TheNameOfTheGame Posted June 28, 2022 Share Posted June 28, 2022 (edited) 1 hour ago, ParanoidLittleMan said: I will look Shadow Dancer this days. Probably easier case than Barb2 Psyg. Really not for some extensive playing in this mad heat . Thanks Peter, if you need any testing help I'd be happy to assist with it. Edited June 28, 2022 by TheNameOfTheGame Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted June 29, 2022 Author Share Posted June 29, 2022 Shadow Dancer test v. : SHADOWDT.ZIP However there are some problems - and same with STX image at atarimania (of release from 1991) and Elite crk. v. If player dies, will be returned to start of level, what is not same as with Amiga version - there continues at same pos . And worse: exit at level finish just works not (that's why I looked Amiga YT video) . Does not look as copy protection related - playing STX image directly has same flaws. And I found copy protection what activates before play start, was no more in level 1 . Anyone knows more about Shadow Dancer Atari ST version ? SHADOWDT.ZIP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNameOfTheGame Posted June 29, 2022 Share Posted June 29, 2022 Thanks Peter, hopefully there is a good release out there. From the GameDVD, Shadow Dancer had the following cracks. Shadow Dancer English X Patched CJ 2009 1 D-Bug Shadow Dancer English X Trainer The Light 1 Elite Shadow Dancer English Trainer Snake 1 Replicants Shadow Dancer English Trainer Snake & Cameo 1 Replicants Shadow Dancer English X Trainer Ice 1 Vmax The cracks are attached here in case one is working properly. I'm going to try them out also. Shadow Dancer cracks.zip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNameOfTheGame Posted June 29, 2022 Share Posted June 29, 2022 Playing the vmax release and yes when the player dies it goes back to the start of level. With the trainer on, I got to the end of level 1 (all the bombs have to be picked up to access the exit). When all the bombs are picked up, the top left will say "Go to next stage". Then level 2 loaded fine. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNameOfTheGame Posted June 29, 2022 Share Posted June 29, 2022 Tested these releases also. They all are from the 1991 version. Elite Replicants release Replicants release v2 They all work the same basically and can get to level 2. Did you collect all the bombs before trying to exit the level? Also, after the bombs are collected, just walk to the edge of the screen at the exit and it should load the next level. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNameOfTheGame Posted June 29, 2022 Share Posted June 29, 2022 On 3/17/2022 at 5:14 PM, ParanoidLittleMan said: Dogs of War : http://atari.8bitchip.info/SCRSH/dogsofw.html For me this is hanging at the credit screen on real hardware. On Steem it moves past the screen after about 10 seconds. Here is the screen is stops at on the real STE. Hardware is 8Mhz TOS 1.62, 4MB STE and Steem is set to the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted June 30, 2022 Author Share Posted June 30, 2022 Do you have floppy attached to STE ? Or some Gotek ? I will check later with same STE config (and Gotek) . It works of course with my Mega STE . Likely something related to IKBD, MFP, aging ... Here is updated Shadow Dancer adapt: SHADOWD.ZIP I added start level selection, manual txt (org. for Amiga) . There writes about need to collect, deactivate all bombs. Well, for me they look not so. Anyway, can access 18 levels at start, and it includes bonus levels . So, I'm sure it is complete. Must say that don't like game - very unrealistic - bullets are slower than enemies, or even player is faster sometimes. And that returning to level start after death ... They must've hate Atari ST users . SHADOWD.ZIP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted July 1, 2022 Author Share Posted July 1, 2022 Tested Dogs of War PP adapt on real STE TOS 1.62 . It starts fine after shorter delay at credits screen - about 8 secs. The rule in such case is to not press any key, not moving mouse. Some games have just not so good code for IKBD chip. If still starts not: clean boot is what is healthy for playing games. For instance CONTROL.ACC and similar (any ACC actually) is not good. Or AUTO run stuff. And if still starts not: it is most likely aging of computer. PSU is what needs recapping, if not done in last years. Components may degrading too, connections ... And it will be common problems - machines are now 30+ years old. And something more: this extreme heat may making it working worse - had for the first time with my PC strange crash: during WEB browsing screen just gone gray-blue, then some beeps . I checked video cable and then decided to press reset - and at that moment it resetted self, and reboot was succesfull. Well, not good thing, and may happen again. Probably will add extra fan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNameOfTheGame Posted July 1, 2022 Share Posted July 1, 2022 (edited) Thanks for Shadow Dancer, Peter. It's good to have it adapted. I think you have the majority of major commercial releases done. Amazing! I'll try Dogs of War again, checking the boot environment to make sure it is clean. Just the internal floppy drive, ultrasatan and netusbee attached to the