List of HD compatible / Converted games

[alexh]

Just out of interest... is there a definitive list of HD complatible / converted games anywhere?

I dont mind starting one on the Atari Forum Wiki if people would contribute a few titles (with the name of crack / loader program).

Obviously I know about CJ's work for Dbug (they are all already on my hard drive).

PPera has done some.

What other Titles?? There was a post that some PompeyPirate games were HD compatible

I've got this MegaSTe and new silent internal 1GB CF drive and I need some decent stuff to put on.

It would be good to integrate the list into Atarilegends eventually.

Just some thoughts.

[aktiv8]

Don't have a definitive list, however most of the latter cracks by the PP were link-filed, single parted etc and it was just a case of dragging the respective executable to the HD.

Some titles that spring to mind from the PP disks are Rodland on PP 92 and Im sure Megalomania did the same a few menus later...

[Cyrano Jones]

Obviously I know about CJ's work for Dbug (they are all already on my hard drive).

Thanks! However, I must point out that D-Bug consists of... myself, Shw, GGN, ECG and Dubmood... and cannot take all the glory for myself.

I think a lot of the Superiour menus have their own HD versions - but possibly a driver needs to be present on C:\ (not too sure, never really looked, just a vague memory)

[Mug UK]

CJ's right re: the Superior ones as there was a .SYS file that needed to be on the root of C: for them to work. Not sure if it was in the real late days of their menus or from a mid-point onwards.

In theory, if it's already in files a la $3F loader then it should (possibly) work with a few changes to the loader (remove A:\ references via a hex-editor) but that's someone else's job

Everything I ever did for The Source and Adrenalin would have been h/drive compatible as that's all I ever strived to do is make them run from my own Mega ST 2 h/drive back in the day.

[Maartau]

Some "new" titles can be fastly fixed for HD .

As said MuG, need to retouch some lines.

The "hard" part of the job is for games coded in GFA : long & hard job to Easy-Ride a whole source... If the games worth the effort, why not?

[Maartau]

Code: Select all

                     *------------------------------------*
                      This is FFLS Hard Disk Driver V 1.05
                     *------------------------------------*
          Copy file FFLS_HDD.SYS to the root directory of partition C.



     This driver makes running your favourite games software from your hard
     drive a reality. Selected titles from the best compacted menus around,
     Superior  menus,  can  now  be copied to  any  ACSI  hard  drive,  any
     partition, and any folder and started.


     Hardware requirements

     Atari 520ST, 520STM, 520STFM, or 520STE
     Atari compatible ACSI hard drive(s)


     How it works?

     First  you must copy the driver to root directory of the partition  C:
     (ie.  C:\).  This driver itself don't know how to read files from your
     hard drive but is called by the games,  which support the  driver,  to
     get  information about your partitions and directory  structure.  This
     method was selected because (a) these routines will be used by all the
     games  and  there's just no point to copy over 3000 bytes  into  every
     program file, and (b) you can replace an old driver with a new one and
     all  the games will use it automatically.  This driver  supports  both
     ICD/Supra and Atari's XGM extended partitioning shemes.


     Restrictions

     (a)  Works  only with ACSI drives ie.  drives connected  to  your  DMA
     connector.

     Internal hard drives in Mega STE and TT can't  be used.  I don't  have
     any documentation about these new machines, sorry. This means that you
     can't use ACSI drives connected to your Mega STE or TT either!

     (b) Only GEM partition type is supported.

     If your drive was partioned with TOS <1> 16 Mb then this partition is of  BGM
     type and can't be used.

     If your drive was partioned with TOS >= 1.04 max. partition size is 32
     Mb.   If your partition size is > 32 Mb then this partition is of  BGM
     type and can't be used.

     (c) Partition swapping (ICD) can't be supported.

     All partitions found in your system are assigned logical drive  number
     in physical order.



     Disclaimer

     This  driver  (at  the moment) does not write anything  to  your  hard
     drive,  so you shouldn't loose any important data!  We can't, however,
     take  any  responsibility for the possible loss of data or  damage  to
     your equipment.

