Using ross' Ocean Loader

[DanielAllsopp]

Hi!

As you may or may not have seen in my Robocop AGA blog thread, thus far I have been INCBIN'ing all of my data and as expected the executable is getting to an unmanageable size; it really should have been nipped in the bud earlier but it was just convenient for me to quickly get on with development.

I've found ross' "Ocean Loader" and it looks like it will do the job nicely of loading assets in from disk and into memory when the system is disabled, and it appears to be what mcgeezer is using for his games so it must be worth looking at.

Currently, I'm just running my massive executable from a directory on the HDD of my emulated Amiga but I understand that I will need to write some sort of ADF each time I want to run the game as the loader only works with a floppy device? Or can it load assets from the directory of a HDD?

Are there any quick example I could reference to get me started?

I guess this isn't strictly an ASM question, but it's hardware related so I hope I'm in the correct place for this question.

Many thanks!

[Tigerskunk]

Works only with floppies as far as I know.
Inviyya uses it as well.
Had to change my workflow a lot to get it running.
Question is, though, if you'd want to use it with AGA anyway.
How big will your asset's size be in the end, and does it even makes sense to put that on floppies..

Well, that's the questions I ask myself for my AGA projects right at the moment..

[mcgeezer]

Not to take anything away from Ross's Ocean loader but you have to take into consideration a couple of things. In Rygar I used it. Turbo Sprint and Devils Temple I don't... I use OS loading routines.

I have some pre-baked OS RNC load and unpack routines that would probably help you out and save you boat loads of time... pm or reply if you want me to send you them.

Graeme