Load "Retrocomputer Gaming Thread",8,1.exe

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Minidust: Nov 4, 2009; Keep bustin'

Martytoof posted:

Got my Gotek in and immediately regretting not just going the "external" route. It looks so janky in my A500.

I should have bought the DF0/DF1 toggle board while I was on the site. Don't even need to worry about routing a select cable out of the case as I doubt I'll ever actually use the legit floppy drive as DF0.

That said, I'd need to find an external floppy enclosure for the Amiga first so I guess I'd have to wait either way.

E: OK well 30 seconds rummaging through the University�s e-waste bin has me optimistic I can right this visual calamity

Fellow Gotek newbie here! Gave the old family Amiga 500 some much-needed TLC over the weekend, including a Gotek/DF0 switch upgrade. I'll tell ya, 30+ years of dust (and a handful of... dead grubs?!) is a hell of a thing :nms:

. But now I've got this machine cleaned out, fully-integrated into the SCART RGB setup on my desk, and ready to roll. Throw in the full Amiga library at my fingertips for the first time, and I am stoked as heck!

OP, if you're gonna go for a selector switch, I'd recommend the one sold by AmigaKit simply because it has the wires coming out of the chip in a parallel orientation. Most of the other ones I've seen have the wires coming out straight up vertically, and I've seen a number of installation tutorials that mention difficulty in getting the metal RF shielding back on properly - I suspect there's a correlation! With the AmigaKit selector switch, I was able to get the shielding back on with no issues. Note however that you'll be waiting a WHILE for shipping (I had to kind of nudge them for a shipping update... they cite COVID staffing as an issue, which is understandable of course).

I was able to slide my Gotek directly into my CA-880 external floppy enclosure, hopefully you have similar luck with the one you've found! Same exact process as documented in this convenient blog I came across, right down to the original drive model: https://www.amigalove.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1594. Only difference is that I ended up having to change the default Gotek jumper position to "S1" in order for my Amiga to respond to the drive (after toggling the selector switch).

The switch itself I just left in the memory expansion trapdoor. Quite inelegant but maybe I'll get something more polished later. Right now I'm just basking in the satifaction of how easy this was for a not-so-handy dude like myself.

Looking for an alternative to my weird old pistol-grip/wine-glass Amiga joysticks, I ordered one of these new controllers: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Amiga-Controller-Gamepad-Commodore-64-Control-Pad-Power-Stick-3-button/263986698931 Basically an NES controller but with the A button mapped to a duplicate "up" input, for all that single-button Europlatformer goodness. Looks like it just showed up, so I'll have to test it out and share some thoughts later!

# ¿ Mar 8, 2021 20:32

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 08:07

Minidust: Nov 4, 2009; Keep bustin'

Now that my old Amiga is back in service I am trying to wrap my head around all this NTSC/PAL stuff.

My setup is:
- U.S. Amiga 500, presumablyi NTSC
- Amiga to SCART video out
- PVM crt that can apparently handle both NTSC and PAL signals

My understanding is that some games are just PAL, end of story, and they will run slightly too fast and have the bottom of the screen cut off. I thought that some extreme underscan adjustments might get around this (my monitor has a dedicated underscan toggle that makes it easy). But while I can get some missing details to show up, it seems that the lowest portion of the PAL image is not being rendered at all. It's most apparent in games that have HUD elements way at the bottom of the screen:

standard settings

underscan on

standard settings

underscan on

I can just live with this if I have to (heck, I can write it off as being part of the nostalgia) but I'm curious what the options are. I know there are hardware-based PAL switching options for the Amiga 500 itself, but not sure if I want to go that route. Is it likely that some deeper monitor setting might take care of this? I'm willing to try but I don't wanna go crazy with my PVM settings if I'd just be barking up the wrong tree.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2021 16:06

Minidust: Nov 4, 2009; Keep bustin'

As I've been learning about using a Gotek on Amiga, I've come across some recommendations for "GreaseWeazle." If I understand correctly, that's just a better method of copying/dumping disk images. So like it wouldn't offer any unique functionality to an end user... but for preservation purposes, any Greaseweazle-sourced disk files would be the most accurate, with no cracks necessary. Is that about right?

Sounds like it wouldn't be of much use to me personally, except in the unlikely event that a game I own hasn't been cracked. Pretty cool that it exists though!

