CD32 playing Amiga 500/600/1200 games! How to?

[Cauterize]

Ive seen on Ebay, CD32 disks which basically play the Disk Based games (Roms) on the CD32...

here is a link to one:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=98929&item=8193786001&rd=1

http://i14.ebayimg.com/02/i/04/02/65/43_1_b.JPG


i spoke to robotriot and he said they are hard to do and i would be best off buying one really...

However, i love setting myself a challenge and would liek to make my own with all those Amiga games i grew up with.

So, if you have any information oh how to do this, it would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

Adam

[robotriot]

First of all, Amiga games usually came on floppy, not on CD, and you usually can't just copy the content of the floppy to a CD and the game works. Now, the Amiga scene came up with so-called HD-installers (WHDLoad and JST), which are custom written "programs" that read the original floppies and create disk images of them on the HD.

Now the so-called slave program fools the game into thinking it's sitting on a floppy disk instead of on the hard drive. Often the slaves add additional features like highscore saving and a key that lets you quit back to Workbench. The problem is that now the games require more RAM than their floppy counterparts ... and the CD32 only has 2MB of ChipRAM. So you can't just use any of the HD-versions of games that are available.

You might also run into compatibility issues, because the caches of the 020 CPU of the CD32 and its newer Kickstart version often cause trouble when you're trying to run old A500 games. Then there's the issue that some games might like to save data somewhere ... but without a floppy, this is not possible of course. On top of that, if you don't have a keyboard on your CD32, you have to code your own menu that works with the CD32 controller.

All in all, it's really not a trivial task. I would just recommend that you get one of the compilations somewhere on the net, they've got all the good games that work on the CD32. The menu is unfortunately very slow and likes to crash, also sometimes games just won't start. The CD32 seems to be a rather instable environment to work with.

[Cauterize]

oooooooooooo..... poo!

LOL when we spoke on irc last night, i just thought u doubted my skills... i guess you were right!

thanks anyways, im gonna try hunt downthis Iso then or more ISOs....

Any ideas on ftps? irc channels? dc++ hubs?

[robotriot]

There were some private FTPs that had it, you may find them with a little research. Otherwise, just type in "cd32 444" in Emule and download :)

[VACRMH]

Wow, if this works well enough... I may consider grabbing a CD32

A few questions though...

Can you save?
Any glitches, bad graphics, messed up sound?

And lastly, does the 2 Elvira games come in any of the packs?

Thanks :)

[robotriot]

You could only save if you have an expansion for the CD32 with a floppy drive. But pretty much all games on the compilations are games that can be played without saving, mouse and keyboard. I know that at least Elvira the Arcade Game is on one of the compilations.

[Yago]

Seriously, I would not go that route. Too much of a pain. I would just use an emulator on the PC. I copied a lot of my software titles and saved them to my PC VIA Amiga Explorer and a serial cable from the Amiga 1200 to my PC. The first thing I do is DMS my floppies into a file on my A1200. Then, copy the file to my PC and I am ready to go. The emulator I use is called WINUAE. Here is the link. Have fun.

http://www.winuae.net/

[robotriot]

I prefer playing on the real thing ... and it's really quite convenient, you just select the game with the joypad and off you go ... loads faster than from floppy too of course ;) And the 444 compilation has almost all the good and well-known games on it.

[Cauterize]

I prefer playing on the real thing ... and it's really quite convenient, you just select the game with the joypad and off you go ... loads faster than from floppy too of course ;) And the 444 compilation has almost all the good and well-known games on it.

Excatly why i want the cd! :P
i pretty much have all the amiga roms anyways so if i do feel like it, i put them on the xbox emulator!