WHDLoad bitchin' on CD32

[lennonlives]

I'm currently working on a new compilation since I got tired of those slowly loading compilations which are already available. One of my goals is running games without the use of a RAD, hence no rebooting, which is a very nice feature combined with WHDLoad's recently added option to quit games by pressing a button on the CD32 joypad, which in turn will bring the game selection menu back up. Currently, I'm employing Wepl's latest WHDLoadCD32, but this is where the problems start - they are almost the same with the standard WHDLoad though:

Upon loading, most games seem to freeze just after the screen goes black. I also noticed that each time this happens, the drive led lights up and stays that way. Games which crash that way are Turrican 2, The Chaos Engine, Fire & Ice, to name a few. The truth is that most games crash like that, only a very small number of titles actually run.

My Startup-Sequence really isn't anything special. It does some standard assigning, enables double speed and copies some files to the RAM disk, which are deleted again before WHDLoad is run.

I also tried including WCDT from Wepl's CD32 test disk - to no luck. So, if you're reading this, I'd really appreciate your help on this matter. I'm running out of ideas - and CD-Rs. Another thing that I think is worth mentioning is the fact that these problems don't arise when running my compilation from within WinUAE.

Thanks,

Lenny

[BippyM]

I can help with CDR's I know of a couple shops that do 'em

[lennonlives]

I think I've just nailed the problem! ReadDelay seems to do the trick. Pointed out by Master Wepl himself here: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=33070.

Gonna do some further testing and share more info soon.

[Retro1234]

I think all the Turrican games have Dos installs and would probably run better in this case.T3 has a nice dos install by EDIT: Two Live Crew .Perfect for a compliation.

[lennonlives]

I set ReadDelay to a very low value: 5. Runs like a charm and very fast. I prefer WHDLoad slaves because of the quit feature. Imagine powering up your CD32 only once and then switching games comfortably from your couch using your controller. No need to reset the console anymore

[Rochabian]

The most important problem with you compilation is surely the RAM problem
Perhaps if you find a trick to reset the CD32 or shut down a game with a couple of buttons and restart the menu then (for example L & R button at the same time)it should be better
Don't forget that WHDload himself needs quite 1Mb to run.....so non AGA or multi disk games allowed....
Prefer HD install or some assign command for Dos floppy games because you won't be able to run many games without a rad device....
What kind of menu do you use???


I've set up a rad device quite small for testing wich was able to run some games that needed 2Mb

Existing compilations are quite good excepts the fact that you need to reset the CD32 between two different games.....

Are you testing with WinUAE or on a real CD32??

[lennonlives]

I was able to allocate almost as much memory as I could using a RAD, but I'm still thinking about going the RAD way in the end. If I decide to do so I would make sure that setting up the RAD and booting from it is as fast as possible. I'd still keep the ability to quit using a CD32 joypad button though, only then the console would reboot automatically and start the menu again. Let's see how it all works out...
I'm using a version of AGS that I modified myself to contain less bugs and more features. For example, now the menu allows for more than 30 entries and fast scrolling. I'm using the RAM disk for caching. It's pretty fast. I also optimized the 256 colour palette so most screenshots look really great.
The splash screen used on the compilations available was actually an idea of mine. I am testing on both WinUAE and on two real CD32 consoles.