HDD image V4 released

[eidis]

 Hi X-Col !

Press "Escape" and then "X"

Keep the scene alive !
Eidis

[Psygnosis8]

Just wanted to say thanks for this.  My cf setup is almost ready.  Can't wait to dive I to this...

[ericb59]

hello there,

I'm a new and happy x68000 user !
Since 1 week now, i have a X68000 Ace
After playing with some very old school 5 1/4 floppies, i used a scsi2sd interface.
Thanks to the great information and tutorials i found here, it was (near) a piece of cake 

i was able to put on the sd card the hdd image v4, but now, i can't figure out how to apply Hddv4_sp1 and Hddv4_sp2 ?

How i'm suppose to aplly the 2 patch ?
they seems to be 2 differents method ?

thanks for your help, and continue this very good works !

[eidis]

 Hi Ericb59 !

Welcome to the forum and thank you for your kind words. This threads page #2 post #8 explains how to apply X68000_V4_SP1.zip and the hddv4sp2.lzh contains a readme.txt file with instructions.

Keep the scene alive !
Eidis

[ericb59]

Thank you Eidis.
In the huge flow of informations i missed the Patch tool.

About the SP2. I read the "readme.txt", I understood I have to copy the archive file on the root of my SD card and unpack it directly from the X68000.
But, how am I supposed to transfer the file on the SD card ? My PC doesn't recognize it ... 
Sorry if it seems trivia, but i'm new on X68000 and have a lot of things to learn...


About the HDD Tutorial. There is one missed thing I want to say you...
As I 'm using a SCSI2SD Interface, I set it to ID3 like it is recommended.
But the Master disc don't activate the HD Drive because the config.sys is set with id=0
So, if you use a SCSI2SD, you must ED config.sys and change ID=0 by ID=3, save, and reboot...

[eidis]

 Hi Ericb59 !

how am I supposed to transfer the file on the SD card ?

Thank you for bringing up a good question. Here you go !

Editing and adding files to hard disk images
http://gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=x68000:editing_and_adding_files_to_hard_disk_images

About the HDD Tutorial. There is one missed thing I want to say you...
As I 'm using a SCSI2SD Interface, I set it to ID3 like it is recommended.
But the Master disc don't activate the HD Drive because the config.sys is set with id=0
So, if you use a SCSI2SD, you must ED config.sys and change ID=0 by ID=3, save, and reboot...

The story of X68000 SASI and massive hard drive
http://gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=x68000:hard_drive_on_sasi_machine#chapter_3preparing_the_master_floppy

Quote from Chapter 3: "Now set your SCSI device to ID0, copy the MasterDisk_V2.xdf disk image to a high density 5.25" floppy disk and boot from it."

Keep the scene alive !
Eidis

[ericb59]

Ok tahnk you very Much 

[famiac]

Your scsi2sd must be configured by USB to scsi ID 3, and your x68000 should look for an ID 3 device.

[ericb59]

Your scsi2sd must be configured by USB to scsi ID 3, and your x68000 should look for an ID 3 device.

Yes, that's what I 've done. And it works very well.
I just had to modify the config.sys of the master disk...

[ericb59]

Sorry for my noobs question...
But... I now have a Sacom XS-68m II board in the X68000 with good Midi cable and a SC-55 box.
It works with Castlevania game, and Phalanx (Only 2 games tested for now)
How can i use this set up with MMDSP (Multimedia folder of the HD image) ?
All sounds comes from the X68000, I can't find how to set up output to midi ... ?

[neko68k]

If you use MCDRV instead of MXDRV you can get MIDI support also. However, the MXDRV music included on the disk only plays internally. If you want to listen to MIDI files, there are better ways than using an x68000 On the other hand, ZMUSIC supports MIDI and mixed mode and some other stuff but that's another format entirely.

[ericb59]

I modified the start.bat and changed the driver with mcdrv but sound always comes from the X68000...
Another idea what to do ?

Also, some games seems to not enable MIDI output by default, is there a list of supported game or things to do, to enable Midi when there is no menu option ?

[ericb59]

Please can you tell me how I can listening .MDX file with SC88 expander... ?
All i tried doesn't works.

[neko68k]

You can't. I already said the music included on the disk will not play over midi. It is strictly designed to play on the internal FM chip. Sorry.

[ericb59]

ha ! I 've not understood...
sorry 

[neko68k]

no problem

[X-Col]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that there is a patch to allow you to chose a game using the joystick instead of the keyboard but I can't find it.

