SxSI-SCSI HDD Image v3.01

[incrediblehark]

Hmm... Virgin Angel is giving me trouble. It works fine on an Ace with Henkan Bancho and BlueSCSI, but not on my XVI with SCSI2SD. I even booted HumanOS 3.02 by floppy and tried playing Virgin Angel off of another floppy. Still get a Bus error. I removed my galspanic and midi card with no success. I have an internal ram expansion and fpu installed, maybe those are causing the bus errors?

I may need to add a note to the batch file stating the potential compatibility errors. This issue is not resolved unfortunately.

[ateam]

Hmm... Virgin Angel is giving me trouble. It works fine on an Ace with Henkan Bancho and BlueSCSI, but not on my XVI with SCSI2SD. I even booted HumanOS 3.02 by floppy and tried playing Virgin Angel off of another floppy. Still get a Bus error. I removed my galspanic and midi card with no success. I have an internal ram expansion and fpu installed, maybe those are causing the bus errors?

Meanwhile, the game only works correctly for me on my XVI with 10MB of RAM and Henkan Bancho Pro.

No FPU, but what do you mean exactly by internal RAM expansion? As in, not the expansion slot?

[incrediblehark]

I have a 6BE6AP memory expansion installed in my XVI in the internal ram port. I'm wondering if that is causing my bus errors. I also have a galspanic board in one of my I/O slots which I removed during testing.

I may try removing everything and seeing if it will run, then adding components back in until I get the bus error.

[kona333]

I have a 6BE6AP memory expansion installed in my XVI in the internal ram port. I'm wondering if that is causing my bus errors. I also have a galspanic board in one of my I/O slots which I removed during testing.

I may try removing everything and seeing if it will run, then adding components back in until I get the bus error.

XVI
CZ-6BE2A＋2MB＋2MB
bluescsiv2

No problem.
thank you.

[incrediblehark]

I can now confirm 100% that Virgin Angel is unplayable with hardware FPU installed - that is the cause of the bus errors. I will update the batch file to make a note of this. If you're just gaming with your X68000 you probably don't need an FPU installed anyway, some games use it but its not necessary.

[spectreman]

I found a solution that fixes the Bonanza Bros. and Knight Arms issues, for XVI users with Henkan Bancho at 16 MHz and 10 MHz (hope it works for everyone).

It's probably not what you expected, but it's the only effective way I have at the moment.

The changes made to the system files in SxSI-SCSI_v300, do not allow the correct functioning of 2HDSIM.

I used a small image to create the ideal environment to run it (named test scsi5), the game images are taken from incrediblehark v2.20, you will find them in the Games folder.

Add this image to the ones in SxSI-SCSI HDD v3.00, it will be recognized as an H unit.

[ateam]

I can now confirm 100% that Virgin Angel is unplayable with hardware FPU installed - that is the cause of the bus errors. I will update the batch file to make a note of this. If you're just gaming with your X68000 you probably don't need an FPU installed anyway, some games use it but its not necessary.

Interesting! If true, that means my Expert has an FPU installed. Are you aware of a method to determine if this is the case without disassembling the unit? 😅

Alternatively, is there a software-side method for disabling it in order to test?

[incrediblehark]

I can now confirm 100% that Virgin Angel is unplayable with hardware FPU installed - that is the cause of the bus errors. I will update the batch file to make a note of this. If you're just gaming with your X68000 you probably don't need an FPU installed anyway, some games use it but its not necessary.

Interesting! If true, that means my Expert has an FPU installed. Are you aware of a method to determine if this is the case without disassembling the unit? 😅

Alternatively, is there a software-side method for disabling it in order to test?

Run SI at the human68k prompt, it will tell you if you have a hardware fpu installed and what address it is located. Unfortunately it would have to be removed for virgin angel to work. Just using float2 instead of float3 does not resolve it. The only other option would be to patch M.X in the virgin angel directory to not cause the address conflict.

[incrediblehark]

I found a solution that solves the Bonanza Bros. and Knight Arms problems, for Henkan Bancho users with 16MHz and 10MHz systems, (I hope it works for everyone).

It's probably not what you expected, but it's the only effective way I have at the moment.

The changes made to the system files in SxSI-SCSI_v300, do not allow the correct functioning of 2HDSIM.

I used a small image to create the ideal environment to run it (named test scsi5), the game images are taken from incrediblehark v2.20, you will find them in the Games folder.

Add this image to the ones in SxSI-SCSI HDD v3.00, it will be recognized as an H unit.

Thank you for working this out, I'll test it as well.

[ateam]

Run SI at the human68k prompt, it will tell you if you have a hardware fpu installed and what address it is located. Unfortunately it would have to be removed for virgin angel to work. Just using float2 instead of float3 does not resolve it. The only other option would be to patch M.X in the virgin angel directory to not cause the address conflict.

Thanks!

So my Expert has no FPU installed, and no bus error is displayed with Virgin Angel. However, it still exhibits the problems described in this post.