STE. There is a couple years old PSU from exxos in the machine, so it should be ok, but I'll keep an eye on it. Sounds like the heat is pretty bad there. Stay safe and hopefully a break in the heat will come. Edited July 1, 2022 by TheNameOfTheGame Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNameOfTheGame Posted July 2, 2022 Share Posted July 2, 2022 A game report: Clever and Smart is crashing after the splash screen and before the title screen. Steem 3.8/TOS 1.62/STE/4MB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted July 2, 2022 Author Share Posted July 2, 2022 That's very old adapt. Try with Steem 3.2 org. Clean boot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted July 2, 2022 Author Share Posted July 2, 2022 Shadow Dancer Quadron - Tetris in 2 layers Ynis Witrin - Good looking medieval adv. Maybe most complex STOS game (main exec over 700 KB) . 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNameOfTheGame Posted July 2, 2022 Share Posted July 2, 2022 (edited) Question on Knightmare (Mindscape version). Great game by the same author as Captive. On your website it says http://atari.8bitchip.info/SCRSH/knightm.html Pretty complex RPG, based on TV serial and Captive engine . TOS independant, mouse control. Added gamex, decrypted, deprotected. Floppy loading system of game is real nightmare . Works on all ST, STE, Mega ST(E), TT, Falcon with min 2MB RAM. Ingame save/load works not - and works not with original floppy version too (at least it worked not for me at all). Therefore use gamex for saving progress. This game is advertised that works with 512KB RAM, limited. So, I gave 1MB RAM for game in this adapt, what is reason for 2MB RAM min. Plus, it may happen that game crashes right after aborting intro if only 512KB RAM (for game) is available. Some maps and solution, manual included. Did you ever get save/load to work? I bought this when it came out and I know my version saved and loaded ok. I wish I still had the disks. Also, when I tried this under Steem 3.8 it doesn't launch and I get this message: Any chance of this ever changing? I am loading your collection from a Steem gemdos drive from my host at the moment so no hard disk driver installed. This is one of the classics. P.S. I see Captive also won't load from gemdos drive. I guess for the same reason since the same author. Edited July 2, 2022 by TheNameOfTheGame Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted July 3, 2022 Author Share Posted July 3, 2022 Quote from page http://atari.8bitchip.info/fromhd2.php "Hard disk drivers: Earlier adaptations, before Jan. 2012 work only with mine drivers, AHDI, and Seimet's Hddriver. Later ones, where you can see file HAGA or HAGE, HAG2 in root folder of game will work with any decent driver what works with by Atari ST serial used AHDI FAT16 filesystem. " And it is on gamex usage page too. Additionally, they will work not with iTOS without changed dll type files (part of compil. for iTOS). That means that those games will not work with GEMDOS emulation of Steem and Hatari. Message is given by my launcher programs and not from games self, of course. It is really not big deal to solve using of hard disk driver in emulators. Easiest and free is to use image with games, driver. For instance: https://www.mediafire.com/file/0hacypqbierqatg/1GB.rar/file It is with Basic ACSI driver, not many games, so lot of space for adding new ones, or old ones ... Emulators and their support of hard disk adapters, protocols, max supported capacity (image size): First was Steem (regular one). It uses actually pasti.dll for that, in which is code for Basic ACSI protocol, and code for settings (in disk menu). Basic ACSI means max 1 GB accessible, and handle of max 1 GB images. And not supporting now pretty much used ICD extended ACSI . What can access much more, but protocol is different, in fact not so much - there are longer commands to be able to access more space. Basic ACSI can access max 2 POW 21 sectors (that's 1 GB), ICD ACSI 2 POW 32 (2 TB) . Actually ICD ACSI is SCSI2 protocol support, solved via ACSI port. Can give diverse commands, status reads - for instance capacity read (not present in Basic ACSI.) Now the bad part: emulation of ICD extended ACSI in Steem SSE and Hatari is not flawless. In latest versions too by experiences. Not reliable, in Hatari tends to slowdown a lot when partition(s) contain lot of files. I had some mailing with one user who wants to use images with Mist (what using Hatari sources for SD cards ) - he blaimed for instance my LFN filtering for slowness. Well, not rare case - as we saw here people like to think that I don't know basic things (dead keyboard problems, thinking that I don't know why music plays often faster on Falcon (while they think that it is just because CPU is faster ? ) ... It ended that I sent him Basic ACSI driver installer (his image was under 1 GB), with LFN filtering, and it suddenly worked way faster. With same image - what means that ICD ACSI emulation in latest Hatari versions too is not really good. I noticed errors with Steem SSE 4.0.2, 4.1.1 Win64 versions. And really don't have time and nerves to test them more. Especially not because how they accept error reports, overall attitude and concept (Win support of Hatari is .... ) . So, best is to stick