Speaking of Gotek, I've been wondering - is there any trick to saving/writing to an .adf file? I've done some cursory testing were it didn't seem to write (just basic stuff like entering my name in a score table), and I"m wondering if that's a limitation of the Gotek, or if perhaps the cracked versions of some of these games just don't bother to support it. I've come across discussion of save games being an issue, but it looked like they were just talking about edge cases where a game originally required a dedicated blank disk for saving.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2021 16:00

Minidust: Nov 4, 2009; Keep bustin'

Seat Safety Switch posted:

Are you using the FlashFloppy firmware? I haven�t written to many ADFs, but I�m pretty sure it worked last time my A2500 was plugged in.

Yep it's FlashFloppy. Thanks, I'll give it another shot with something that's easy to verify. I just added Workbench to the USB stick, so I'll see if I can save a text document or something.

Speaking of Gotek I just now figured out that you don't even need the autoboot/selector thing. I'm just browing folders directly on the OLED screen now and it's a much better experience. I'm gonna curate some folders, starting with cracks of games that were in the physical collection of my youth... moving on to coverdisks I had... games I rented... games I always wanted to play but never did, etc... this is gonna be fun!

Like every guide I've seen online mentions the selector interface, so I assumed it was mandatory. I guess they were written with the most basic Gotek configuration (7-segment display) in mind. Similarly it seems like a lot of default firmware settings assume you have the two buttons only and no rotary dial... I tweaked thiings a bit so now the buttons behave differently than the dial, and there's no automatic selecting after 2 seconds since I have a discrete "confirm" input now. This whole process is feeling less slippery now and I love it!

# ¿ Mar 31, 2021 16:10

Minidust: Nov 4, 2009; Keep bustin'

Minidust posted:

Yep it's FlashFloppy. Thanks, I'll give it another shot with something that's easy to verify. I just added Workbench to the USB stick, so I'll see if I can save a text document or something.

Chiming back in to say I'm successfully writing to .adf files now! Saving stuff in Workbench worked; also created a pilot in Cinemaware's "Wings" and loaded the saved game later on.

Meanwhile the original game I tested in the first place still didn't write (Aunt Arctic Adventure), so I guess it's just a quirk of that particular crack. Practically speaking, the trainer options render saving unnecessary in that particular case... but it'd be nice to have the whole package! Oh well, it's a small price to pay.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2021 05:56

Minidust: Nov 4, 2009; Keep bustin'

I've found that games purchased on GOG and such almost never sound like I remember (in terms of the MIDI soundtracks). I get that this would have been hardware-specific, but I'm pretty sure my dad's computer had whatever was the most common Soundblaster card back in the day. Is there a technical or perhaps licensing-related reason that the sound always seems different? Like even when I check out fan-made OSTs for some games, the sound seems off... so I'm wondering if I just had some weird out-of-the-way hardware and didn't realize

# ¿ Nov 23, 2021 23:06

Minidust: Nov 4, 2009; Keep bustin'

I was weirdly against using keyboard to play anything back in the day, probably because I was envious of game console-owners and few things felt less console-like than using a keyboard

we had a flight stick that we got for X-Wing and I used that to play every game, no matter how little sense it made :dumb:

I think I finally started using kb+mouse with like Doom II at some point, although I did it totally wrong (pushing forward on the mouse to move forward, yikes)

The PC port of Mortal Kombat 3 forced me to give keyboard a chance, and I think I slowly started to realize that a keyboard was not too far removed from using buttons on an arcade cabinet. Still, I jumped right over to a programmable gamepad as soon as I could get my hands on one (those type of things always had some sort of PS2 passthrough port for the keyboard... it was weird in the times before USB was everywhere).

I was still using gamepads for like Unreal Tournament 2004, but at least it was USB at that point. Finally I re-played Doom in like 2010 on Steam and was like, oh wow WASD is good

# ¿ Feb 24, 2022 20:10

Minidust: Nov 4, 2009; Keep bustin'

Captain Rufus posted:

Well in general for Amigas you do not. In general.

I don't post nearly enough cuz I'm weird so dunno if I've shared it in the thread before but its time to share the ultimate Swiss Army Knife but German for any Amiga 500 owner who doesn't want to cheat and pop in a Pistorm.