Or maybe I dreamt it... 

Does such a patch exist?

[eidis]

 Hi X-Col !

Here you go !

HDD V4 SP1 Frontend
http://nfggames.com/x68000/Games/V4%20Patches/HDD_V4_SP1_frontend.zip

Keep the scene alive !
Eidis

[MSXManiac]

Hello Eidis.

I remember that I have used EX68 there by 2000 gone, but as my hardware at the time was a meager Pentium 200 MMX ended up leaving aside, although guy loved the X68000 which was already known by ads in the MSX Magazine (japanese magazine) published by ASCII Corporation that created the MSX standard.

Of course I did not understand japanese. I was like a child just looking at pictures and drawings and trying to mount an image based on the meager technical information used terms in english.

For being a fan of the MSX (reason for my nickname) and also be passionate about X68000 I ask to you to include a game that exists on both platforms and which if are not entirely identical include the opening, is very similar.
I mean the game Illusion City, made by Micro Cabin, the same that produced Xak and Fray.

Congratulations on the effort of all of yours.
Only regret not afford to have money to get a "XVI", and even get a Panasonic FS-A1ST or GT (MSX turbo R).
I will turning me with the double WinX68K and OpenMSX.

Regards!

[Ale555]

Hello!
I wanted to thank Eidis and the others who did a great job to put this image together, with software and so on, I finally managed to put together a scsi external box with a compactflash in it and I'm wandering through all of this software... it's something I didn't even imagine 1 year ago when I started to move in the X68k scene!!!
Thank you again!!!

[ashrion]

please new release new version v5 image, please XD
in v4 falte
aquales
dragon knight4
naious

and strider is perfect patch and work in x68030 but gradius2, detanatiwn bee, final fight, not work XDDD

Infinite thanks image v4...

[Psygnosis8]

Thanks Rob!!!

[PepAlacant]

Eidis, thanks for this excellent work.

I'm testing this image days ago on a PRO HD working flawlessly and enjoying so much. Soon I'll test it on a XVI for enjoy a lil bit more.

I sucess with the installation of DeathBrade. How can I share it if it is possible ?

Thanks for your work again !

[PepAlacant]

Bosconian has an issue when it is not booted from floppy disk.

The issue is that appearing a lot of meteors, bombs and objects arround that makes it a lil bit unplayable.

I used 2HDBOOT to use the game properly, but the problems is that it eats 4MB RAM and it's excessive for people without expansions, so another thing to take a look and fix, eidis.

Thanks for your work again !

[X-Col]

Bosconian has an issue when it is not booted from floppy disk.

The issue is that appearing a lot of meteors, bombs and objects arround that makes it a lil bit unplayable.

I never realised that, I will try it from floppy to see the difference.

Whilst we're on the subject, Spindizzy 2 only works properly from floppy. There are graphical problems on the HD installation.

[PepAlacant]

Bosconian has an issue when it is not booted from floppy disk.

The issue is that appearing a lot of meteors, bombs and objects arround that makes it a lil bit unplayable.

I never realised that, I will try it from floppy to see the difference.

Whilst we're on the subject, Spindizzy 2 only works properly from floppy. There are graphical problems on the HD installation.

Try it. The game becomes SUPER HARD ( unplayable for that amount of rocks and mines )

[UD2]

Hey guys,
I know that this thread has been dead for a while, and I hate necro-bumping things, but this seemed like the relevant place to put this. I love this disk image, but I just wanted to report a small bug that I found today. I was playing around with the V4 image today and noticed that "Granada" crashes during its intro. Everything runs fine until the tank fires into the air. The game then hangs with garbled explosion graphics while the music continues in the background. I've replicated this behavior on both patched and unpatched V4 images, and on a real X68000 Expert HD with a SCSI2SD, as well as on XM6-Pro. Thanks!

[SuperDeadite]

Well known issue.  Granada is a very timing sensitive game, and cf/sd drives load much faster then the floppy drives do, this breaks the timing and is enough to crash the game.  If you simply skip the intro, the game itself runs fine, but if you want to watch the intro, you need to use actual floppy disks.

[UD2]

Okay, cool. I have some 68000 assembly experience, so I might try patching the game to work on HD when I have some time. Any pointers on where to look to look, or is my best bet just to fire it up in XM6 and see where it's hanging?

[kamiboy]

If you have game hacking skills might I suggest you look into providing a 15khz hack for R-Type and Akumajo Dracula?

