Minimig (Amiga) core discussion

[Sorgelig]

Action Replay is not a simple ROM. It's also special hardware.
You cannot compile it because it's not implemented.

HRTMon is not inside the core. You need to provide hrtmon.rom

[comatron]

okay, thanx for the info. ill try hrtmon.rom then. on my amiga 500 i use the ACA500+ by individual computers. with that device i can i can simply chose between HRTmon and AR3 on the real harware and it´s done by software (i guess). so i thought that might work but i was wrong. thanx for the good work sorgelig. your´re awesome.

[BlockABoots]

I take it tinylauncher cant be used with the Mitser though?

Why would you think that? TinlyLauncher works fine with MiSTer.

Also the latest changes to the MiSTer menu adds "Floppy disk turbo : on / off".

I don't know if the feature works yet, but the menu option is there at least.

I know the original Minimig 1.1 has that option for a long time...

Ah i think im out of my depth on the Amiga core, id just like to select a disk or harddisk image in this case and have the core load it, rather than having to use a mouse to navigate the desktop on an OS....i know thats of massive appeal to some having the OS and all but i just want to select a game and play it. Is it even possible to have whdload version of a game appear in your games folder and select it just like the console cores??

[BBond007]

Ah i think im out of my depth on the Amiga core, id just like to select a disk or harddisk image in this case and have the core load it, rather than having to use a mouse to navigate the desktop on an OS....i know thats of massive appeal to some having the OS and all but i just want to select a game and play it. Is it even possible to have whdload version of a game appear in your games folder and select it just like the console cores??

You could put every single whdload game in its own bootable HDF which loads the game from startup-sequence, but would be tedious to set up and waste a lot of space with redundant workbench and kickstarts for every game. I really think its a terrible idea which defeats the purpose of whdload - but possible.

The Amiga is a Computer (not a game console) and as such much of the software/games are going assume that you have a mouse and/or keyboard attached - ADFs and whdload the same. ADFs are probably even worse because many of the cracktros won't proceed unless you press [space] or left-mouse.

That being said, I have made a demo of TinyLauncher running where I start Batman the movie using just my controller --> https://youtu.be/O5tFyqzf1OE

I do press [DEL] to exit back to Tinylauncher but the exit key is configured(in whdload) a PER-GAME basis by editing the 'QUITKEY' tooltype for the icon. You can set this to anything you like (including controller buttons) as defined here --> http://whdload.de/docs/en/rawkey.html (obviously requires navigating the desktop)

You could also just reset the core.

If you simply don't want to see the desktop at all, you could comment out "LoadWB" from s:startup-sequence (assuming you have added TinyLauncher) but that makes it mode difficult to edit whdload per-game tooltype options like QUITKEY or NTSC/PAL and it really won't speed up the boot time that much.

Hope that helps...

[comatron]

Action Replay is not a simple ROM. It's also special hardware.
You cannot compile it because it's not implemented.

HRTMon is not inside the core. You need to provide hrtmon.rom

i now tried a ton of hrtmon.roms - only one does do something - but not the right thing. it looks like this:

IMG_20181220_053756.jpg

anyone an idea for me? greetz

[Sorgelig]

20181220_135333.jpg

Probably your TV is not universal enough to handle this TV signal.
Also note that official TV output on MiSTer is HDMI, not VGA. VGA is mostly for debug and not supposed to have standard and well formed video. If it works for you - OK. if VGA doesn't work well - it won't be fixed.

[BlockABoots]

Ah i think im out of my depth on the Amiga core, id just like to select a disk or harddisk image in this case and have the core load it, rather than having to use a mouse to navigate the desktop on an OS....i know thats of massive appeal to some having the OS and all but i just want to select a game and play it. Is it even possible to have whdload version of a game appear in your games folder and select it just like the console cores??

You could put every single whdload game in its own bootable HDF which loads the game from startup-sequence, but would be tedious to set up and waste a lot of space with redundant workbench and kickstarts for every game. I really think its a terrible idea which defeats the purpose of whdload - but possible.

The Amiga is a Computer (not a game console) and as such much of the software/games are going assume that you have a mouse and/or keyboard attached - ADFs and whdload the same. ADFs are probably even worse because many of the cracktros won't proceed unless you press [space] or left-mouse.

