ParanoidLittleMan Posted July 30, 2021 Share Posted July 30, 2021 Since site is under maintenance I put here latest hard disk game adaptations. There is README file with all them, with reason ? MINDBEND.ZIP TURBOGT.ZIP AUTODUEL.ZIP STORMLRD.ZIP ARCTRIVQ.ZIP STARFLET.ZIP Exact titles: Mindbender, Turbo GT, Auto Duel, Stromlord, Arcade Trivia Quiz, Star Fleet . 9 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
masteries Posted July 30, 2021 Share Posted July 30, 2021 StormLord! Great! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tjlazer Posted July 31, 2021 Share Posted July 31, 2021 Thank you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted July 31, 2021 Share Posted July 31, 2021 Definitely, thanks! I love Star Fleet I. Not a game that will blow you away graphically, or with amazing audio but the game-play! <drools>.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwiliteZoner Posted July 31, 2021 Share Posted July 31, 2021 Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ojanhk Posted July 31, 2021 Share Posted July 31, 2021 Awesome, thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
complicated Posted August 9, 2021 Share Posted August 9, 2021 Hey Paranoid, Can you do HD Adaptions of the following chess games? Chessmaster 2000 Colossus Chess X Psion Chess 2.01 Techmate Chess 1.13 There should be good images available for those games here: http://www.atarimania.com/list_games_atari-st-board-game-chess_genre_46_S_G.html I believe those are great quality chess games that deserves to be played on HD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted August 10, 2021 Author Share Posted August 10, 2021 OK. I DL-ed them. Will deal with likely next week. 3 of sound familiar from my Spectrum times. You played them on Sinclair earlier ? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
complicated Posted August 10, 2021 Share Posted August 10, 2021 5 hours ago, ParanoidLittleMan said: OK. I DL-ed them. Will deal with likely next week. 3 of sound familiar from my Spectrum times. You played them on Sinclair earlier ? Thanks, really looking forward to see those excellent chess games in nice HD versions. If i remember correctly Colossus Chess X did not work perfectly on STE but was ok on ST, could be wrong though. Yes i remember Psion Chess was on Spectrum and it was great, even better on Atari. Good strong chess engine too, did well againts powerful games like Chessmaster, Chess Player, Chess Champion and so on. Have only beaten Psion a couple of times, i think its ELO is just under 2000, like 196x or something. The only chess game on Atari i never beaten is Chess Champion, thats a powerful chess engine! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jefffulton Posted August 10, 2021 Share Posted August 10, 2021 On 7/30/2021 at 7:52 AM, ParanoidLittleMan said: Since site is under maintenance I put here latest hard disk game adaptations. There is README file with all them, with reason ? MINDBEND.ZIP 310.63 kB · 20 downloads TURBOGT.ZIP 366.92 kB · 22 downloads AUTODUEL.ZIP 386.16 kB · 21 downloads STORMLRD.ZIP 399.84 kB · 28 downloads ARCTRIVQ.ZIP 390 kB · 21 downloads STARFLET.ZIP 384.21 kB · 22 downloads Exact titles: Mindbender, Turbo GT, Auto Duel, Stromlord, Arcade Trivia Quiz, Star Fleet . Wow, great work, thanks for supporting the community! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted August 15, 2021 Author Share Posted August 15, 2021 Done 4 chess games. http://atari.8bitchip.info/ASTGA/T/techmchs.php http://atari.8bitchip.info/ASTGA/P/psionchs.php http://atari.8bitchip.info/ASTGA/C/colchess.php http://atari.8bitchip.info/ASTGA/C/chessm2k.php All 4 with ST floppy image and hard disk version. 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 Chessmaster 2000 is a really good piece of software - thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
complicated Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 (edited) 15 hours ago, ParanoidLittleMan said: Done 4 chess games. http://atari.8bitchip.info/ASTGA/T/techmchs.php http://atari.8bitchip.info/ASTGA/P/psionchs.php http://atari.8bitchip.info/ASTGA/C/colchess.php http://atari.8bitchip.info/ASTGA/C/chessm2k.php All 4 with ST floppy image and hard disk version. Thanks mate, you did us chess fans a big favour! Will test those HD adaptions, if i find any issues i will report back of course. Now there is only one quality chess game left that could need a good HD version. That game is called Hamlet, which also uses Blitter. However i could not find any original source of this game, only a poorly made version by some group where you have to put all files in root of your partition to start it. Maybe you can have a look at it and make it better, othwise just trash it. HAMLET.ZIP Edited August 16, 2021 by complicated Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted August 16, 2021 Author Share Posted August 16, 2021 One more: HISCONR.ZIP Hiscon Rescue . Look README.TXT file for English translation of start menu . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted August 17, 2021 Author Share Posted August 17, 2021 And here is Hamlet: http://atari.8bitchip.info/ASTGA/H/hamlet.php 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNameOfTheGame Posted August 17, 2021 Share Posted August 17, 2021 Fantastic work! Thanks Peter! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
complicated Posted August 17, 2021 Share Posted August 17, 2021 10 hours ago, ParanoidLittleMan said: And here is Hamlet: http://atari.8bitchip.info/ASTGA/H/hamlet.php Great job Paranoid! I have tested your latest chess game adaption. Chessmaster 2000, Techmate and Hamlet seems fine. Psion Chess doesnt work well. When you enter help menu the software hangs and you cannot click further with the mouse. Same when trying to create a new game, the software hangs and cannot click yes or no. Colossus Chess, when playing a couple of moves againts the computer using 2D board the screen starts to flash a couple of times, the programs doesnt hang but quite anoying. I doubt thats an animation part of the game. Tested on Atari STE, TOS 2.06 and 4mb RAM using HDDriver 11.06. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted August 18, 2021 Author Share Posted August 18, 2021 I checked Psion Chess and Colossus Chess. Mentioned problems do not appear by me - tried with couple diff. configs. Most likely the problem is Hddriver and it's default setting, what allocates plenty of RAM to buffers, especially when there is 4 MB RAM. That leaves not enough RAM for disk cache, and it needs to access disk via driver much more often. Additionally, it makes swap to active org. TOS much slower (HAGE uses special TOS 1.04 in RAM). Those screen flashes are indicator by my SW that RAM swap happening. Because chess program accessing some special files while "thinking" . With more free RAM disk access is not necessary - it is in cache. So, I recommend to go in Hddriver settings and lower buffers. They do not speed things up with modern storage. Or use my driver: https://www.mediafire.com/file/0hacypqbierqatg/1GB.rar/file Above image is with some games, compatible with ACSI adapters. RAR len is 80 MB. You can write it on SD card (will need free one for it), and there is be space to add more games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