This sexy little list of options is from the Aca500Plus from Individual Computing.
Look at what it can do.
Its got up to 42mhz 68000 speed!
8 megs of fast ram! (Sort of 7 really but whatever.)
Option to turn your trapdoor ram into Chip for 1 meg total covering most of your WHDLoad needs!
Built in OS 3.1 to install!
Multiple Kickstart roms to select including user provided!
Double CF slots with one being hot swapping from your pc or Android or whatever!
Pal/Ntsc switching at boot!
Action Replay 3 in Rom!
Disk Drive Boot Select!

Like this little bastard is practically impossible to live without if you have a 500!
https://icomp.de/shop-icomp/en/shop/product/ACA500plus.html there are many other less cheapo casual features too for folks who actually need real time clocks and who want to use 1200 model accelerator boards. (Not sure why since without AGA its not like the extra speed and ram is worth 250 bux plus imo but im sure some nutters may disagree.)

It, a good full USB mouse dongle, your standard Gotek, the newest RGB2HDMI (if you can find a pi zero 1 or 2 anyhow..), and OS 3.2 is basically a complete super 500 all you need thats not overkill and stupid. (Sure I want an ECS Denise chip and an ACE2 for 2mb chip ram but thats around 400 bucks of nearly useless tat.)

its still gonna make your 500 into a Sexual Tyrannosaurus that can play Elite 2 real good.

Grab yourself a 3.x patched version of Filemaster, make sure LHA is installed, and 3.2 will do everything you want just about as opposed to all the nonsense 1.3 and to a lesser degree 3.1 have. Its even got built in adf support for your non auto boot needs.

I even bought a 3d printed case off of Ebay that I need to get around to painting.

Yes the thing is an external component. Which means I lose out on my GVP Hard Drive but oh well. Ought to sell it if its worth anything with or without the scsi2sd 5.2 I've got in it. And 8 megs 70ns RAM. The physical drive still works too.

Quoting this post for my own reference, since I was already about to order some Amiga hardware. I am still using a stock A500, with RAM that had been upgraded to 1MB, and an external Gotek (with DF1/DF0 selector switch) that I just added a year ago.

As I've been rehabbing the old family Amiga, I've come across lots of potential upgrades that I don't know much about.... Vampire this, Terrible Fire that, etc. So if this were to be explained to me like I'm 10 years old: Does this ACA500Plus render those other items unnecessary if I'm upgrading from a mostly stock A500? Will this allow me to play A500 games faster/better? Will these janky .adf cracks that give me a blank screen be more likely to run, or do I just need to find less-janky .adf cracks?

In any case thanks for the effortpost, my Amiga rabbithole hasn't run TOO deep yet but we'll see if that lasts!

# ¿ Jun 20, 2022 22:05

Minidust: Nov 4, 2009; Keep bustin'

Captain Rufus posted:

In order of your questions:
By and large yes. The Aca500Plus more or less replaces those. Its not quite as fast but it does speeds that all your 68000 based games could ever need.

Again yes. And with the built in hard drive setup, whdload (and the pre set up whd downloads you can find with a very simple search...) means you don't have to disk swap at all or wait for loads! Said filez place has 3300+ ready to un lha (ONLY DO THIS IN WORKBENCH OS OF YOUR CHOICE NOT ON OTHER MACHINES) games of all sorts. Including 190 in pure NTSC if you don't want to be hassled or worried. Whdload itself has 3 more years of tweaks and more games/improvements to some titles but.. it'll do you well enough.

These broken cracks are probably just pal or ntsc versions many of which don't run at all on the other video format. (Some pal stuff will still have missing top and bottom parts of the image.) Also some don't like various Kickstarts or oses. Or need X Y or Z amounts and type of ram. The Aca500Plus with all its switching options effectively negates these annoyances.

Edit: a while back I was also covering this project of mine over at Amigalove but its a rather small low traffic board so I kind of fell off. I did a summary of things to get which I'm gonna repost here.

--------‐----------------Yes some of this is repeated info.------------------

But right now I want to take a quick look at my current upgrade bits and give em a 1-10 rating in Price, Ease of Use/Installation, and QoL to the machine.

Usb mouse dongle from Amigastore.eu : 9, 10, 9. Its pretty much awesome, reasonably priced, and makes life 100x better. If the circuit board came with a little cover and a stand so its not poking out it would be nearly perfect.

Rgb2Hdmi: 7, 7, 6. I get graphical interference from time to time that I don't know is due to the board, my settings, the firmware, or my soldering of 40 pins. It needs this that and the other but it does work. Just not super flawlessly and has lots of hidden costs like a menu button, micro SD, mini hdmi cable, soldering the pi zero pins. Add a point to price if you can get a 10 bucks or less Pi Zero with the pin connector already built in. (Update for this repost: apparently there have been board revisions that fix some of the minor irritations. If so add a point to QoL. Maybe 2 points if you have no good way to video out for your machine. There are a few other rgb to hdmi type options but this is one of the cheaper ones.)