That being said, I have made a demo of TinyLauncher running where I start Batman the movie using just my controller --> https://youtu.be/O5tFyqzf1OE

I do press [DEL] to exit back to Tinylauncher but the exit key is configured(in whdload) a PER-GAME basis by editing the 'QUITKEY' tooltype for the icon. You can set this to anything you like (including controller buttons) as defined here --> http://whdload.de/docs/en/rawkey.html (obviously requires navigating the desktop)

You could also just reset the core.

If you simply don't want to see the desktop at all, you could comment out "LoadWB" from s:startup-sequence (assuming you have added TinyLauncher) but that makes it mode difficult to edit whdload per-game tooltype options like QUITKEY or NTSC/PAL and it really won't speed up the boot time that much.

Hope that helps...

thanks for that, yeah tinylauncher sounds like the way to go.

Also what was up with the audio in your video sounds sped up?

[BBond007]

[quote="BBond007"
Also what was up with the audio in your video sounds sped up?

Probably the game needs to run in PAL and I booted in NTSC. Whdload supports switching into PAL/NTSC but it has to be set per-game in the icon's tool type.

[BlockABoots]

Can someone explain how to get tinylauncher to work in Minimig?, where do i need to place tinylauncher on the SD card and what files need to be edited etc?. Have tried to look for a guide but can seem to find one that related to using tinylauncher with Minimig on MiSTer!

[DanyPPC]

TinyLauncher doesn't require particular installation procedure. Just copy the exe program and its icon where do you prefer, for example in a dir called TinyLauncher in Workbench.
When you launch Tinylauncher you have to setup the sysconfig tab and setting the main dir for whdload games (ex. DH1:Games), demos and/or music modules.
Then press F1 to update the list of games available and after some minutes you can back to games tab and see all your games listed.

[geekmiki]

I've been using the Minimig core for a while on MiST and now on MiSTer and I've noticed that some WHDLoad games won't load and crash on our FPGA setups. These games run flawlessly on original hardware and UAE.

Two examples here:
-Gods (WHDLoad 18.2.5735 - Installer version 2.3)
Crashes after intro screen, when loading game with:
Exception "Line 1111 Emulator" ($2C) at $9F3E0000 occured

-Fire&Ice (WHDLoad 18.2.5735 - Installer version 2.1)
Crashes while loading with:
Exception "Illegal Instruction" ($10) at $62064

Minimig config:
68020
Turbo: Both
Video: PAL
Chipset: AGA
Chip: 2MB
Slow: none
Fast: 24MB
Kickstart: 3.1 rev 40.68

I have tried the usual Tool Types (NoMMU, NoCache, NoVBRMove, NoAutoVEC) with no luck.
Given that these games work on original hardware and UAE, it makes me think it could be core related. Anyone has experienced this and/or knows about these issues? Have they been reported? Are they known by the developers?

[Sorgelig]

There was no claim this core is perfect.
You are free to improve it.

[uigiflip]

will you be merging any of mike j good bits of his amiga core like rtg when released on github public?

[DanyPPC]

-Gods (WHDLoad 18.2.5735 - Installer version 2.3)
Crashes after intro screen, when loading game with:
Exception "Line 1111 Emulator" ($2C) at $9F3E0000 occured

On MiST Minimig Core Beta 1.2.3 too.

-Fire&Ice (WHDLoad 18.2.5735 - Installer version 2.1)
Crashes while loading with:
Exception "Illegal Instruction" ($10) at $62064

Play CD32 WHDLoad version, it works !

Turbo: Both

Some ECS games require TURBO= none.

[BBond007]

-Gods (WHDLoad 18.2.5735 - Installer version 2.3)
Crashes after intro screen, when loading game with:
Exception "Line 1111 Emulator" ($2C) at $9F3E0000 occured

I have an ADF version that works well, and unlike a lot of Amiga games at least GODS properly supports more than one floppy

I like the DOS version better anyway - supports Roland MT-32

On MiST Minimig Core Beta 1.2.3 too.

Same here... I tried because recalled it working on my MiSTer. Guess not I should try it on my Minimig 1.1

There was no claim this core is perfect.

Not perfect, but more compatible with the entire Amiga software library than any single Amiga computer model Commodore ever produced. And I won't need to change the caps any time soon...

