WHDLoad and Amiga 500?

[mojorific]

I've been working on my Amiga 500 build, and have run into problems using WHDLoad. Would this be due to the amount of memory I have?

I have the following:

Amiga 500 512kb Ram + A501 512kb ram expansion card
A590 Hard Drive retrofitted with CF Card drive + 2 MB expansion

So I have 3mb Ram total so far.

I would have thought perhaps this would be enough to run some games, but i'm finding that most won't even boot with that much.

Do I not have enough? Would I need to get a fast ram expansion (like a kipper2k) to be able to do it, or should I even bother?

Here is a picture of my setup for those interested:

[Retroplay]

Most OCS/ECS games won't work with only 512kb chip ram.

Perhaps you should consider doing a 1mb chip ram mod.
http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=35844

[mombasajoe]

It´s a lack of chip-ram I think, you´ve only got 0,5 MB of it. You could try to make your trapdoor-ram used as chip ram, too. This needs some minor modifications to the motherboard and gives you a total amount of 1 MB chip-ram. But I don´t know how many games would run with that setup.

[StingRay]

Not many OCS/ECS games require 1MB Chip! Try booting without full workbench as that will save some precious memory for WHDLoad. More fast ram wouldn't hurt of course.

[fitzsteve]

Did you try running the Games via AG-Launch? http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=57404

It's built into newer versions of CWB (I can see you're using GAAE), you can access it with max memory by holding right mouse during boot and selecting 'Run List'

You might get a few more working that way

In the long term, more Ram is the way forward.

[mojorific]

Thank you for all the great advice! I will try some of them and report back.

[mojorific]

Tried running via AG-Launch, but still couldn't get anything to work. I'm trying some really basic games like King's Quest and Space Quest.

The screen shows the 1.3 workbench screen, and then just continually flashes that screen over and over, like it is stuck in a loop.

[mojorific]

What is really strange is that I can take out my CF card, launch the hard drive in WinUAE, and configure the EXACT same configuration (memory size, processer, etc), and the game launches just fine.

I also redid a copy of the dev/kickstart files to make sure it wasn't a problem with the kickstart roms i'm using in WHDLoad.

Any other advice?

[mojorific]

Ok, I made some progress. I did a clean install of WB 3.1, and added the installer, WHDLoad, and a couple games to test.

Worked fine. So, my problem is related to my GAE workbench install? How strange.

[FOL]

Originally Posted by mojorific

Ok, I made some progress. I did a clean install of WB 3.1, and added the installer, WHDLoad, and a couple games to test.

Worked fine. So, my problem is related to my GAE workbench install? How strange.

As others pointed out, memory is the problem. Clean install uses very little chip memory, also what buffers do you have, as that takes memory too.

[mojorific]

Buffers? Sorry, I am a noob on Amiga. How do I check buffers?

[FOL]

Originally Posted by mojorific

Buffers? Sorry, I am a noob on Amiga. How do I check buffers?

HDToolBox, how many buffers are set for HDD.
Each partition, you can set buffers to buffer data.

[mojorific]

Originally Posted by FOL

HDToolBox, how many buffers are set for HDD.
Each partition, you can set buffers to buffer data.

I checked both my clean 3.1 install, and the GAE workbench install, and both had 30 buffers set.

Is it better to lower that setting, or increase?

[Retro1234]

For the multiple disk Sierra games you'd be better off using there own HD install on low ram

[mojorific]

Yup, you are right about that.

So to summarize: I can get WHDLoad files to work, if I build a barebones set up with the bare minimum (just WHDLoad). I can still have problems if I try to open a directory with too many files in it, because that takes up chipmem as well.

After much searching, I found a solution to increase my chipmem. I have a A500 Rev 5 board, with an 3870 Agnus chip (which only supports up to 512kb of chip mem). In order to address the chip mem problem, I need to upgrade it. It is a simple matter of replacing the Agnus chip with a 3872a (that supports up to 2meg chipmem), and making a very minor modification to the motherboard so that my A501 expansion card acts as chip mem. That, along with the 2meg fast ram on the hard drive expansion should allow me to run quite a lot when finished.

I have a Fat Agnus 8372a shipping that should arrive within a week. Then I can do the minor modification to get my 1 meg of chip mem. Will update when completed.

In the meantime, I find that depending on how my 'drawers' are set up, that I can limit the amount of ram used, and thus run the WHDload files. Opening a drawer (depending on the number of files) can take up precious chip mem that prevents me from loading games. (Do not put all your games in one directory! LOL)

512kb of chipmem really doesn't cut it with WHDLoad unless you absolutely run nothing else at all.