Internal Gotek with lit lcd screen, 2 buttons, and 3d printed mount: 8, 8, 8. Not perfect but its a must have for pretty much any 500 owner in 2022. 3.5s are dying. Swapping disks is annoying. Its just a bit irksome fitting it in and getting it to stay put, especially with the 3d printed mount. Sometimes gives Write Errors or the LCD boots up with garbage (though it still works). No turbo mode its just og speed. No sound on mine hurts feeling stuff is working even when its drive light and the Amigas are active. And you more or less have to have the lcd plate flopping out of the drive hole to actually see anything. On the upside it is a great place to feed the mini HDMI cable through. Helped by my TV having its inputs on the right side anyhow.
(Edit update: with the Aca500Plus and Whdload one could arguably say you can even avoid these entirely and mostly be ok. They aren't too expensive at all though.)

Aca 500 Plus: 5, 8, 10. Its expensive. Its not 100% easy to set up especially given CF cards need to be carefully inserted to avoid bending all those poking out pins. Some stuff doesn't seem to auto save which can cause issues. Adding KS roms involves typing and the CLI. Its an exposed board that doesn't like to easily plug into the left side expansion port it now owns. But every 500 owner needs one. Its everything you want its everything you need. Hot swap one cf for easy file transfer! Pal/Ntsc switching. Keep different cfs for different Amiga HDs. Kick rom switching. Cpu from 7-42 mhz. Select only chip Ram. Use trapdoor as chip with Ecs Agnus. Has WB 3.1 on board to either use for initial hd install or just to boot from. 8 megs of Fast Ram. Action Replay built in. Multiple profiles to set your Amiga up as you need including pretending its not even there! 1200 Accelerator and other card connections and settings. Use external floppy as boot floppy option. Its not perfect but its very very great and you could grab this and a gotek and you are almost done in many cases! Just read the little manual it comes with and print out the page on Individual Computer's Wiki about what everything does. Trust me.

AmigaOS 3.2: 7, 8, 8. Do you have a pc with a cdrom drive? Do you want many things that both pretty up and improve Workbench built in? Are you willing to deal with installation, online registration for patches, and some issues with when you use 3.2 kick roms instead of 3.1? Then you should probably save up a few bucks for this and make your life simpler in the long run. Lots of things modern Gui Oses have had for decades are now standard in Amigaland. Or things that were in a bazillion add on programs that all wanted x y or Z in Libs or whatever the heck else. Its still not perfect but if you are basically coming from 1.3 like me? Yeah its good albeit still no MacOS 6, or 7. (9.22 and X10.4-6 are too modern machine to really be a fair comparison.) Unless you are an Amiga Vet with your WB set with all the fixins this gives us what we need mostly.

Great post! I've been poking around on the Amiga reddit as well, and yeah the ACA500Plus is recommended pretty much across the board. One thing I'm still not clear on is how it relates to the ECS Agnus chip. I've seen recommendations to upgrade one's Agnus to an ECS Agnus (I snapped some internal pics and saw I have a Rev 5 board, so apparently that upgrade would apply to me). That one is beyond my skill level, but then I've also seen a claim that the ACA500Plus provides a solder-free solution to the ECS upgrade somehow?

Also wondering about my trapdoor. Is there a RAM expansion that pairs best with the ACA500Plus? Or does ACA500Plus render the whole thing moot? I'm totally down to spend a few additional bucks if the Amiga will benefit from it. I am not fully versed in all the different RAM types, but I believe what I have is the 512k "slow RAM"... I see there's a cell-style battery in there, which apparently is NOT the ticking time bomb that the "barrel-style" battery is supposed to be, so that's good at least. But I'll gladly upgrade either way. Pics of my own for reference:

What about power supplies? Stock A500 still good, or should I be looking for something else? I came across a forum post from what I think was an ACA500Plus developer, and they seemed to be rather dismissive of aftermarket PSUs, so I wanted to be careful before just ordering a new one.

