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Caldor · 17 March 2021, 19:59

Interesting. I have been trying out different ways to emulate CD32 for the last couple of weeks. Made a SimCD32 boot CD for my MiSTer FPGA with its Minimig core to see if my SimCD32 solution for my Amiga 1200 would work with it. I then found I could even get some CDTV games to work on the Minimig core on it using another boot disk called Squirrel SCSI CD32. I had improved the SimCD32 disk a bit by using a command called QueryFile, so instead of having to have a custom boot for each ISO file, I could just select an ISO file. It uses the whole NVRam folder solution.

But I also have a real CD32 and had not really considered that it would be nice to be able to put savegames on the hard disk. Its expanded with a TF330, but I have not even considered that it might have MMU. Could be interesting to play around with. I might not have floppy support for my CD32, but SimCD32 could also be installed on the hard disk and be a custom boot option.

Sounds like this would work on the CD32, but then we lack CD audio which is annoying. So a solution that supports CD audio and but still makes it possible to move the save folder would be pretty nice. While looking into CD32 emulation options, I managed to find 4 different solutions. SimCD32, Squirrel SCSI which has a CD32 feature, IDEFix 97 and Airsoft CD32 Install Kit. Not sure how much of this is freeware now, but you get a serial for IDEFix with Amiga Forever and there is a thread saying Airsoft CD32 Install Kit is freeware:
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=53562

SimCD32 comes from an Amiga Developer CD, I am guessing its not freeware, but probably still abandonware.

But I guess that really just sums up the thread, because while there are emulation options, there are compatibility issues as far as I know. In my experience, it does seem like it can often be fixed by tweaking some of the boot files, but that might only really with with SimCD32. Well... and the Squirrel solution, but Install Kit and IDEFix both try to boot in their own way, and I do not think you have customization options where you can decide how to boot the game.

When it comes to CDTV, now that I got it to work on the MiSTer Minimig core, I do hope to maybe get it to work on my Amiga 1200 as well... but the solution on the Minimig core was to switch to an Amiga 500 CPU. It might be possible to use some TUDE degrader tools... but I suspect it will be problematic and then its still a a bit limited how many CDTV games can be run this way, and also it will lack the CD audio support.

17 March 2021, 19:59	#17
Caldor Registered User Join Date: Jan 2018 Location: Aalborg Posts: 20	Interesting. I have been trying out different ways to emulate CD32 for the last couple of weeks. Made a SimCD32 boot CD for my MiSTer FPGA with its Minimig core to see if my SimCD32 solution for my Amiga 1200 would work with it. I then found I could even get some CDTV games to work on the Minimig core on it using another boot disk called Squirrel SCSI CD32. I had improved the SimCD32 disk a bit by using a command called QueryFile, so instead of having to have a custom boot for each ISO file, I could just select an ISO file. It uses the whole NVRam folder solution. But I also have a real CD32 and had not really considered that it would be nice to be able to put savegames on the hard disk. Its expanded with a TF330, but I have not even considered that it might have MMU. Could be interesting to play around with. I might not have floppy support for my CD32, but SimCD32 could also be installed on the hard disk and be a custom boot option. Sounds like this would work on the CD32, but then we lack CD audio which is annoying. So a solution that supports CD audio and but still makes it possible to move the save folder would be pretty nice. While looking into CD32 emulation options, I managed to find 4 different solutions. SimCD32, Squirrel SCSI which has a CD32 feature, IDEFix 97 and Airsoft CD32 Install Kit. Not sure how much of this is freeware now, but you get a serial for IDEFix with Amiga Forever and there is a thread saying Airsoft CD32 Install Kit is freeware: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=53562 SimCD32 comes from an Amiga Developer CD, I am guessing its not freeware, but probably still abandonware. But I guess that really just sums up the thread, because while there are emulation options, there are compatibility issues as far as I know. In my experience, it does seem like it can often be fixed by tweaking some of the boot files, but that might only really with with SimCD32. Well... and the Squirrel solution, but Install Kit and IDEFix both try to boot in their own way, and I do not think you have customization options where you can decide how to boot the game. When it comes to CDTV, now that I got it to work on the MiSTer Minimig core, I do hope to maybe get it to work on my Amiga 1200 as well... but the solution on the Minimig core was to switch to an Amiga 500 CPU. It might be possible to use some TUDE degrader tools... but I suspect it will be problematic and then its still a a bit limited how many CDTV games can be run this way, and also it will lack the CD audio support. Last edited by Caldor; 17 March 2021 at 20:01. Reason: Adding CDTV speculation