Pool of Radiance

[Lilura]

Hi thar, I'm running the WHDLoad version of PoR on WinUAE and have a couple of lil' problems. 1) Saving the game takes quite a while. The screen blinks and flashes during this time. Is that normal? 2) The game quits out back to Workbench if my party dies. Is that normal? Cheers!

[Bugala]

Not having any real knowledge, but I remember with Champions of Krynn WHDLoad had a warning about WHDLoad versions saving taking very long, so could be same thing with pool of radiance.

[Retro-Nerd]

That's normal for every first created save game. WHDLoad switches between AmigaOS and back. After created the save every next save game (in the same slot) works fast then.

[Lilura]

Ok, I'm trying to load my save game A to confirm what you said but I can't get into it.

I click "Load Saved Game" and then it comes up with "Path For Save Return = Poolsave:".

What do I enter into the field below? I type A and hit return but nothing happens? I tried "Poolsave:A", too. Nothing...

I checked in ..\data and I do have a save game in there (savgamA.dat).


Btw I run a RPG blog and hope to cover this game in the future.

[Retro-Nerd]

edit:

What do I enter into the field below? I type A and hit return but nothing happens? I tried "Poolsave:A", too. Nothing...

Just press enter, nothing else. Then you can select the save slot, e.g. A or B. And make sure you use v1.1 of the WHDLoad game, the v1.0 version had a problem with the save path.

Actually there is still the black flickering when you save a second time in the same save slot. It shouldn't imo, maybe Psygore can tell if he can improve it.

[Galahad/FLT]

If you have the latest version of whdload and enough memory, there should be no flickering as whdload changed how it saved games from direct hard drive saving, to saving to ram, and only writing to hard drive when whdload was exited.

Also check with Psygore whether or not its a registered user restriction, i.e. if no valid or pirate key detected, it could cause the problems you describe.

[Retro-Nerd]

Well, that's what Codetapper wrote in his readme for Champions of Krynn. Maybe the older SSI RPGs aren't really improvable. Pools of Darkness though has no problems with that, probably a better save creation process.

Please note that when you save a game it will take about 2 and a half minutes with the default WHDLoad configuration (2 seconds for each O/S swap). I looked at optimising it but the game creates temporary files, deletes them, examines files and then does a save - for each of about 15 files which are required to save *one* game! For that reason, do not save often and when you do, go and watch TV for a few minutes!

[Lilura]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

Just press enter, nothing else. Then you can select the save slot, e.g. A or B..

Wow, that is so unintuitive (to me) but thanks a lot!

I'm running PoolOfRadiance_v1.1_0555.

I'm running unregistered WHDLoad but there is nothing in the docs to suggest I need to register for "the full experience" (plus, other games normally tell you when you're missing out because you're not registered).

It takes 80 secs to save a game (not just the first save slot, any of them), and the screen flashes and sound skips during the process. I hope that can be fixed!

Thanks for the help guys!

[Retro-Nerd]

It takes 80 secs to save a game (not just the first save slot, any of them), and the screen flashes and sound skips during the process. I hope that can be fixed!

Never tried that on my real Amiga 1200. In WinUAE (with a 68030 CPU) it takes app. 5-10 seconds.

[Lilura]

Really? I was running an 020 in WinUAE but bumping it up to 030 and adding RAM made no difference at all to save times (load times have always been "instantaneous").

I guess it could be a problem with my configuration?

I'm running an old version of WinUAE, though (2.3.2). The reason for that is I set the HDD up under that version and I'm really reluctant to go through such a long process of setting it all up again.

[Retro-Nerd]

OK, it takes a bit longer. 68030 CPU but cycle exact settings takes app. 30 seconds. With a 8x CPU frequency =28MHz it takes app. 23 seconds here.

[Lilura]

That's still too long to be playable; what do you think? This is my first time playing the game, so I'll be saving often (i.e, after every battle) because low level AD&D is cruel.

I also find it odd that you get kicked back to Workbench when your party is wiped out; maybe back to the load game screen would be better?

(I don't expect anyone to go out of their way to fix the issues I have. These are just observations.)

[Retro-Nerd]

Yep, still too long but maybe not fixable. You can speed it up a bit with a mapped warp key. WinUAE -> Input -> Custom config (Configuration#1-3)

[Lilura]

I'm not sure what you mean by that, sorry.

Perhaps I should source an ADF instead and just increase floppy speed in WinUAE. Do you know where I can find a reliable one?

How many colors (palette) does PoR use on the Amiga?

[Retro-Nerd]

I mean you can map a toggle key to speed up the emulation, like a fast forward. In this example i mapped it to my game pad. Select a button or key (select your keyboard in the Input tab) and use the drop down menu under the input settings.




For the colors: i counted 21 colors with Irfanview in two different ingame shots (city & encamp).

ADF images: Gamebase Amiga uses the Skid Row crack. But i've never played it via disk. Don't know if it's error free.

[Lilura]

Warp mode works, thanks!

[Retro-Nerd]

Psygores new slave works a bit faster for first creating save games. Still takes 20 seconds with a 68030. But now it works fast (instantly) when you save a second time in an already saved game slot (overwriting the old one).

http://mantis.whdload.de/view.php?id=3335

[jotd]

Another easy way of doing for the slave coder this is providing empty save files of the proper name but filled with zeroes. That way, the buffers already exist and whdload does not create files.
You can duplicate your existing savegames to the other slots to avoid further flashes.

BTW now it's better to upgrade to whdload 18.2 since no keyfile needed anymore

[Lilura]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

Psygores new slave works a bit faster for first creating save games. Still takes 20 seconds with a 68030. But now it works fast (instantly) when you save a second time in an already saved game slot (overwriting the old one).

http://mantis.whdload.de/view.php?id=3335

Thanks to Psygore for promptly addressing the issue!

[Lilura]

Thanks for the new slave!