Configuring Napalm: The Crimson Crisis in FS-UAE

I'm using FS-UAE 2.9.7. I'm trying to run Napalm: The Crimson Crisis. The game generally works. However, the performance is poor, and I can't get the music to play. Sound effects work.



Here is what the manual recommends: 060 CPU, 32 Mb RAM, gfx board, enable CD music.


Here is what the HoL recommends (http://hol.abime.net/938): 68060 CPU, 32Mb fastram, gfx card, 2x CDROM, enabled CD music, HD.


However, I don't know how to enable music. Likewise, how do I get 32Mb fastram? I can select the respective CPU, but I can only go up to 8Mb fastram. There are six other types of RAM, but cranking them up doesn't seem to improve performance.


Can anyone help?

[Daedalus]

The music is played from the CD as CD audio, which usually goes through a separate cable from the CD-ROM drive to your soundcard. Chances are you're trying to run the game from an ISO, which usually won't include the audio tracks, and not from the actual game CD.

Also, bear in mind that the 68060 recommendation is for a real Amiga, since the 68060 is faster per clock cycle than other 68k CPUs. Under emulation it makes little or no difference since the instructions still can't get executed simultaneously, so you might actually get better results selecting a 68030. I don't know the intricacies of the emulation core, but it's very possible that the 020/030 emulation is more optimised than the 040/060 emulation with their special cases. Regardless of whether that's the case or not, selecting an 060 to emulate doesn't magically multiply the performance of the emulated Amiga in the same way fitting an 060 to a real machine would.

The RAM thing is normal. You're limited to around 8MB of Zorro-II (24-bit) fast RAM in any Amiga, real or emulated. I wouldn't bother with that (and depending on your graphics card emulation, it might even cause problems). Set it to 0 and add all you need from the Zorro-III category. Unlike other platforms though, adding RAM to an Amiga doesn't usually speed things up since the OS itself doesn't use virtual memory. Things will either work or not work, possibly crashing if they don't have enough RAM, or exiting with an error message if they've been well programmed.

Have you set up graphics card emulation properly? How exactly have you got that set up? Can you select graphics card modes for Workbench? The game will run much better on a (virtual) graphics board than AGA, but in general it's a demanding game so will be pushing your emulation hard.

Thanks for the reply.

Originally Posted by Daedalus

The music is played from the CD as CD audio, which usually goes through a separate cable from the CD-ROM drive to your soundcard. Chances are you're trying to run the game from an ISO, which usually won't include the audio tracks, and not from the actual game CD.

I'm not sure about that. I have two working images, one 350MB and one 640MB. I assumed the larger one had the audio tracks, but I was unable to rip them.

Also, bear in mind that the 68060 recommendation is for a real Amiga, since the 68060 is faster per clock cycle than other 68k CPUs. Under emulation it makes little or no difference since the instructions still can't get executed simultaneously, so you might actually get better results selecting a 68030. I don't know the intricacies of the emulation core, but it's very possible that the 020/030 emulation is more optimised than the 040/060 emulation with their special cases. Regardless of whether that's the case or not, selecting an 060 to emulate doesn't magically multiply the performance of the emulated Amiga in the same way fitting an 060 to a real machine would.

I played around a bit. The game only runs with a 6806. However, that could of course be an emulation issue.

The RAM thing is normal. You're limited to around 8MB of Zorro-II (24-bit) fast RAM in any Amiga, real or emulated. I wouldn't bother with that (and depending on your graphics card emulation, it might even cause problems). Set it to 0 and add all you need from the Zorro-III category. Unlike other platforms though, adding RAM to an Amiga doesn't usually speed things up since the OS itself doesn't use virtual memory. Things will either work or not work, possibly crashing if they don't have enough RAM, or exiting with an error message if they've been well programmed.

So how do I get those 32MB RAM? And what kind of RAM do they mean?

Have you set up graphics card emulation properly? How exactly have you got that set up? Can you select graphics card modes for Workbench? The game will run much better on a (virtual) graphics board than AGA, but in general it's a demanding game so will be pushing your emulation hard.

I'm not sure. I just selected a Zorro IV GPU.

[jPV]

Originally Posted by Legster

I'm not sure about that. I have two working images, one 350MB and one 640MB. I assumed the larger one had the audio tracks, but I was unable to rip them.

The original Napalm CD has 174MB data track and 20 audio tracks (501MB). Audio is commanded to be played by the CD drive itself, and it isn't streamed through Amiga's output by software.

I played around a bit. The game only runs with a 6806. However, that could of course be an emulation issue.

The game runs "fine" on, for example, a real A1200/030@50/AGA/32MB. Speed is OK in lowres modes, but hires modes will need beefier CPU and ZorroIII/PCI level graphics board.

I'm not sure. I just selected a Zorro IV GPU.

I guess that alone doesn't help far. You probably need to install some RTG driver software that would use the enabled graphics card. I would guess that it'd be the easiest to use the built-in Picasso96 emulation in UAE, but can't remember if that'd need the driver software on Amiga side too. Some UAE expert can answer that.

In any case, when you have a working RTG setup, you should be able to select some RTG modes in the RTGMaster requester when launching Napalm. Not the NTSC/PAL ones, but something else, probably starting with P96 or so.

If you don't get the screenmode requester when launching Napalm, use the NapalmSetup script to configure the screenmode type to "ASK", or edit the Setup/Napalm.prefs file manually. You can check this plain text file to get better impression about Napalm configs otherwise too.

Thanks again for your help. I think I'm getting somewhere here.

Originally Posted by jPV

In any case, when you have a working RTG setup, you should be able to select some RTG modes in the RTGMaster requester when launching Napalm. Not the NTSC/PAL ones, but something else, probably starting with P96 or so.

The Napalm setup generally works. However, the game only has decent speed/frame rate at PAL/NTSC Low. UAE 320x240 appears to improve the performance, but that could just be my imagination.



Anyway, I could install RTGMaster.



The only issue is that it wants me to start the game through RTGMaster, which is supposed to be located in Sys. There is an RtgMaster folder in Sys, but it only contains A Demos folder and a guide file. What am I missing here?

[jPV]

Originally Posted by Legster

The Napalm setup generally works. However, the game only has decent speed/frame rate at PAL/NTSC Low. UAE 320x240 appears to improve the performance, but that could just be my imagination.

The game runs very well on a real Amiga with 060 and graphics card with 640x512 resolution. So maybe it's something in your UAE config, or you just don't have fast enough computer where you run it But in any case those UAE modes look like to be Picasso96 modes, so.. I don't know...

Anyway, I could install RTGMaster.

The game won't run at all if you don't have it available already.

The only issue is that it wants me to start the game through RTGMaster, which is supposed to be located in Sys. There is an RtgMaster folder in Sys, but it only contains A Demos folder and a guide file. What am I missing here?

No, you don't have to do anything with RTGMaster, it's just a library/subsystem that programs use themselves.

I got it! The 68040 in combination with the right RAM settings did the job. There is some mouse cursor flickering, but otherwise, the game runs butter-smooth now.