complicated Posted August 18, 2021 Share Posted August 18, 2021 4 hours ago, ParanoidLittleMan said: I checked Psion Chess and Colossus Chess. Mentioned problems do not appear by me - tried with couple diff. configs. Most likely the problem is Hddriver and it's default setting, what allocates plenty of RAM to buffers, especially when there is 4 MB RAM. That leaves not enough RAM for disk cache, and it needs to access disk via driver much more often. Additionally, it makes swap to active org. TOS much slower (HAGE uses special TOS 1.04 in RAM). Those screen flashes are indicator by my SW that RAM swap happening. Because chess program accessing some special files while "thinking" . With more free RAM disk access is not necessary - it is in cache. So, I recommend to go in Hddriver settings and lower buffers. They do not speed things up with modern storage. Or use my driver: https://www.mediafire.com/file/0hacypqbierqatg/1GB.rar/file Above image is with some games, compatible with ACSI adapters. RAR len is 80 MB. You can write it on SD card (will need free one for it), and there is be space to add more games. Thats strange, I already set HDDriver for low usage. Cache for fat - 2 Cache for data - 2 Folders - 0 When booting HDDriver uses 61kb of memory. Can i lower it more? I already have an 4GB SD card with 8 partitions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
complicated Posted August 18, 2021 Share Posted August 18, 2021 5 hours ago, ParanoidLittleMan said: I checked Psion Chess and Colossus Chess. Mentioned problems do not appear by me - tried with couple diff. configs. Most likely the problem is Hddriver and it's default setting, what allocates plenty of RAM to buffers, especially when there is 4 MB RAM. That leaves not enough RAM for disk cache, and it needs to access disk via driver much more often. Additionally, it makes swap to active org. TOS much slower (HAGE uses special TOS 1.04 in RAM). Those screen flashes are indicator by my SW that RAM swap happening. Because chess program accessing some special files while "thinking" . With more free RAM disk access is not necessary - it is in cache. So, I recommend to go in Hddriver settings and lower buffers. They do not speed things up with modern storage. Or use my driver: https://www.mediafire.com/file/0hacypqbierqatg/1GB.rar/file Above image is with some games, compatible with ACSI adapters. RAR len is 80 MB. You can write it on SD card (will need free one for it), and there is be space to add more games. I did some tests. I had xboot in autofolder and turned it off, then Psion Chess worked fine. However Colossus Chess was still flashing, so you are right, its a memory issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted August 18, 2021 Author Share Posted August 18, 2021 OK, that's fine with HDdriver setting and RAM usage of it. I made YT videos: Psion Chess YT video Colossus Chess YT video As may see, there is flashing (with fade) in 3D and 2D displaying mode too. It is actually because game writes something to disk while 'thinking' . Write by games is not so common, so there is no cashing for it. I don't think that it is too bad - some 4 fades to black during chess ? Not memory issue, same is with 2 MB RAM. Psion works well. And by you too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+eebuckeye Posted August 18, 2021 Share Posted August 18, 2021 Thanks so much for aware creating these! If the remaining Cinemaware games could be done it would be awesome! They were my favorite. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
complicated Posted August 18, 2021 Share Posted August 18, 2021 1 hour ago, ParanoidLittleMan said: OK, that's fine with HDdriver setting and RAM usage of it. I made YT videos: Psion Chess YT video Colossus Chess YT video As may see, there is flashing (with fade) in 3D and 2D displaying mode too. It is actually because game writes something to disk while 'thinking' . Write by games is not so common, so there is no cashing for it. I don't think that it is too bad - some 4 fades to black during chess ? Not memory issue, same is with 2 MB RAM. Psion works well. And by you too. Just so i understand correctly. That flashing in Colossus Chess happens both with your PP driver and HDDriver? It has nothing to do with memory but with writes made by SW? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted August 18, 2021 Author Share Posted August 18, 2021 11 hours ago, complicated said: Just so i understand correctly. That flashing in Colossus Chess happens both with your PP driver and HDDriver? It has nothing to do with memory but with writes made by SW? Yes, in this case it is write of game (chess) self what happens during play. My SW shows disk access by fading screen to black and back. Frequent disk access happens too when disk cache is small (no enough free RAM for), and I assumed that it may be the case - that's is what is usual. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
complicated Posted August 18, 2021 Share Posted August 18, 2021 1 hour ago, ParanoidLittleMan said: Yes, in this case it is write of game (chess) self what happens during play. My SW shows disk access by fading screen to black and back. Frequent disk access happens too when disk cache is small (no enough free RAM for), and I assumed that it may be the case - that's is what is usual. As you said it is not a terrible problem when playing chess, just a little annoying. Isn`t there any possible to tweak your software showing writes in some other way, like a blinking square in the corner of the screen or something? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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