Could not allocate 'shadow ram'?

[NovaCoder]

I've notice that some of my AGA WHDLOAD games no longer work when I swap from my 16mb Blizz to a bog standard 4mb expansion card. Is it talking about chip or fast ram?

I'm running OS 3.9, what can I do to improve memory usage (eg remove wallpaper, reduce desktop colors etc). Will this be enough or should I just stick OS 3.1 on it instead?

I have a theory, OS3.9 is copying some of itself into my fast ram on startup...the mysterious Shadow ram. What do you guys reckon, is that the issue? I think Boingy bag 2 said it would do this when I installed it.

[killergorilla]

Running OS3.9 with only 4MB of RAM is not a good idea! OS3.9 needs far too much RAM and won't leave you enough RAM to run WHDLoad games.

AGA games need a lot more RAM than standard amiga games so you really do need to ensure workbench uses as little as possible.

I'd recommend setting up a very small workbench 3.0/3.1 setup (maybe ClassicWB LITE) and run your whdload games from there. You'll still have problems with some of the larger games but you'll definitely have better luck.

Question... why are you not using your 16mb blizzard?

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by killergorilla

Running OS3.9 with only 4MB of RAM is not a good idea! OS3.9 needs far too much RAM and won't leave you enough RAM to run WHDLoad games.

AGA games need a lot more RAM than standard amiga games so you really do need to ensure workbench uses as little as possible.

I'd recommend setting up a very small workbench 3.0/3.1 setup (maybe ClassicWB LITE) and run your whdload games from there. You'll still have problems with some of the larger games but you'll definitely have better luck.

Question... why are you not using your 16mb blizzard?

Yep that's what I thought...silly Nova

This was for a spare machine that I built up, I used the HD image which I'd setup on my normal 1200. Yep I should have gone for something like ClassicWB Lite, that would have been better.

It's still funny it gave that error message though, I thought it would have said 'not enough chip/slow ram'. Apart from that OS3.9 was still pretty useable with just 4mb, even pinball fantasies AGA worked fine.

[musashi5150]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

I thought it would have said 'not enough chip/slow ram'.

Depends on your point of view "Not enough xxx ram" would suggest to me that the game itself requires more memory than you have.

"Could not allocate shadow memory" means (to me) that you have enough RAM for the game - but WHDLoad couldn't find enough memory left over to do it's OS swapping magic with chip memory.

Either way there isn't enough memory - but they mean different things

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by musashi5150

Depends on your point of view "Not enough xxx ram" would suggest to me that the game itself requires more memory than you have.

"Could not allocate shadow memory" means (to me) that you have enough RAM for the game - but WHDLoad couldn't find enough memory left over to do it's OS swapping magic with chip memory.

Either way there isn't enough memory - but they mean different things

Cool, thanks