The fake CD32 Classic

[earok]

31st October 2020: Phase 2 posted.

200 games, most of which are high quality (Lemon Amiga average rating of over 7.5) and all of which should be playable on a gamepad alone.

Given the focus this time around on high quality stuff (including some recent games like Tiny Bobble and Rygar AGA) I've dropped a fair few mediocre games that were rather large (such as Microcosm) which has brought the total size of the download.

List of all 200 games with notes are here.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...#gid=703525723

Install notes:
- You'll need an 8GB Compact Flash card, and a real CD32 with a TF-328 (or similar) card (though the image can be mounted directly in WinUAE)
- The image was made with Win32DiskImager. It might be possible to restore the image with a different application, but that isn't guaranteed, so I'd recommend using Win32diskImager to restore the image if possible
https://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/
- Once that's all done, simply put your Compact Flash card into your TF-328's CF slot, and you should be able to boot it up.

Download:
https://mega.nz/file/p6ZCgBRS#EqkA7z...I35mmoKLq_iywc

[jotd]

looks like RUGCD cd32load project, with a TF card and whdload. Good but exhausting because each game has small issues to fix, and you spend your life tuning the compilation and it's never 100% perfect.

That list of slaves being joypad enhanced is pretty good: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...oCo/edit#gid=0

don't hesitate to use it (and to complete it if something is missing

[earok]

Originally Posted by jotd

looks like RUGCD cd32load project, with a TF card and whdload. Good but exhausting because each game has small issues to fix, and you spend your life tuning the compilation and it's never 100% perfect.

That list of slaves being joypad enhanced is pretty good: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...oCo/edit#gid=0

don't hesitate to use it (and to complete it if something is missing

Great, I'll check it out the first pass is more or less just aimed at actual CD32 releases (though, where joypad issues aren't a problem, I've reverted to AGA or OCS versions in order to get tracker music).


Second pass may be based on your list - Desert Strike, Aladdin, Putty Squad and Lion King were all games I wanted to include sooner or later, and it makes a lot of sense to add games that are CD32 pad friendly.


Yeah, there's a lot of time involved, fortunately there's no disk burning! And no issues around the CD getting full etc since there's 4GB to play with, also since it's aimed solely at TF328+ users, memory isn't an issue. Main pain point is needing to take my TF328 out of the CD32 any time I want to test it! I'm hoping I'll get help with testing and curation if there's much interest.


I've started looking into automatic backups of NVRAM games (eg, could be useful with Simon the Sorcerer, which takes up about 85% of the storage capacity by itself). I figure I could do this by restoring a backup when a game is launched, while at the same time leaving a file to let the launcher know to back up the current save file when the CD32 is rebooted.

[earok]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

These are my notes so far, I've got over 100 games on the current build but I haven't yet tested and added them all to the spreadsheet.

[spudje]

This looks cool, but not sure if I would want to invest time in this after all the effort I put in a comparable X-Bench setup on my CD32.

[earok]

Originally Posted by spudje

This looks cool, but not sure if I would want to invest time in this after all the effort I put in a comparable X-Bench setup on my CD32.

I don't suppose you've got a copy of the disk image uploaded somewhere..? might save me some time with sourcing everything

[jotd]

I've started looking into automatic backups of NVRAM games (eg, could be useful with Simon the Sorcerer, which takes up about 85% of the storage capacity by itself). I figure I could do this by restoring a backup when a game is launched, while at the same time leaving a file to let the launcher know to back up the current save file when the CD32 is rebooted.

I'm pretty sure a hack can be done to use disk nonvolatile.library instead of ROM nonvolatile.library (like patching OpenLibrary). In which case the saves would save to disk, even on a CD32, like any non-CD32 amiga with nonvolatile lib installed on disk.

I'm also pretty sure that if it doesn't work by just copying nonvolatile.library in LIBS: I'm able to do a patch for you.

[Cobe]

Originally Posted by earok

I've started looking into automatic backups of NVRAM games (eg, could be useful with Simon the Sorcerer, which takes up about 85% of the storage capacity by itself). I figure I could do this by restoring a backup when a game is launched, while at the same time leaving a file to let the launcher know to back up the current save file when the CD32 is rebooted.

You forgot to set nv location in env?
Did you find some easy way to run Simon, or you're mounting iso?

That menu looks so slick! Keep it that way.

[earok]

I completely forgot about setting NVRAM location. I assume that if the appropriate assigns are set, it ignores actual NVRAM and saves to disc, even if NVRAM is present?

I'm also assuming that WHDLoad doesn't generally support NVRAM saving? I haven't tested it extensively, but that did seem to be the case with D-Generation.

Cheers @Cobe, it is a bit rough though, I'm more than happy to let you tweak it to your heart's content . Haven't attempted Simon just yet, I was hoping that it would "just work" from HDD but maybe that's not the case!