to images under 1 GB in emulators. It is not hard to switch to another image if 1 GB space is not enough. For instance I have at least 50 hard disk images in my AtariST DIR, and most of them is about 1 GB size. Really little for today drive capacities. Here to remind that hard disk adaptations are made for real Atari HW in first place. Benefits are biggest on it - no need to bother with searching, swapping floppy disks. Faster work, much more reliable. And now it costs much less - including price of adapter. And of course it is better than using Gotek and other HW floppy emulators - especially in case of multi floppy SW . Work with emulators may be attractive again with multi floppy games, faster loads ... So, spending few minutes to setup real hard disk emulation is really worth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNameOfTheGame Posted July 3, 2022 Share Posted July 3, 2022 Thanks for the thorough explanation. I do use acsi hdd emulation for MagiC OS under Steem since my understanding is that it doesn't access drives with the same code in the same manner as TOS does. I think it is re entrant if I remember correctly. I was just curious what would make a game have to go with this method. I guess I could set up an image and run those games from there when I am using Steem. That's where I do most of the testing. Of course, they are all also on my real STE to play where they should be. ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNameOfTheGame Posted July 3, 2022 Share Posted July 3, 2022 (edited) So between your hard drive adaptions and D-Bug's, I think most of the big name commercial releases are covered. Only a small list remains that I can think of. Addictaball Alligata Software 1987 9.3 Airborne Ranger Microprose 1989 Battlemaster Mirrorsoft 1990 Bloodwych Data Disks Vol. 1 Mirrorsoft/Image Works 1989 Castle Master II Domark 1990 Cobra II Loriciels Vixen Electronic Arts 1988 Advanced Fruit Machine Codemasters 1991 BMX Simulator Codemasters 1988 Nitro Boost Challenge Codemasters 1989 Pro Tennis Simulator Codemasters 1990 Super Grand Prix Codemasters 1991 Air Support Psygnosis 1992 Barbarian II Psygnosis 1991 Red Heat Ocean 1989 Rambo III Ocean 1988 Where Time Stood Still Ocean 1988 Dick Tracy Titus 1990 Blues Brothers Titus 1991 Fire & Forget Titus 1988 Super Cauldron Titus 1993 Cadaver - The Pay Off Bitmap Brothers 1991 The Deep US Gold 1988 Desolator US Gold 1986 Human Killing Machine US Gold 1989 Shackled US Gold 1988 Vigilante US Gold 1989 Running Man, The Grandslam 1989 Realms Virgin/Graftgold 1991 Supremacy Virgin Mastertronic 1990 Final Blow Storm/Sales Curve 1991 Galaxy Force II Activision 1989 Hot Rod Activision/SEGA 1990 World Championship Soccer Elite 1990 Butcher Hill Gremlin 1989 Hero Quest - Return of the Witch Lord (Data Disk) Gremlin 1991 Premier Manager Gremlin 1992 Premier Manager II Gremlin 1993 Super Scramble Simulator Gremlin 1989 Utopia - The Creation of a Nation Gremlin 1991 Did I get any of those wrong and they are already converted? Also, the ones I see not in your conversion collection, but in the D-Bug one are (again, if there is an error, please let me know): AAARGH! Melbourne House 1989 8.1 Advanced Rugby Simulator Codemasters 1988 Advanced Ski Simulator Codemasters 1989 Army Moves Ocean Back to the Future III Probe/Image Works 1991 Battleships Elite 1987 Black Sect Captain America Defies the Doom Tube Darius+ Darkman Ocean 1991 Die Hard 2 - Die Harder Grandslam 1992 Double Dragon II Virgin Mastertronic 1989 Double Dragon III Storm/Sales Curve 1991 Dugger Eswat US Gold/SEGA 1990 F-15 Strike Eagle II Face-Off Krisalis 1991 Global Commander Godfather, The US Gold 1991 Gremlins 2 - The New Batch Elite 1990 Hex Judge Dredd Virgin 1990 Lorna M1 Tank Platoon Magician, The Loriciels 1990 Monty Python's Flying Circus NARC Ocean 1991 Nightbreed - The Action Game Ocean 1990 Nightbreed - The Interactive Movie Ocean 1990 Obitus Psygnosis 1991 Oriental Games Pepsi Challenge - Mad Mix Game US Gold 1988 Pipe Dream Powermonger Bullfrog 1990 Powermonger WW1 Edition Pro Boxing Simulator Codemasters 1991 Run the Gauntlet Seven Gates of Jambala, The Grandslam/Thalion 1989 Summer Games US Gold 1992 Tonic Tile Total Recall Ocean 1990 World Darts WWF European Rampage Tour Ocean 1992 Wow, not many left. Edited July 3, 2022 by TheNameOfTheGame Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted July 4, 2022 Author Share Posted July 4, 2022 What is on D-Bug site is partially done by Klapauzius. And he is who supported that it work under MagiC - no wonder - German OS, German man . Magic is multitasking, and there are some changes in way how SW is started, exited. Regular hard disk drivers can work with it. I just did not found need to support it. And actually no one asked for it. First mine releases used access to hard disk during game in special way: via TOS (part) in high RAM . It needs special reboot of hard disk driver, so only couple (popular) of them was supported. In case of my driver was no reboot, just copying installed driver code to high RAM (code is PC relative), little setting and works .. That way has benefit of much faster disk access - no need to swap huge RAM blocks, as is with so called ULS. But do not support all drivers. So, made in 2012 HAGA system, with RAM swap concept (was used first time by WHDload for Amiga). However, I made much more than just hard disk access during game play - support for games using TOS calls - and they are majority. Then state saves, using dll like function lib HAGA (what even must not be in game's DIR) ... That works in emulators set to GEMDOS hard disk emulation too. But disk access is slower because need to restore original RAM layout for accessing hard disk via TOS in ROM . With more RAM in machine it will be rather access to cache in case of read. But write to image what holds game saves may be pretty slower. And here to add, that writes often need lot of corrections in game code, with direct floppy access and messy code - hard to understand it and change . So, in some cases writes (saves) from game are not supported. And no real for them when we have state saves - which work much faster and with single keypress. Space on storage is not problem now. Considering lists: I started some of listed ones, so need to check in which state they are. Conditions at moment are not really for sitting at computer for longer time. Will give later short list of what might be done before Xmas ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tjlazer Posted July 4, 2022 Share Posted July 4, 2022 Were you able to fix Dragon Ninja yet? Crashes on Level 2. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted July 6, 2022 Author Share Posted July 6, 2022 SUPERGP.ZIP Super Grand Prix . Worked on it in 2017. Needed just little + work, and still needs testing ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNameOfTheGame Posted July 6, 2022 Share Posted July 6, 2022 Thanks, Codemasters games always have a "fun factor". Looking forward to playing it. However, having a problem running it with Steem and Hatari. Getting a black screen. In Steem 4.1.2, the game launches and the spectrum image loads and then after that the screen goes black and the games never loads. In Hatari 2.3.1, it is the same, except after the Spectrum image, the screen goes black, there is a brief flash at the bottom of the screen and then music starts playing but the screen stays black. As always, settings are STE, TOS1.62, 4MB, 8Mhz. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.mad. Posted July 6, 2022 Share Posted July 6, 2022 1 hour ago, TheNameOfTheGame said: Thanks, Codemasters games always have a "fun factor". Looking forward to playing it. However, having a problem running it with Steem and Hatari. Getting a black screen. In Steem 4.1.2, the game launches and the spectrum image loads and then after that the screen goes black and the games never loads. It does work, but you need to play with emulator options. ;) to get the game to run at the black screen. Hatari - Insert a blank disk in drive A. Steem - select "use PASTI for floppies and ACSI" from advanced drive options. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted July 6, 2022 Author Share Posted July 6, 2022 It is not good idea to test with those latest releases, which are pretty unreliable . I checked with Hatari 2.1.0 Win. v. And works fine - with GEMDOS hard disk emul, and with ACSI hard disk emul (with image file) too. However it is best to use Basic ACSI driver and image below 1 GB, otherwise it can work pretty slow (disk operations). What are hard disk settings you used with Steem SSE and Hatari ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNameOfTheGame Posted July 6, 2022 Share Posted July 6, 2022 Ok, thanks, I ran the game under Steem 3.8.0 and at then inserted a blank disk in the disk manager window and the game music started and then the title screen came up and I was able to play the game. Just GEMDOS, no pasti or acsi emulation. So when I run this on real hardware, will I need an actual blank floppy in the drive? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted July 6, 2022 Author Share Posted July 6, 2022 Yes, it is good to have 'inserted' some floppy disk image in A - like empty 360 or other regular format. Desktop will appear sooner too, because TOS gives some timeout if don't detects floppy from first attempt. No need for Pasti and ACSI emul. in Steem (regular one) for HAGA games - they work from GEMDOS drive too. And even if I removed disk A in Steem, this still works. So, emulators do not handle every situation well. I made correction - removed floppy access code, and it still does not start in Hatari . Strange. Will check later with my floppy less Mega STE ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted July 6, 2022 Author Share Posted July 6, 2022 9 hours ago, TheNameOfTheGame said: Ok, thanks, I ran the game under Steem 3.8.0 and at then inserted a blank disk in the disk manager window and the game music started and then the title screen came up and I was able to play the game. Just GEMDOS, no pasti or acsi emulation. So when I run this on real hardware, will I need an actual blank floppy in the drive? Nope. I test always without floppy drive on Mega STE. That may need some extra work, but who needs those unreliable disks and driver anymore ... This was result of rush - had no time to activate real Atari, and usually do it when there are 3-4 games for test, and for making YT videos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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