Oh, the fun of the X68000 😅

EDIT: I ended up trying to use FDX68 to boot a Virgin Angel floppy from disk 0, but all I got was a Human.sys error. I didn't have time to research further.

[incrediblehark]

Yeah its weird, the floppy isn't formatted to be bootable - no autoexec.bat, config.sys, command.x, or human.sys. They won't fit on the disk either. I had to boot using a 3.02 Human68k disk and then insert the virgin angel floppy and run game.bat from there to play from disk

[ateam]

I had to boot using a 3.02 Human68k disk and then insert the virgin angel floppy and run game.bat from there to play from disk

Yeah, I figured it had to be booted like that.

Thanks 🙂

[incrediblehark]

@spectreman knight arms worked perfect for me, bonanza bros did not.

[spectreman]

@spectreman knight arms worked perfect for me, bonanza bros did not.

I have the XVI with Henkan Bancho, so I have not been able to verify compatibility on SASI systems.

[chadti99]

Been awhile since I've had my X68000 fired up and still have the old V4 image on a SCSI2SD.

Excited to give this image a try, it looks like Aquales is working now, that's awesome!

There was a mod for the v4 image that allowed menu navigation via joystick, would that work with this image?

[chadti99]

Got the mage up and running on my X68000 Pro with Xellent30 and SCSI2SD 5.5.

I've been able to test a few games without issue.

I'm wanting to read the User Guide and when I attempt to view it in LHES my system freezes. I have to hit the reset button on the case. Any idea what might be causing this?

Thanks!

[incrediblehark]

Hmm that seems a little odd considering it's just a text file. Can you access it in lhes with the E key to bring up the editor? I haven't had any reports of it not working but I'll check later today. I have a v3.01 almost ready to upload.

To answer your other question, you can use other file navigation such as the one with joystick support but the file from the old v4 isn't a simple drop in replacement. It needs to be configured for the new drives/paths and I haven't really worked on it yet.

[chadti99]

Discovered that if I boot up in 68000 mode instead of the 68030 mode I can view the document. So likely an edge case with the Xellent30.

[ateam]

@incrediblehark, I was going to suggest you add this mostly complete T-En patch...

https://www.romhacking.net/translations/2734/

...since the original JP is on your set. However, I get nothing but garbled dialogue text when I patch it myself and run from floppy. Very strange.

Figured I'd bring it to your attention in case you want to give it a whirl and potentially include it in next release.

[incrediblehark]

@ateam Thank you for pointing this out to me! I'll try messing around with it tonight.

On the topic of knight arms, I did notice it hangs from time to time when trying to start a new game, on henkan bancho and scsi2sd. I'm wondering if a 2hdsim option might be more reliable?

[opooly]

Hi and thanks for this incredible work.
I'm facing some issues with 3.0 and not with 2.2 or 2.3 image I have to say, not sure why.

Super HangOn for example is still not working on any.

Phalanx intro for example is working juste fine on the previous image and on the 3.0 in the middgle of the show I got a black screen, I'm still hearing the sound but no picture while it start as expected.

I'm running a X68k Expert with 2Mo of additional ram as well as AJE MIDI board + Ram + BlueSCSI V2 on a SCSI board

I'm happy to do any test if this can help.

Cheers

[incrediblehark]

Thanks for reporting these issues. Super hang on seems to be a bit of a pain. Are you using the same bluescsi and sd card for testing the new and old image? How is the sd card formatted? Fat32 with 32kb is recommended. I don't have an expert to test with but I do have a scsi card I'll see if I can get it working and try bluescsi from there.

[ateam]

A tip for those who have a Henkan Bancho: I've noticed that I get better performance by formatting my CF (at least 8GB or larger) with a cluster size of 64 Kilobytes.

I noticed issues when using larger cluster sizes, and ultimately settled on 32K. I decided to try reformatting to 64K to see if I notice any differences. Seems more-or-less the same so far, but I'll keep observing.

Thanks for sharing the tip

[spectreman]

Super HangOn for example is still not working on any.

Phalanx intro for example is working juste fine on the previous image and on the 3.0 in the middgle of the show I got a black screen, I'm still hearing the sound but no picture while it start as expected.

Most likely the problem is with your RAM+MIDI.

Super Hang-On and Phalanx support Roland MT-32.

Somehow they conflict with your MIDI card, possible IRQ address issue.

[rezb1t]

I have an aje_fr RAM+MIDI board installed and Super Hang-On works perfectly on the v3.0 image, just played a couple of rounds.

[spectreman]

I have an aje_fr RAM+MIDI board installed and Super Hang-On works perfectly on the v3.0 image, just played a couple of rounds.

Like the Etarikashikoshi model, the AJE MIDI also has four possible address settings.

Also, how did he install a SCSI expansion card on an Expert, if the AJE MIDI has a standard DIN size?

I think the meaning of his words was lost in translation.

[opooly]

I have an aje_fr RAM+MIDI board installed and Super Hang-On works perfectly on the v3.0 image, just played a couple of rounds.

Like the Etarikashikoshi model, the AJE MIDI also has four possible address settings.

Also, how did he install a SCSI expansion card on an Expert, if the AJE MIDI has a standard DIN size?