I also have Amiga 600 that i'm building that will eventually replace my 500 with a ACA620 and CF Card Adapter. I will probably sell the 500 at some point, but I wanted to see if I could get it to good state where HxC combined with WHDLoad would give me the best of both worlds.

Still, it is nice to see that the old A500 can still do a lot of things if you make some modifications/upgrades. I think modifying these old machines is a really fun experience. You don't really get that kind of satisfaction building a new PC.

Thank you all for the helpful advice.

[svin83]

Originally Posted by mojorific

Yup, you are right about that.

So to summarize: I can get WHDLoad files to work, if I build a barebones set up with the bare minimum (just WHDLoad). I can still have problems if I try to open a directory with too many files in it, because that takes up chipmem as well.

After much searching, I found a solution to increase my chipmem. I have a A500 Rev 5 board, with an 3870 Agnus chip (which only supports up to 512kb of chip mem). In order to address the chip mem problem, I need to upgrade it. It is a simple matter of replacing the Agnus chip with a 3872a (that supports up to 2meg chipmem), and making a very minor modification to the motherboard so that my A501 expansion card acts as chip mem. That, along with the 2meg fast ram on the hard drive expansion should allow me to run quite a lot when finished.

I have a Fat Agnus 8372a shipping that should arrive within a week. Then I can do the minor modification to get my 1 meg of chip mem. Will update when completed.

In the meantime, I find that depending on how my 'drawers' are set up, that I can limit the amount of ram used, and thus run the WHDload files. Opening a drawer (depending on the number of files) can take up precious chip mem that prevents me from loading games. (Do not put all your games in one directory! LOL)

512kb of chipmem really doesn't cut it with WHDLoad unless you absolutely run nothing else at all.

I also have Amiga 600 that i'm building that will eventually replace my 500 with a ACA620 and CF Card Adapter. I will probably sell the 500 at some point, but I wanted to see if I could get it to good state where HxC combined with WHDLoad would give me the best of both worlds.

Still, it is nice to see that the old A500 can still do a lot of things if you make some modifications/upgrades. I think modifying these old machines is a really fun experience. You don't really get that kind of satisfaction building a new PC.

Thank you all for the helpful advice.

ED: Sorry about reviving necro thread, but this is important advice for newbie modders, and thread is still available to read.

Uhh. I hope you didn't just put that 2meg agnus in a rev5 mb...
You could possibly destroy your Agnus or Motherboard

They aren't pin compatible, so you'll need to do rather heavy modifications to your MB to get that to work.

Or you could get an adaptor or something like that and put it between the agnus and the MB.

I have the DKB MEGACHIP which gives one additional meg, and I've done the trapdoor chipmem mod, so now I'm at 2MB Chip in my A500

(512k@MB,512k@Trapdoor,1024k@DKB)

[chromium]

I'd be interested on knowing how you put a CF card in an A590. I have a working A590 here with a massive 20MB HDD in it, would be nice to make some use of it

[prowler]

Originally Posted by chromium

I'd be interested on knowing how you put a CF card in an A590. I have a working A590 here with a massive 20MB HDD in it, would be nice to make some use of it

This can be done via a combination of CF to 40-pin IDE adapter and SCSI to IDE bridge, but SCSI to IDE bridges are not cheap.

So it would be interesting to know how mojorific has achieved it.

[DesktopDynamite]

Originally Posted by svin83

ED: Sorry about reviving necro thread, but this is important advice for newbie modders, and thread is still available to read.

Uhh. I hope you didn't just put that 2meg agnus in a rev5 mb...
You could possibly destroy your Agnus or Motherboard

They aren't pin compatible, so you'll need to do rather heavy modifications to your MB to get that to work.

Or you could get an adaptor or something like that and put it between the agnus and the MB.

I have the DKB MEGACHIP which gives one additional meg, and I've done the trapdoor chipmem mod, so now I'm at 2MB Chip in my A500

(512k@MB,512k@Trapdoor,1024k@DKB)

Hi there, atm am doing some mod on the same A500 rev 5, where I have installed kipper2k A508 fastmem board (8Mb) and left the A500 with its 512k RAM. As others pointed out, some games need at least 1mb chip mem in whdload. What else can I do? What is dk megachip and where I can buy it?

Thanks.

Sent from my GT-I9301I using Tapatalk

[Allen1]

I just read the thread and I think what you are looking for is :- http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/megachip

Amibay or Ebay would be the most likely places to find one of them or perhaps someone here may have one to sell. If this is the right item, then the address above will let you download a PDF file of the manual so you can see what to do.

All the best,
Allen (I have never seen one of them before in real life).

Also read http://www.amigareport.com/ar306/review2.html