[UD2]

I can look into those, but it might be a while since I don't currently have a means of displaying 15KHz video, although I'm currently working on acquiring one.

[kamiboy]

That would be great. Once I get my monitor recapped I can test for you, or if you are using a digital screen it might tell you the frequency of the incoming signal even if it cannot sync with it.

Those two games not having 15khz modes really was a crime against humanity.

[SuperDeadite]

Lack of 15khz is the least of R-Type's problems.  Terrible port, absolutely embarrassing compared to what the system is capable of.

As for Dracula, it looks stunning on my 29'' monitor, so I don't really see the need personally, but to each their own.

[kamiboy]

To see a 15khz game run in line doubled 31khz with chunky pixels instead of scan lines sickens me. It is so violently revolting to my aesthetic sensibilities that I have to actively battle a gag reflex assault whenever I boot Akumajo.

It is nothing short of disgusting, sirs, nothing short!

But in all seriousness, a lowres game should be displayed in glorious 15khz, it is only proper. Or they should have at least given people the option to choose, like some x68000 had the decency to do.

I've actually often considered doing the unthinkable to remedy this wrong, buying the PSX port, oh the humanity!

[SuperDeadite]

Dracula isn't doubled though, it was meant to be seen in 31khz...

Super Hangon on the other hand is 15khz native and looks quite blurry when run in 31khz.

From what I have seen X68K does not line double.  Instead it adds a big black box around everything to take up the extra space supplied by the higher resolutions meaning the sprite/pixel count is unchanged,  the box is displayed off screen, so you can't see it with most games.  Though it will depend on your monitor.

If you want to see this in person, it is most notable with the 24khz native games like Marble Madness. 

If I run Salamander in 15khz as opposed to it's default 31khz, everything becomes 2x bigger in low-res then in high-res, meaning I then have to use the size adjustments on the monitor to shrink it all down in order to make it fully visible on the screen.  However I do not have to make these adjustments on 15khz native games like Super Hangon.  And I have had this same experience on both my 14'' OG Sharp monitor, and my much bigger 29'' arcade monitor.

31khz isn't doubling the pixels, it is instead putting them closer together, the empty spaces that make up the 15khz ''scanlines'' are being moved to the outside of the game's playable area to make up the border.  The empty spaces are outside of the pixels as opposed to being between them.

[kamiboy]

I don't know about that. All I know is that the visible resolution of Dracula is 256x256 . It should be perfectly displayable in full screen at 15khz.

When setting resolutions in x68000 via IOCTS calls you have the choice of either displaying the same resolution in 15khz, or 31khz.

The project I am working on runs in 256x240@15khz. Changing a single line in code will switch it to run in 256x240@31khz. I have not tried it. But doing both on the real hardware should demonstrate whether everyhting is shrunk down in 31khz or is line doubled.

If x68000 just displays 256 resolutions in 31khz as a little window in a 512x512 resolution I do not understand how Akumajo manages to run in full screen in 31khz.

This warrants further investigation.

Oh and by the way, I saw your FM Towns deflowering video last night, thanks for the laughs buddy!

[UD2]

Well, I finally had a chance to poke through the Akumajou Dracula code, and things aren't as easy as they initially seemed. It doesn't use the CRTMOD call, and instead manually sets a bunch of the video control registers. I tried blindly replacing all values moved into video register 20 (0xe80028) with their previous value with bit 4 (zero indexed) clear, but it broke color, and also made the game run very slowly. XM6-Pro claims it's syncing at 13.5 KHz after I did the modification, so either that's a typo, or Konami is doing some very weird things with this game. I don't understand the video hardware very well, so I'm almost certainly missing something about how the registers control the signal.

[neko68k]

You can set the registers in the CRTC and MFP to change things like front and back porch, h and v timing, dot clock and other things. In theory you can make it spit out any resolution you want with any shape pixels you want within the limitations of the hardware. That is almost certainly why Castlevania behaves the way it does.

[kamiboy]

You know, I had a funny feeling that Akumajo prolly was doing something funky instead of relying on standard calls. I did once try to find the IOCTS opcode in the .X image using a hex editor without luck, that kind of tipped me off.

Those timing registers are really heavy stuff, their function is described on the internet since much of it is universal to how CRT's work, but I never could wrap my head around it proper.

[neko68k]

IIRC it also does a lot of drawing directly to graphics layers instead of using the tile hardware. Though this and other similar abuses are pretty common in commercial games.