Also, I did a double-take when I saw:

Captain Rufus posted:

Pal/Ntsc switching

Could you elaborate on this? I'm in the US, so throughout my childhood I just got used to playing games slightly too fast, with the bottom of the screen (usually with crucial HUD information!) cut off. Would this actually allow games to run in proper PAL resolution/speed on my U.S. Amiga, or is it referring to something else? If it's the former, I do have RGB out running through a Retrotink 5x, so I am pretty sure my display could handle any signal thrown at it, if such options really exist.

Thanks again, these Amiga effortposts are really appreciated. I will probably pick up that USB mouse adapter too (currently have a cart going at AmigaStore.eu)

# ¿ Jun 24, 2022 16:01

Minidust: Nov 4, 2009; Keep bustin'

You Am I posted:

I would definitely invest in a new aftermarket PSU. The one that came with my A1200 could not run it and the 030 accelerator I had. Depending on a 30+ year old PSU to power up a fairly valuable computer these days is insane. And sadly Commodore did their best to make most Amiga PSUs non repairable.

I recommend the Amiga PSUs sold by C64 PSU: https://www.c64psu.com

ooh nice, and I see their "Boost" PSU even mentions the ACA. The product description alludes to ripple reduction and voltage attenuation around 5V... that terminology is way over my head but I recognized it from an ACA developer post that I saw (about suitable PSUs), so it must be good!!

Captain Rufus posted:

That trapdoor should be fine. Note my settings above for the Aca. It will use it as chip ram for your Whdload needs.

If you want to play pure disk stuff it may or may not work for that.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_500#Trap-door_expansion_501
That could lead you to some knowledge for your ram needs. Note some later revision 500 motherboards have room to solder 512k on the board for pure 1 meg Chip but you don't need it imo.

However if money is burning a hole in your pocket and or you have an older Fat Agnus there is a solution for your I WANT MORE CHIP RAM needs.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...zdJXEow-6512V09

It's silly and not really necessary but if you want to take the 500 as far as it can go while still being a 500 there you go.

For video the answer is maybe? I'm using an NTSC machine with currently all NTSC chips. Between it and how I boot with the Aca and Amiga OS 3.2 I'm generally doing fine now. Some stuff still has the odd missing lines even with my RGB2HDMI but more or less good to go.

ahaa thanks again. Got my eye on that ACE2b now. Looks like it's a solder-free solution that takes care of the ECS Agnus and PAL/NTSC stuff in one shot? I did manage to pull out my Even CIA chip when I installed the selector swtich for the Gotek, so if if the install isn't more complicated than that I should be golden!

# ¿ Jul 6, 2022 21:15

Minidust: Nov 4, 2009; Keep bustin'

Minidust posted:

ahaa thanks again. Got my eye on that ACE2b now. Looks like it's a solder-free solution that takes care of the ECS Agnus and PAL/NTSC stuff in one shot? I did manage to pull out my Even CIA chip when I installed the selector swtich for the Gotek, so if if the install isn't more complicated than that I should be golden!

Quoting myself because it's all starting to CLICK. My current Agnus chip is an 8370, aka OCS Agnus. PAL/NTSC switching is off the table unless I have an ECS Agnus. For that, I can either replace my 8370 chip with an 8372A, OR I can go buck wild and get that ACE2b, which is is like getting an ECS Agnus with a chimpRAM extender built in. And these chips are all PLCC-based, so a solder-averse shlub like me can swap 'em out no problem!

The older methods of expanding chipRAM are where soldering would've been an issue. So the ACE2b gives me an easy path to 2MB chipRAM, if that's what I'm after.

I will get an ACA500plus for sure; the only question now is whether to get a vanilla 8372A or go full :retrogames:

with an ACE2b.

Leaning toward the splurge, but I suppose I should at least ask: what can I do with 2mb chipRAM?? :greenangel:

I don't intend to use Deluxe Paint or productivity software. But if it improves gaming (hacks/homebrew maybe?) or just smoothes up the whole experience, I'm down. Like would I be launching more stuff from Workbench vs booting from floppies/images, if I got WHDload all set up? I could imagine MORE RAM=BETTER if that''s the case. Apparently Amiga OS 3.2 requires it... is Amiga OS something I should care about??

# ¿ Jul 26, 2022 16:33

Minidust: Nov 4, 2009; Keep bustin'

Decided to go full-on indulgent with the Amiga, so I've got an ACA500plus and ACE2b on the way. This thing's gonna be a monster!
Thanks for the tips along the way, fellow Retrogoons!