     This driver has been tested with the following ACSI drives:

          + Atari Megafile
          + ICD
          + Protar
          + Supra
          + Vortex

     Special thanks to all beta testers!


Written by Jinx of Superior 1992.



[Maartau]

The SYS file can't be posted there, but you can find it on Superior menus and/or I can post it in another specific thread.

[alexh]

Internal hard drives in Mega STE and TT can't be used. I don't have any documentation about these new machines, sorry. This means that you can't use ACSI drives connected to your Mega STE or TT either!

ARRGH!

[Cyrano Jones]

So, not much use with current systems but great for its day.

Oh, and don't forget ZipLoad - most of those should run from HD (Late Medway Boys/BBC menus) Not sure if AndyLoad will run, might test later. The more that works, the less we have to fix!

We're still working away on HD/030 patches - many, many left to do.

We've also worked out how to get everything mountable and runnable from .msa files (including DMA loaders *with* savegames) - this is quite a few months away at the moment tho, and also horribly complicated, but it *is* possible [Note: Falcon fixes will still be needed for many titles, but ST mount & run should work ok]

ULS is also progressing nicely, and there should be a ULS page on the D-Bug site soon(ish) although with the above new method, all the patches and ULS releases will become invalid as the disk images should just work

[alexh]

On a side note, I've tried quite a lot of HD installed titles over the last few days, trying them in both 8MHz and 16MHz mode (only 3D titles) on my MegaSTe and I'll have a go at making a wiki page shortly.

[alexh]

Is there a HD version of Dungeon Master & CSB? I've played the PC version but it just isnt the same

[alexh]

Has anyone come across a version of Castle Master that works from HD and at 16MHz?

I loved this game (and the other freescape games) as a kid. It was always a little slow and I am hoping that if I can get it to run at 16MHz it will fly!

[Cyrano Jones]

Has anyone come across a version of Castle Master that works from HD and at 16MHz?

I loved this game (and the other freescape games) as a kid.

It's in my WIP folder and it very nearly works (But not quite)

[cb]

SideNote: Is there a HD version of Dungeon Master & CSB? I've played the PC version but it just isnt the same

Hi,
There are HD versions of those 2 games for sure. As far as I remember I got them from the old Elite HQ website in 1998 or 1999.

[Mug UK]

It took me a while but I got there. Used up a few pairs of scissors though ....



This is a WIKI-related section. Therefore WIKI-related stuff ONLY.

If you want to play name-calling games, f**k off somewhere else in the forum.

If you lost some posts then tough - there are other forums you could visit if you don't like what I've done but you were all warned.

[bj]

Thanks Mug. That's fine with me. Apologies to alexh if I contributed to derailing his thread.

[ppera]

Just to note here that I tested first 100 Automation menu disks, plus many others with Image Runner. Mostly on Mega ST with TOS 1.04. About 95% games from Automation disks worked fine. It means over 300 titles, indirectly HD compatible. With some other menu disks rate is not so good, but still, I'm sure that over 1000 games can be run so. Without any patching.

[alexh]

For people reading this thread thinking "What is image runner?" it is a tool that ppera has for "mounting" disk images.

http://www.ppest.org/atari/imgrun.php

While it does work (sort of) it is a bit fiddly to use.

http://www.ppest.org/atari/imgrusag.html

I dont know exactly how it works, but I dont think it is any amazing "technological break through".

ppera himself says

"If game or it's loader uses any direct floppy access (hardware access) it will not run."

This leads me to believe that the reason this program works is as much a tribute to the original crackers who filed the games stored on the disk images as it is to ppera for creating this tool to take advantage of them.

That said, at least he's doing something, which is more than I am

[Mug UK]

In theory, *any* file-based program that uses standard Trap #1 file load ($3F) commands should be able to run off a h/drive.

However, there are a few caveats including those games that relocate themselves down to low memory addresses (ie. cracked games that were originally boot-loaders and are now in a file version). These could over-write the HD driver software in memory etc.

I'm talking about the bog-standard file versions - no ripped DMA loaders etc. It also depends on how the programmer has used the $3F method .. if they use FDATA to search for the existence of a file then quite a few link-file loaders cannot handle this - also hard-coded drive letters in a filename won't help.

