What files are ACTUALLY needed.

[killergorilla]

Hi,

I'm in the process of installing loads of whdload games and using AGS (Arcade Game Selector) as a front end to run the lot. (Unless there is anything better that I can use - anyone?)

I've posted about the 'project' (if you can call it that) before and I'll be creating one hdf file which contains the lot, put it on a cd and use it on my xbox.

I'm just wondering what files from the workbench setup I'll actually need? I mean, It'll be loading ags but I presume it'll still need a bunch of workbench files? I've taken a look at Gary and Tony's cd32 works and there are a lot of files that look cd32 specific. I don't want to just rip their work and change the games about, I wanna have a go myself.

[Severin]

you should only need the files that AGS and whdload require, but as it's going on cd why not just bung a complete WB disk on there as it's less than a meg out of 700...

[killergorilla]

Resurrecting my own thread!!!

I've managed to figure out how to use the ags (arcade game selector) with a load of whdload games it's just that I'm stuck when it comes to creating the little images to display in the menu.

I can't seem to create any iff files that will display in the menu. I've used xnview and photoshop with iff plugins and can't create an iff image that the menu will like. It either doesn't appear or looks completely corrupted!

Any help!?!?

[gary]

Look at the example image that was part of the original AGS archive. You need to save an image in the exact format (of the top of my head)...

256colours x 320 horizontal x 128 vertical pixels.

I used Deluxe Paint 4 AGA to load in each image then the SAVE BRUSH function to save pictures for AGS. Remember that the brush size MUST be 320x128 otherwise AGS will ignore them.

Here is an example archive which contains all the basic files you'll need to run AGS including some libraries which you may not know about. It also is setup to use submenus:

(I had to butcher the archive for it to fit under 1 meg but you'll get the idea. The WHDload executable is missing but goes into the C directory.)

[Amiga1992]

Originally posted by gary
256colours x 320 horizontal x 128 vertical pixels.

Does it need to be in 256 colors?

[gary]

Does it need to be in 256 colors?

I think so. The code simply loads the image and overwrites the top right corner of the screen with it. The background image is 256 colours.

That reminds me: The images also need to have their colours 'remapped' to the same palatte used by the background image otherwise their colours will appear all wrong. Deluxe paint allows this.

[killergorilla]

Hi!!

I've now managed to get the menu up and running and have been creating pictures for each game and the corresponding *.start and *.txt files for each game.

I ended up using photoshop for the picture files, resizing to 320 x 128, using only 256 colours and making sure they use the same palette as the background, all is going well.

I'm just wondering about whdload and it's quitkey function. If I boot my amiga, load the menu, load a game and then hit the quitkey is it going to quit back to the menu or straight back to the cli?

If it is the cli, can I edit the whdload prefs file to reload the menu again in any way?

Cheers for the help on the images by the way, took me a while to figure out photoshops way of doing it but it's quicker than running dpaint through winuae (for me at least)

[abelthorne]

AFAIR, hitting the quit key in a whdload game would get you back to where you started the game (workbench or shell). I don't think there is the possibility to run something after quitting (although the last time I used whdload was when I used a real Amiga - back 3 years ago -)

[killergorilla]

Nope, it quits back to a blank cli.

Is there a way to re-run the startup-sequence using a command?

[andreas]

execute s:startup-sequence

[killergorilla]

Cheers mate

I'm gonna ask some seriously baby questions again tomorrow

I managed to read the whdload docs as well and found that adding ExecuteCleanup=command to the whdload prefs file, it means that it performs a command after whdload quits, which is exactly what I wanted.

Another small question... is there anyway that I can make the workbench window in the background black or hide it somehow, it appears for about 1 second while the game preloads into RAM, it's not very important but I would like the screen to be black and not see a blank workbench. Any ideas?