Games on HD without WHDLoad

[Sim085]

WHDLoad came out in 1996. However there where some famous titles like Superfrog (1993), Desert Strike (1993) or Sensible Soccer (1994) that came out before 1996 and did not have any HD Install option.

So out of curiosity; was there any option to install such titles on HD which today is no longer used because WHDLoad makes life much more easier. Or before WHDLoad there was no other option than to play such games from disks?

[jotd]

No, but you could use CD32 Superfrog version on HD with assign/minor tweaks (not involving programming, just assigns, adding libraries...). Same for Fire & Ice or Chaos Engine. Sensible Soccer HD was probably doable by reusing the CD32 version.

There was also an official Alien Breed II installer provided by Stefan Boberg.

Crackgroups also sometimes created HD versions. For instance Triangle created a HD install of Cannon Fodder that actually WORKED! (CD32 version wasn't OS friendly). There were also the infamous "mars bar" hd installers that I never saw working (operating on some cracks that you probably didn't have, that's why, and not originals).

Reportedly, CD32 games using RN loader could work from hard disk (James Pond 3) if you ran them on a 512 or 1k block FFS IDE drive (CD32load uses RN code on a A600), but that practically required a dedicated hard drive as RN loader had a lot of limitations.

I also remember doing special loaders for a few games (Qwak was the only supported original, AFAIR there was also Alien Breed II & Lotus II, but as cracks...) back in 1995 (which predates whdload). Such code was the base for JST.

[-Acid-]

CrimewatchUK wrote a lot of hd fixes for cracked game that i remember.

[jotd]

yeah, that CrimewatchUK stuff never worked for me: if the proper cracked version wasn't distributed with the hd fix, that didn't work and locked up the machine badly.

whdload (and JST) support originals at 99%, except for some rare cases.

[Seiya]

VHDLoad give access to many games, but not always in easy way because some times high hardware request. The minimun is kickstart 2.xx and at 4 MB to not have memory isues (can't allocate ExpMem, can't Allocate ShadowMem).
A 1.3 A500 games can be installed on HD on real Amiga 500 and it run with 1 MB of memory and kickstart 1.3.
But also in this case it is not easy because you must have and external and expensive HD controller for you amiga.

HD installer are good in the emulation because you can install an 500 1.3 Games and paly from workbench 1.3 to have the experience to play from Harddisk on old workbench environment.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by Sim085

WHDLoad came out in 1996. However there where some famous titles like Superfrog (1993), Desert Strike (1993) or Sensible Soccer (1994) that came out before 1996 and did not have any HD Install option.

So out of curiosity; was there any option to install such titles on HD which today is no longer used because WHDLoad makes life much more easier. Or before WHDLoad there was no other option than to play such games from disks?

Back in the day there were quite a few hard drive installed games with load/save game support, hiscore save etc, but you needed quite a capable Amiga to run them which obviously back in the 90's were less prevalent than they are now.

I did quite a few but not sure how many survive today.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by jotd

yeah, that CrimewatchUK stuff never worked for me: if the proper cracked version wasn't distributed with the hd fix, that didn't work and locked up the machine badly.

whdload (and JST) support originals at 99%, except for some rare cases.

wasn't actually a problem if you were a regular on BBS's as you would just look at the .NFO file spread with the release and go download the relevant version.

I appreciate it was more difficult if you relied on stuff spread by mail as you kinda got what you were given version wise.

[jotd]

yeah, I ordered floppies with "hd installers". None of them worked with my versions.

[Seiya]

those installers require specific cracked version for games. i tried some of them with exactly same version, but only few of them working.

[zipper]

My A500/060 tower was pretty unlucky with installers written for A1200. Luckily JST came out and as I saw it ordered the key at once. And then helped to test some installers with my oddball machine, even CGX and P96 early versions as I had CV64/3D. That 3D wasn't plug and play!

[Firthy2002]

There were some one off specials as mentioned above.

If you were technical enough, some games that came on AmigaDOS formatted disks but didn't include an installer could be made to work from a hard drive.

I think JOTDStartup/JST predated WHDLoad because I remember trying out the Lotus 2 installer on my A500+ and having to wait ages for the disk ripper to create the disk file; certainly I found out about JST before I'd heard of WHDLoad.

[Hungry Horace]

I remember having a couple of programs that adapted (largely producing cracked binaries) for running games form hd pre-JSTHD and WHDLoad. Sometimes these still needed to be combined with a degraded such as TUDE. The big one for me was Bloodwych.

I also remember JST pre-dating WHD slightly before JOTD joined forces with WHDLoad, as i supplied a few of the original disks images at the time.

[TjLaZer]

Yes like has been mentioned, back in the day I use to get some games working from WB by using elaborate assigns, degrader tools, NTSC and PAL switchers, Kill fast ram, etc. Even had some setup where it would set up a RAD: disk and reboot and run the game! I use to have many installs like this! Ah those were the days!

[ahandyman59]

There were a bunch of games that supported hard drive installations. A Faery Tale, Eye of the beholder 1,2 and 3. I think Pools of Radiance and Curse of the Azure Bonds did also.

Some games, all you had to do was to copy all the game files to one single directory and they worked. Sometimes you needed to make the folder a specific name.

That said, any of the games with custom boot blocks were nearly impossible to install on a hard drive, if the game creator never put it in the game...

[Retro1234]

there were alot of HD installs, Sensible soccer had a few installs, if you could be bothered going through old BBS stuff you will find a lot.

[Matt_H]

Originally Posted by Retro1234

there were alot of HD installs, Sensible soccer had a few installs, if you could be bothered going through old BBS stuff you will find a lot.

Tons of these were on Aminet, too, but they all got purged ~15+ years ago out of fear they'd attract lawsuits from copyright trolls.

[Minuous]

That seems a stupid thing to do when it has been well established that patches are perfectly legal. Which is really the whole point of using them rather than just distributing the already-patched work.

[Matt_H]

Originally Posted by Minuous

That seems a stupid thing to do when it has been well established that patches are perfectly legal. Which is really the whole point of using them rather than just distributing the already-patched work.

All of that is true, but, as I recall, that precedent was not clear back then and the mere fact that the installers *could* be used to facilitate piracy was enough to convince the then-admins to take them all down after they received a few threats.

[Matt_H]

As reference, here is a an excerpt from the master index on Aminet 32 (the newest Aminet CD I own), showing the game/patch directory as of July 4, 1999, where most of the HD installs were kept. Most of these files are not online anymore. Fortunately they are on the Aminet CDs.

It would be interesting to compare this index against later Aminet CDs to identify any HD installs that were uploaded later but ultimately removed. 1999 is definitely getting into the WHDLoad/JST era so there may not be many (any?) unique, one-off installers after this date.

[Retro1234]

Some guy? called JOTD did HD installs before JST and WHDload.