And I came across a cool community thread that documents games benefitting from extra RAM, chip or otherwise. It's a bigger list than I thought, which helped push me in the ACE2 direction: https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=65574

Now I think the only potential shortcoming in my setup is the handling of multi-disk games. Gotek is convenient and all, but I want to retain that early-90s luxury feeling of no disk swaps. Do people just get a second Gotek for that (no reason that shouldn't work as far as I can tell) or is there a more elegant solution? I'm not sure how comprehensive WHDLoad coverage is... does it perhaps address enough of the multi-disk games for it not to be an issue? Should I set up a Greaseweazel and and curate a "Disk 1" collection for my stock internal drive?? All of this sounds like overkill, but I mean, look at what thread we're in.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2022 18:18

Minidust: Nov 4, 2009; Keep bustin'

chiefnewo posted:

Let me know how that setup works for you, I've got an Amiga 500 that I might decide to waste some money on at some point.

I'm curious, does the ACE2b give you access to ECS video modes or just the extra chipRAM?

Some ill-timed renovations are delaying me here, but I'll be sure to report back! The cheapest shipping option from Germany to USA was shockingly fast, btw.

Is there a "good" PLCC puller I should shell out for, or are they all pretty much the same? Checking Amazon but nothing really stands out.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2022 22:26

Minidust: Nov 4, 2009; Keep bustin'

Seat Safety Switch posted:

They are all equally bad (or good?) in the budget range. There are fancy Hakko ones that are sized to a specific dimension of PLCC socket, but they'll cost you.

yeeeeah that's exactly the kind of info I'm looking for here... thanks for the tip!!! Looks like I can get the 84-pin variety straight from Hakko for ~$45... well it'd be far from the worst retrocomputing/gaming splurge I've done.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2022 01:46

Minidust: Nov 4, 2009; Keep bustin'

Finally did some surgery on my Amiga 500 the other day! Much thanks to you kind thread goons for the tips. I shelled out for that Hakko PLCC extractor, so removing the Agnus was the easiest part of the whole operation. Scratched the hell out of Gary with my older, pedestrian chip puller, but it was all superficial so no real damage (eventually used a flathead screwdriver to get started, then let the puller take care of the rest). Popped in the ACE2b, closed things up, inserted the ACA500plus and it was SHOWTIME.

Happy to say that my stock power supply is working fine so far, although I haven't done much in the way of overclocking yet. Will probably get one of those c64psu "boost" units if there ends up being a problem.

chiefnewo posted:

Let me know how that setup works for you, I've got an Amiga 500 that I might decide to waste some money on at some point.

I'm curious, does the ACE2b give you access to ECS video modes or just the extra chipRAM?

I've been able to run games in legit PAL for the first time, it's wild!! Pac-mania was my go-to test game for that... I grew up playing it with the life counter completely out of view off the bottom of the screen, and the music burned into my memory at 120% speed. So right in the ACA500plus main boot menu I was switching between NTSC and PAL, I think you just hit the Space bar, it's real easy. Then I hit the key to boot into whichever Kickstart and loaded the game .adf in my Gotek. Wham, I got that HUD now in all its glory, and tunes that sound very slow to my ears (cuz I grew up with the wrong, fast versions). Beautiful!! I'm not sure how much one can do without the ACA500plus also in the picture, or if there are additional ECS video modes available, but I can definitely vouch for the NTSC/PAL capability.

Worth nothing is that I am using a Retrotink, so that handles the scaling part... the scaled video is outputting to a modern Freesync 4K monitor and 2000's Dell CRT, which are both accepting the 50Hz signal without issue, but YMMV. The PAL image appears in normal 4:3 on the 4K monitor, while it is squished horizontally on the CRT (looking slightly too tall by default, even for PAL). But of course both of these can be adjusted easily with the scaler in the mix.

Now it's on to WHDLoad, which is a bit daunting since I've never actually done much computing on my Amiga before. Apparently the ACA500plus (and the instance of Workbench it installs) takes care of some prerequisites. So I already had a built-in utillity for unpacking .lha files, along with a Devs\Kickstarts folder with 2 roms included. I used shell/command line to unpack the WHDLoad installer (which I first copied to Ram Disk... my first time actually using that icon in 30+ years!). Installed in C: directory, then installed a couple of .lha game packages. So far it seems like I can run games without issue, but I'm gonna spam a few questions:

Am I good to just load everything onto my boot CF card now? From what I've seen online, there used to be a 4GB limit to the boot card, but the ACA500plus is supposed to circumvent that somehow. Though I'm not sure if I'm supposed to set up a hard drive partition or something in order to take advantage of that.
So far I've just gone into a game's drawer after being installed, and double-clicked the main icon to launch. Is that the right way to do it or should I be launching them through WHDLoad? When I run WHDLoad itself I'm not quite sure what to do with it; just looks like a text file that describes a bunch of command line parameters.
What's the deal with the QuitKey... apparently ACA500plus allows me to bypass the usual CPU requirements, but it still doesn't seem to work. Is there some type of accelerated configuration I need to be running in order to use it?
Once I''ve got all this figured out, should I just be installing these game .lha files via shell commands, 1 at a time, or is there a better way? I do have a separate CF card for the AUX slot ready to go, so getting everything onto the Amiga to begin with is very easy at least.

Minidust fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Aug 23, 2022

# ¿ Aug 23, 2022 17:15

Minidust: Nov 4, 2009; Keep bustin'

You Am I posted:

1. Hard disk size is depended on which Kickstart version you are running. I usually prefer making a system drive and a separate games/demos drive

2. There are some front end apps for WHDLoad like iGame that will make things easier for you: https://github.com/MrZammler/iGame

3. Never heard of it, sorry

4. Directory Opus (DOPUS) is your friend with anything to do with file/folder manipulation on an Amiga, including dealing with .lha files

Thanks, I got a version of DOPUS running now (the one that worked best for me ended up being an .adf with hard drive install support) and it's a game changer!! Not only file management but a built-in .lha extractor... really glad I'm not gonna have to rely on shell/CLI commands for all these installs.

Couldn't get iGame to work, I followed a few guides for the library prerequisites and all that, but I think my processor is a limiting factor even though I'm swimming in RAM at this point (I've seen posts asking for help with processors that are "only" 68020, and looks like I've got a 68000). Seems like there's a bunch of launcher programs out there though, so I'll give some others a shot!

And according to the ACA500plus support forum, I shouldn't need to do anything special to use the full capacity on my CF card... apparently AmigaOS 3.1 is just limited in its ability to display the correct amount of free space. Neat!

So I feel like I've got carte blanche to go wild with these WHDLoad installs now! Already messed with a few and it's great, and this actually addresses what I feel is a common problem with a lot of .adf collections out there. It's almost like you're getting curated "definitive" versions of these games, rather than having to sort through dozens of cracks. In some cases there has even been quality-of-life stuff patched in, like 2-button controller support. At least this has been the case with the popular Download site I've been using for WH games.

I've noticed a lot of tutorials out there feature people setting up their installs via an instance of WinUAE and then moving it over to a real Amiga. Is this just for convenience or perhaps ease of video capturing, or is it like a good practice for reducing wear and tear on the Amiga? I'm no engineer so I have no idea if "wear and tear" is even a thing to be conscious of here.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2022 19:01

Minidust: Nov 4, 2009; Keep bustin'

anyone using WHDLoad launcher programs for Amiga? I've been trying the popular ones out. Hitting a few snags but with some more research I think I'll settle on a daily driver soon:

X-Bench: gives you a simple list with a kind of demo/cracktro aesthetic. seems to crash if I'm on the game list for ~10 seconds, so that ain't good! Allegedly has Tool Type support, which I plan to use for selecting PAL/NTSC when launching a game, but I'll have to keep the thing from crashing to test that out in earnest :/
Tiny Launcher: basic game selection is working great, but it ignores Tool Types even with the setting enabled in the main menu (cursory searching suggests this may be a problem with WHDLoad itself?). Has image support but it seems to slow down navigation when enabled
iGame: spent a few hours trying to figure the installation out but the icon wouldn't start; might just not work with 68000 processors?
Arcade Game Selector / AGS2: seems really nice and customizable but requires the most legwork (a script file for every game?!). Program is forced into PAL at all times despite my edits to the config file, leading to a lot of unneccesary screen mode switching, not sure if that can be fixed or if I'm better off just trying a forked build. Haven't figured out Tool Types for this one either
AG Launcher: haven't tried this yet but it seems like a nice no-frills option that looks like just another window in Workbench, with some buttons to navigate around the alphabet

Minidust fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Sep 21, 2022

# ¿ Sep 21, 2022 20:43

Minidust: Nov 4, 2009; Keep bustin'

ugh I somehow managed to bend a pin on my ACA500plus CF card reader. Is there a recommended tool for that or is it just "pick up some tweezers and be really careful"?

