Whdload wish: HD suspend at game start

[Jerry]

I think it would be cool for games with preload option to suspend the hd at least until the game has to write to disk again. I know I can copy the game to ramdisk and use hdsleep or similar tools but that's a bit unhandy. Any thoughts on this?

[mr_0rga5m]

Why for ? ... Doesnt it take more power and time to spin drives back up when needed ?

[Npl]

Would only make sense if the whole game fits in RAM and would need additional care if the game modified files.
But having a silent 'Amiga' sure got some sex

[Codetapper]

That's a problem with your hard drive and not WHDLoad. I have a 30 gig 2.5" HD in my Amiga and it automatically spins itself down when it's not being used. WHDLoad is for running games, not trying to add new features to an old hard drive...

[Jerry]

Well, it might be that it is a problem with my harddrive. It's a 10 gig 3.5 drive and those big things were surely never supposed to be put into a A1200 desktop but I know a lot of people who use those drives. I gonna try and get a 2.5 hd but I've never heard of a 3.5 hd that suspends on its own eg. with no user space program. Might be a feature of those notebook hds!?

[Codetapper]

Could well be - by spinning down they presumably use less power which is vital on laptops. My previous HD was a 3.5" drive and from memory it did not spin down either - I had to live with the noise. Incidentally the new 2.5" drives are deadly quiet - I can hardly tell it's going even when it is running!

[jotd]

Originally Posted by Jerry

I think it would be cool for games with preload option to suspend the hd at least until the game has to write to disk again. I know I can copy the game to ramdisk and use hdsleep or similar tools but that's a bit unhandy. Any thoughts on this?

That's a legitimate request. You can do it without changing WHDLoad:
You don't even need to copy the game in RAM but just use the script facility of WHDLoad (running some scripts/program before/after WHDLoad, originally designed for running tools to switch off network boards which trigger spurious interrupts)

Hoping to be of help.

[Jerry]

Thx, wasn't aware of the ExecuteStartup option. So much for rtfm.

[MarlboroMan]

Hmm i tried it with the ExecuteStartup option but it doesnt work for me.

When i doubleclick the games icon the HDDs spin down, but immediately spin up again to load the game data. Whdload seems to first execute the command and then load the slave and the data.

Btw i used the idefix command ´Ship´ .

Any ideas?

[Codetapper]

I thought as much - I guess buying a 2.5" laptop HDD that auto spins down is out of the question? Is it really that annoying to have the HDD going?

[Jerry]

Well, I think noise stinks and my old hd is quite loud. Especially with the old A500 games it spoils the experience :-) Nevertheless I try to get a 2.5 HD but they are quite expensive and I don't really need 40 gig. For now I will just have to live with the noise...

[mr_a500]

Slightly off topic, but is there a new 2.5" drive that doesn't spin down when inactive? I'm very interested in finding one.

Although I understand the need (power saving in notebooks) I actually hate this feature of modern drives especially when using one in a classic Amiga. The Amiga isn't constantly using the drive unlike modern OSes with their virtual memory paging/search indexing. So on my Amiga, the drive is always spinning down and starting up again. I think this is what is killing it (makes very loud noises when stopping now). The spin down also causes the occasional crash - when attempting to access the drive at the exact second of the spin down.

My old notebook drive from 1992 doesn't spin down and is still running perfectly fine. (..if it wasn't only 40Mb, I'd still be using it)

[jotd]

Originally Posted by MarlboroMan

Hmm i tried it with the ExecuteStartup option but it doesnt work for me.

When i doubleclick the games icon the HDDs spin down, but immediately spin up again to load the game data. Whdload seems to first execute the command and then load the slave and the data.

Btw i used the idefix command ´Ship´ .

Any ideas?

Well, I guess that combination of both ideas - copying the game to RAM: and then using the script - would work. Maybe Bert would see no problem in moving the script execution after all data has been loaded (or add another option for that)

[DopPie]

I remembered this thread when the following happend today while playing good old rick dangerous;

As we all know it is impossible to finish rick dangerous in a short time without cheats. So I got an unlimited live cheat using the whdload version of rick. After a few minutes of play I switched off my monitor and left the amiga on to continue later. When I got back the harddisk had spun down. I thought my amiga went to bit-heaven but when I turned on the monitor the game was still there where I left it and all still functioned.

It must have been the hdsleep program that runs in the background. It turns off the HD after it has not been used for some time.

What you could do is install this tool and set the time very short. Or use that script function to tweak the time for each individual game.

Hope this helps.

[Codetapper]

Sorry DopPie, that is impossible. WHDLoad completely kills and takes over the Amiga operating system, so there is nothing that can be running in the background while WHDLoad is active.

I would say your HD spun itself down - nothing to do with HDSleep or any software you have effectively in "suspended animation" on the Workbench.

[DopPie]

Ow, I thought that would be more likely. Games rarely like to multitask. Well, anyway I didn't know my harddisk could do that. There are more secrets in the box than I expected ;-)