[jotd]

whdload emulates nvram by saving to disk. It wasn't designed to work on a CD32 (and CD32 NVM is a joke anyway)

D/Generation saves its data in "nvram" file since latest slave from 2 years ago. Time flies.

[Rochabian]

This thread give a list (incomplete) of CD32 games that have CDDA track
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=26552
Surely those games should be replaced with WHDLoad AGA version to have music, but still need CD32 pad support

[jotd]

be careful: this list is "optimistic". And besides sometimes it's not worth replacing by AGA version.

For instance Oscar CD32 has CD tracks, but Oscar AGA doesn't have any music in levels... And has less levels... so CD32 version is better
Exactly same configuration for Zool CD32.

And for the others, what's better? having music or more levels? Note that quality titles like Fire & Ice leave the choice (on chip / cd)

Chaos Engine CD32 has a better intro but no chip music. But in-game, the music is the same (but some ambient effects are on CD, a first!). And whdload version is better because it uses fastmem & bomb uses blue button instead of fire long press.


definitely needs case-by-case analysis.

[Rochabian]

Does an ISO mounting tool, if it exists for CD32, could use CDDA tracks ?
Perhaps it's not possible because it will use too much CPU ?

[Cobe]

Originally Posted by earok

I completely forgot about setting NVRAM location. I assume that if the appropriate assigns are set, it ignores actual NVRAM and saves to disc, even if NVRAM is present?

I'm also assuming that WHDLoad doesn't generally support NVRAM saving? I haven't tested it extensively, but that did seem to be the case with D-Generation.

Cheers @Cobe, it is a bit rough though, I'm more than happy to let you tweak it to your heart's content . Haven't attempted Simon just yet, I was hoping that it would "just work" from HDD but maybe that's not the case!

http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=...&postcount=125
I have it set up on my tf328 too. As I remember, just creat file named nv_location in envarc:sys, type in your desired path to folder you want nvram saves to be and if I didn't forget anything simple as that it should work.

[earok]

@Cobe Ahh.. you're right, there is indeed a D-Generation save file with the name nvram.


One of the worries I had about WHDLoad is, as I understand it, it generally doesn't save until you quit (which, essentially is never going to happen on a console unless the player knows to do it). Though I don't think I needed to quit for D-Generation to save.. is there a way to force saves immediately rather than caching until the user quits?


@jotd Those are all excellent points please feel free to make recommendations (or instructions) for me in the spreadsheet about which version I should use.


One thing I was thinking, and this is probably not a good idea, is this:

- If we can pick one really good song from each CD soundtrack for each game (whatever we think is best), AND
- If we can hack the game or somehow patch the system to route all CD player requests to a specific track (I did something similar for Ultimate Body Blows in the past to have multiple CD audio games on one disk)
- Then at least in theory we could produce a companion "music disk", so we could at least have some music related to that game playing.

[earok]

@Cobe

I'm having some trouble with the NVRAM thing, and what I've realised is this - If I have "NVRAM" enabled in WinUAE (advanced chipset), then it ignores the preference file, but if I have it disabled, it works as expected (Super Skidmarks saves to the right place)

This is just in WinUAE of course, so it's possible that the real behavior is different, but are you sure there's nothing else that would need to be done to disable the "real" NVRAM in favour of the env-arc location?

[Cobe]

I'm pretty sure I tested that in winuae few years ago and that it worked.
I "ran to the hills" when lockdowns started so I'm without my cd32, I cant check if I have something more set...

http://amigadev.elowar.com/read/ADCD.../node04DB.html

[spudje]

Originally Posted by earok

I don't suppose you've got a copy of the disk image uploaded somewhere..? might save me some time with sourcing everything

I hope to come back to you about this. May be not before the weekend.

[jotd]

One of the worries I had about WHDLoad is, as I understand it, it generally doesn't save until you quit (which, essentially is never going to happen on a console unless the player knows to do it). Though I don't think I needed to quit for D-Generation to save.. is there a way to force saves immediately rather than caching until the user quits?

yes. It's being annoying people for a while now. It's NoWriteCache option: http://www.whdload.de/docs/en/opt.html#NoWriteCache

I think it can be set globally in s:whdload.prefs. Easy to check.

If the writes are big enough and there aren't many of them, the OS flashes shouldn't be too annoying.

[Cobe]

Originally Posted by earok

@Cobe

I'm having some trouble with the NVRAM thing, and what I've realised is this - If I have "NVRAM" enabled in WinUAE (advanced chipset), then it ignores the preference file, but if I have it disabled, it works as expected (Super Skidmarks saves to the right place)

This is just in WinUAE of course, so it's possible that the real behavior is different, but are you sure there's nothing else that would need to be done to disable the "real" NVRAM in favour of the env-arc location?

I tested it in winuae again and it works for me. Check the attachment. Maybe it depends from game to game, I tested it with Lumberjack.