you can try setting 1M chip RAM or even more (and still keep some fast RAM).

[Mclane]

I stand corrected, I'd presumed that the software makers would have wanted to keep current with the machines

Isn't it around 40k the drives steal ?

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Mclane

Change to A500+ and you should see some more games working <snip>

What rubbish Mclane!!!

Originally Posted by Mclane

If you do need to use the A500 config then avoid using 2 drives as it will break some games...

Some very old OCS "1985 - 1988" games maybe...

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Almost nothing was targeted for A500+ because everyone had A500s and lots of games don't like KS 2.0.

Exactly

[Mclane]

Pah, the two drives was at least right...You sod off and get a new machine

Cheeky edit there D.

I bet you have your poor mum playing Sensible Golf

[AMIGASYSTEM]

Originally Posted by Mclane

Change to A500+ and you should see some more games working, the reason is that the a500 was the initial model, it was superseded by the 500+ so more titles were targeted for that machine which had minor differences.

A500 Plus (Kick 2.04) is the least suitable for playing is the least compatible with OCS games, A600 (Kick 2.05) is more compatible, A500 is the right choice for OCS/ECS games.

[AMIGASYSTEM]

Originally Posted by Disney Rob

I will go through and try each game and see which ones do not work. Right off the bat I can see Secret of Monkey Island, and Shuttle. Both these games after loading go to a black screen and stay there. At first I thought it took a while to load, but the screen stayed black for about three minutes. But as I said I will try to come up with a listing of the allgames that crash

Secret of Monkey Island -> Works well with A500 512KB Chip + 512KB Slow Ram, see video attachment


Shuttle - The Space Flight Simulator -> Works well with A500+, A600, A1200, (On the label of the Original game it says that it also works with the A500, probably either they were wrong or it's the fault of the cracked versions)


Test Video: Secret of Monkey Island on A500

[Tomislav]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

...
Usual problem is too many floppy drives, sometimes even single extra drive is too much (each drive uses some RAM), as a workaround you can try setting 1M chip RAM or even more (and still keep some fast RAM).

1M Chip won't help if program loads at absolute address for which programmer though that is beginning of free memory at startup.

Also, some games (even some on more than 1 disk) use only DF0:.

[AmigaHope]

Originally Posted by Tomislav

1M Chip won't help if program loads at absolute address for which programmer though that is beginning of free memory at startup.

Also, some games (even some on more than 1 disk) use only DF0:.

There were a few games that broke if you had a second floppy drive plugged in (because they conflicted with the memory allocated to support the second drive), and a few more that worked with 2 drives but crashed if you had 3-4 floppy drives (I actually ran a 1M system with 4 floppy drives for a while, and had to unplug them occasionally.)

[Tomislav]

Originally Posted by AmigaHope

There were a few games that broke if you had a second floppy drive plugged in (because they conflicted with the memory allocated to support the second drive), and a few more that worked with 2 drives but crashed if you had 3-4 floppy drives (I actually ran a 1M system with 4 floppy drives for a while, and had to unplug them occasionally.)

There are bootblocks which can disable additional drives.