I think the meaning of his words was lost in translation.

Hi,

No I replaced the MIDI port by a smaller one as AJE made it possible evn if it's shipped with a standard DIN size.
So I got both cards running on my Expert.

that said I can try starting the games without the MIDI board or with MIDI disabled as well as without the SCSI card.

I'll let you know.

[ateam]

Anyone else with an Etarikashikoshi 8MB RAM/MIDI card able to successfully boot Valis II?

I receive a generic error message no matter what IRQ/ACK setting I use on the board's jumpers. I have no other expansion cards present on this Expert unit.

EDIT: I can't share a picture right now because I'm running a memory test. However, behavior is as follows...

1) Use QQ shortcut to launch !Start.bat.
2) 2hdboot command is seen on screen, HDD access light flashes for a few moments.
3) Screen fades out.
4) Single error message appears on screen saying something generic about a system error having occurred. Normally after the fade out, the developer logo is displayed and the game boots.

EDIT 2: Okay. so I tested the v220 image, and Valis II boots without issue! Interesting...

EDIT 3: This is so bizarre... I ran a partial memory test, but canceled it because I wanted to test a few other things out instead. I edited the !GameStart.bat script to try and use 2hdsim, which didn't work of course. Reverted it to 2hdboot and somehow now it works? 😂

[kanjiology]

Tried booting Valis II but an error when loading on X68000 Pro with BlueSCSI v2 and 10mb of ram via a galspanic card and oem midi card.

[ateam]

Ah, so what Kanji is seeing is actually different than what I see.

Plot thickens... 😂

[incrediblehark]

Tried booting Valis II but an error when loading on X68000 Pro with BlueSCSI v2 and 10mb of ram via a galspanic card and oem midi card.

Looks like it's saying there isn't enough memory to run. Could you try editing the .bat file for 2hdboot? See if changing the 2 to a 1 makes any difference.

[kanjiology]

Tried booting Valis II but an error when loading on X68000 Pro with BlueSCSI v2 and 10mb of ram via a galspanic card and oem midi card.

Looks like it's saying there isn't enough memory to run. Could you try editing the .bat file for 2hdboot? See if changing the 2 to a 1 makes any difference.

Unfortunately didn't work. I'll try and see if it worked on the 2.X image or run a memory test.

Thanks

[incrediblehark]

Thanks for testing - trying to think of other ways to free up ram, you could try f10 in LHES and running "HIOCS /R" prior to running the !Start.BAT. that should free up a few KB of system ram.

[opooly]

Good Morning,

I just figured out something, if I quit LHES typing Q and Q, then browsing the game directory and starting the game using !Start.bat it's working.
I tried with SuperHangOn, Salamander, Phalanx, all are working just fine!

[spectreman]

Valis II:

Boot problems with Valis II occur when you have a RAM malfunction or low memory.

Requires a lot of memory to run (at least 8MB), the same problem was present with v2.20.
In SASI systems the total effective memory (base memory + expansion) must not exceed 10MB.

New Zealand Story:

On Henkan Bancho there are small graphical glitches at 16 MHz with v2.30 and v3.00, while at 10 MHz the graphics appear normal.
Replacing the game with the version present in X68000_V4.HDS, it is displayed correctly even at 16MHz.

Tests performed on XVI with MIDI Sharp CZ-6BM1A and XSIMM10 PC0057 10MB.

EDIT: With the v2.31 and v3.01 update it is no longer possible to use this solution for New Zealand Story.

[incrediblehark]

I had patched New Zealand story for 16mhz fix but I replaced the executable with the recent SCSI patched version. I'm surprised the v4 version works properly on an XVI

[incrediblehark]

v3.01 / v2.31 images are now live.

[ateam]

Great work, incredibleshark!

By the way, I mentioned seeing what appeared to be totally corrupt text with Nekketsu Soccer, no matter how I patched it. After reviewing it again, it looks like the opening scene is using Romanized Japanese instead of English?

Everyone else sees this, right? https://i.imgur.com/iV7qxDg.mp4

How strange...

[opooly]

Great work, incredibleshark!

By the way, I mentioned seeing what appeared to be totally corrupt text with Nekketsu Soccer, no matter how I patched it. After reviewing it again, it looks like the opening scene is using Romanized Japanese instead of English?

Everyone else sees this, right? https://i.imgur.com/iV7qxDg.mp4

How strange...

Yes same here

[X-Col]

I can now confirm 100% that Virgin Angel is unplayable with hardware FPU installed - that is the cause of the bus errors. I will update the batch file to make a note of this. If you're just gaming with your X68000 you probably don't need an FPU installed anyway, some games use it but its not necessary.

This is generally correct, there are very few games that take advantage of an FPU, but there are some. Prince of Persia is one, it plays better when an FPU is installed. My FPU can be disabled using a jumper, I may install a switch to disable it for games such as Virgin Angel.

A quick question. Does anyone know the cause of the horrible noise in Cyber Core's game music? It works fine in an emulator but I get the noise in both my ACE and Compact.