# ¿ Dec 14, 2022 17:37

Minidust: Nov 4, 2009; Keep bustin'

nielsm posted:

I've bent so many pins on CF card readers. There isn't much else to do than try to bend it back with a flat screwdriver or fine tweezer, and not break it.

ha okay that's what i was thinking, thanks. figures I just slapped a nice aftermartet case on it, but at least the minimalist design on the hardware itself leaves everything nice and accessible once I take it out of there.

this was just the AUX slot... the boot slot is still fine, so worst case senario I can force myself to learn the whole WinUAE method of transferring things instead (and be REALLY careful any time I re-insert the boot card :ohdear:

)

# ¿ Dec 14, 2022 21:08

Minidust: Nov 4, 2009; Keep bustin'

Jim Silly-Balls posted:

I thought that was a vinyl at first

I had Marble Madness for Amiga and it had a similar box (flat and square), I guess that was an Electronic Arts thing back then!

# ¿ Mar 3, 2023 15:56

Minidust: Nov 4, 2009; Keep bustin'

For Real Amiga tinkering I�d definitely recommend getting a file browser like dOpus asap. I had trouble with the stuff on AmiNet at first� I forget the version that worked for me but it was actually on an .adf file that I was able to install.

Much easier to move files around with that and has a built-in .lha unpacker too!

# ¿ May 6, 2023 04:41

Minidust: Nov 4, 2009; Keep bustin'

my RAM story is that the last level of Doom II was basically unplayable, then when my Dad upgraded from 4MB to 8MB it was like I could move and breathe again

oh and a few years earlier when I got the "EXPANSION RAM DETECTED AND UTILIZED" screen in Lemmings after upgrading the Amiga to 1MB :kiddo:

# ¿ May 16, 2023 15:26

Minidust: Nov 4, 2009; Keep bustin'

I played with a mouse but actually pushed it fwd/back to move. and held the "strafe" key to move left/right instead of turning. man the pre-WASD days were rough

# ¿ May 16, 2023 16:30

Minidust: Nov 4, 2009; Keep bustin'

I'm mainly in this thread for Amiga stuff. I tend to consider "PC" a single platform, often wondering why one would bother keeping, say, an old 486 with Windows 3.1 around.

Then I remember that I have a GameCube, Wii and Wii U all separately modded, and I keep quiet. :shobon:

# ¿ Jun 28, 2023 22:12

Minidust: Nov 4, 2009; Keep bustin'

I feel ya! Similarly, MIDI soundtracks always sound wrong to me when I play a re-released game from GoG or whatever. I'm not sure why, since I just grew up with the basic SoundBlaster card that I assume most computers came bundled with. I might just need to learn more about DOSbox.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2023 22:35

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 08:07

Minidust: Nov 4, 2009; Keep bustin'

Took a hell of a lot of tinkering, but finally got the "iGame" WHDLoad launcher working on my enhanced A500! Got a crash course in AmigaOS along the way... volumes, assignments, AmigaShell, library files, datatypes, etc. All new concepts to me, since all I did back in the day was pop in whatever floppy disks my dad bought.

But now I can finally reap the benefits of the ACA500plus/ACE2b that I bought a year or so ago. Feels great to just search/filter through a huge list of installed games in a nice UI, and selectively launch games in PAL (which is what motivated me to research this hardware in the first place) via direct Tool Type editing.

There's a lot of helpful support on the English Amiga Board forums; some crazy soul provided supplementary image and info files for every game to be used as metadata in the UI (although I ended up installing a fancy Icon Library and having iGame display those instead). If anyone else has been having trouble I may be able to assist while it's fresh in my mind. Much thanks to the goons here who helped me get these mods started a while back!

lobsterminator posted:

My family jumped from Amiga to PC in 1993 and I feel like that was a very good spot where PC pretty much overcame Amiga in all areas.

This was my experience for sure. On my birthday that year I finished Lemmings 2 on Amiga, then as a gift got Star Trek 25th Anniversary as my first PC game. Aside from Superfrog that summer there was pretty much no looking back from that. Later in the year I was rocking Day of the Tentacle and X-wing, oh and here's a little shareware game called Wolfenstein...

Minidust fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Oct 17, 2023

# ¿ Oct 17, 2023 21:42

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Retro Games > Load "Retrocomputer Gaming Thread",8,1.exe