Some code would also force the default drive to be A: - this kind of routine would need to be knocked out of the .PRG file.

I always used to link-file stuff as much as possible and it was always tested on my "old faithful" Mega ST and Megafile 60 before it was released on a The Source or Adrenalin disk. So I know my stuff will work but it's never been tested on anything more modern than a Mega ST

[Cyrano Jones]

In theory, *any* file-based program that uses standard Trap #1 file load ($3F) commands should be able to run off a h/drive.

Incorrect. If they disable or use TimerC without running through the system's TimerC then HD access is not possible. Also writing to the high bit of the YM chip will disable the Falcon's IDE channel.

[Mug UK]

Fair enough - none of the stuff I ever did needed anything like that fixing - must have been lucky.

A proper document on fixing stuff for Falcon/Mega STE/TT would be useful on the Wiki too but start with the easy stuff first.

[ppera]

Alexh is in right: most of credit deserve people who 'filed' diverse games.
But there is a lot of games which load via regular file load, just some protection is added (probably best example is Dungeon master and CSB).
Such games (already disprotected) still not run from hard disk in big %.

There is source file on site for Image Runner, so everyone can see how it works, and even why many game runs not directly from hard drive.

It is based on old 'tricks'. I could make it 15 years ago. And actually I had something similar - mounting resident Ramdisk C from compressed image. It was before I had hard drive. ST and MSA existed not.

Usage is as is, I don't see way to make it simpler and that it work on different TOS versions.

Now, what Cyrano Jones writes about Timer C and Falcon IDE channel:

After loading and starting game HD is usually not needed (at all cost) - I talk about 'regular' games, not specially HD modded from authors. It is probably good for safety that HD is not accessible. And all pos. saving goes to floppies.

We should look on all this from users aspect: what we want?
Faster load and not to write lot of floppies.
System with putting all in RAMdisk and then read from there instead floppy is solution if we have enough RAM. It does ImgRun practically, but without 'extra' cost.
Other way is to make game mod for each game separatelly - as I did with F1 GP. But it is slow process, and not easy.

Best would be to just replace so called DMA load (direct FDC access) with regular GEMdos fileloads. It is made in many case, but sometime it is simple not possible, or requires rewrite of big parts of game. F1 GP starts at $400 - where system variables are, so no way about filing in way that it will load levels from hard disk .
By shorter games it is always much easier - loading 80KB long Virus enywhere, and then copy to low RAM is peace of cake. But F1 GP uses almost whole low 512KB.

There is ULS about I know little, but it again requires modding of game.

In ImgRun I hooked XBIOS trap for reading CHS floppy sectors too. But it looks that it is almost not used at all. Maybe Sundog uses it, cos I don't see files in image, but works fine (did not looked deeply).

And there are already made mods, so idea of making list is really welcome...

[ppera]

In theory, *any* file-based program that uses standard Trap #1 file load ($3F) commands should be able to run off a h/drive...

Some code would also force the default drive to be A: - this kind of routine would need to be knocked out of the .PRG file.

Right, low RAM usage is common problem why filed stuff runs not from hard drives.
Default drive A can be faked - mapping C to A for instance, as I did in resident Ramdisk, and ImgRun does it in fact.

[Showaddywaddy]

Best would be to just replace so called DMA load (direct FDC access) with regular GEMdos fileloads. It is made in many case, but sometime it is simple not possible, or requires rewrite of big parts of game. F1 GP starts at $400 - where system variables are, so no way about filing in way that it will load levels from hard disk .

That's the reason a large proportion of commercial games use DMA, BECAUSE they overwrite the OS and therefore a custom load routine is needed. You'll be opening a can of worms if you go for what I'd say was a retrograde step in trying to make DMA loaders in to GEMDOS!

Just my opinion, of course

Shw

[Cyrano Jones]

Best would be to just replace so called DMA load (direct FDC access) with regular GEMdos fileloads. It is made in many case, but sometime it is simple not possible, or requires rewrite of big parts of game. F1 GP starts at $400 - where system variables are, so no way about filing in way that it will load levels from hard disk .

Yes, there is. Including savegames. That's what ULS does.