[Sorgelig]

will you be merging any of mike j good bits of his amiga core like rtg when released on github public?

if at that age i will be still capable to write the code, then i will try

[knc]

-Gods (WHDLoad 18.2.5735 - Installer version 2.3)
Crashes after intro screen, when loading game with:
Exception "Line 1111 Emulator" ($2C) at $9F3E0000 occured

Gods work with mister and whdload but only if you have a 68000 setup not working with 68020 chipset

[eris]

Almost got Mister to boot.

0) Ran memtest for 15 minutes just to make sure ram was working
1) I used the latest Dec 2018 release.
2) I put the Amiga Forever kickstart / workbench disks in the Amiga directory.
3) I put the rom.key in both the Amiga and root directory
4) I configured Mister for A600 2.05 kickstart and 2.1 38.35 workbench floppy images
5) I setup the chipset for 68000,ECS,1 MB fast ram, 24 MB normal ram
6) I enabled the A600 HD, but didn't enable an HD image

On reboot Minimig started with a dark grey screen, which became dark white and then bright white.

Then it froze.

Is the brightening screen fill pattern proof of kickstart loading? What does this mean?

I expected it to load the installer floppy image, but nothing.

Any ideas?

My next attempt will be to re-image the SD card from scratch. There could be some minor incompatibility or error in the SD image.

[Sorgelig]

Make sure kickstart is not encrypted. Amiga Forever may use encrypted one.

[uigiflip]

use grab kick within workbench to un encrypt a rom image

[fry]

I get a surprising number of "NODOS" (unreadable) ADF images coming from seemingly reliable sources. Is this to be expected with old Amiga dumps, or does the core have known problems with the format?

[BBond007]

I get a surprising number of "NODOS" (unreadable) ADF images coming from seemingly reliable sources. Is this to be expected with old Amiga dumps, or does the core have known problems with the format?

No, MOST game AFS (just like Amiga game floppies) have custom a bootblock which knows how to read whatever proprietary format the the programmer of the day decided to use. You need boot off these. Workbench will report "NDOS". Game developers (back in the day) were trying to compress as much stuff as possible on the disk while obfuscating disk copying. DRM 1.0

If you have an increasing number of ADFs that won't boot then you probably have a bootblock virus - I'm not kidding, my Minimig 1.1 ended up getting "Happy new year 1996" Virus from Aminet files.

BTW who are these "reliable sources"?

[Lodovic]

As i've answered in FB, this info is not really correct. Probably it's more related to SD card controller than IDE.
with CHS, the max heads is 16, max sectors per track is 255, max cylinders is 65536
Max addressed size with CHS: 16*255*65536*512=136902082560 bytes ~130GB

As a golden rule - always leave the space at the end of HDD as unpartitioned. Windows usually keeps 8MB at the end unpartitioned. Amiga probably doesn't care, so you have to take care when you partition a new drive either it's real HDD or image.

The max HDD size in latest minimig fully depends on Amiga software as hardware allows to use the whole CHS range. I suggest to use IDEFix'97. It adds many workarounds for large drives and doesn't require additional scsi.device patches. And it adds support for 4x IDE.
Actually 130GB support is not really required. Somewhere around 32GB should be enough for whole Amiga games/demos collection (WHDLoad). And 4x drives can be connected.

I've read the entire thread about the Minimig core because I wanted to create a second hdf (I already have one hdf to boot with WB3.1) and put the WHDload games there. One unanswered question remains: Are we limited to a maximum capacity of 4GB because of the FAT32 file system where MiSTer is installed?

I used the PrepareSDCard utility as instructed in the wiki. Ideally a 16GB hdf with both the booting system and the WHDload files would be great for me.

And what about the second SD card on the IO board? Can it be used instead to have a greater capacity?

[Sorgelig]

Where you see FAT32?

[fry]

I get a surprising number of "NODOS" (unreadable) ADF images coming from seemingly reliable sources. Is this to be expected with old Amiga dumps, or does the core have known problems with the format?

No, MOST game AFS (just like Amiga game floppies) have custom a bootblock which knows how to read whatever proprietary format the the programmer of the day decided to use. You need boot off these. Workbench will report "NDOS". Game developers (back in the day) were trying to compress as much stuff as possible on the disk while obfuscating disk copying. DRM 1.0

Yes, that was it. They're bootable, just not readable in WB or HDD installable.

Derp, thanks. That should have occurred to me.