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Steppe
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 1510 |
FD2000/HD/1581 versions of multidisk games
Hi all,
I'm right now playing Ultima V on my C128. And even though I have a second drive connected I find the disk swapping extremely annoying. I wonder if one of those jewel crackers out there would like to do a version of that game (or other multidisk RPG like Bard's Tale II+III, Dragon Wars, just to name a few) that run from a single 1581/CMD FD2000/CMD HD or IDE64 (even 64HDD would be nice)?
I did a little research on Ultima V and discovered that the majority of the files on the 8 disks is redundant data! Actually only about 2 files per disk differ from files on other disks with the same filename! So I could imagine that all it takes is to modify the main program files, add a few branching instruction depending on the location of the game (Dungeons, Keeps, Towns...), rename the non-redundant files and adjust the main program files to load those renamed files instead.
Am I just blue-eyed, or do you think this is doable with reasonably low effort? |
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Pater Pi
Account closed
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 121 |
Since when is Ultima AD&D?....(:
What is the current price for a 1581, a fd200 or an ide64? and do i still get HDs working with the IDE-64?
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Steppe
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 1510 |
@Merman:
Regarding the files with the same filename and identical size in Ultima V: Believe me, I compared them with the built-in compare function of Ultraedit, 90% of the files are identical, byte by byte. I understand they have to be on different disks, as those (identical) program files always load datafiles with the same filename, but different content.
@Pi:
I recently saw a FD2000 on EBAY going for 191 Euros, AFAIR. Another prime example of EBAY overpricing is here:
http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3047186583&ca..
476 Euros (fourhundredandseventysix, in words) for a 100 MB CMD HD-100... I can only shake my head.
In those cases I suggest buying it new from CMD directly.
A 1581 can be bought for as low as 65 Euros. Used Amiga drive mechs are also sold pretty cheap, I got two Chinons for 17,50 last week.
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Twoflower
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 434 |
A 1581 is worth every penny you spend on it, especially if you can get it as cheap as 65 eur. My only bad experience with it is the mechanics and the fact that is grows picky (constant read errors on certain tracks and problems with the dir) with an old, not too stable 1541-II/1581 transformator. I changed my mech some month ago to a newer amigamech and got a new transformator - and it never worked better.
Glad to hear there's a IDE version of Newcomer showing up soon. A game of that calibre really deserves working on something else than 40 track disks. I'm also curious if any of you have investigated the loaders f.ex Ultima VI or Bards Tale III / Dragon Wars? Even if all you did was modifying the loader to work with an 3,5 drive - instead of exchanging it to f.ex a modified Dreamload - the games would gain much speed from it. Would it be possible to add such a feature you think? Ultima VI uses a IRQ loader of some sort, and i'm not completely sure about the others. |
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Merman
Registered: Dec 2002
Posts: 140 |
Quote: Since when is Ultima AD&D?....(:
What is the current price for a 1581, a fd200 or an ide64? and do i still get HDs working with the IDE-64?
What I meant was that the AD&D system has what looks like duplicate files on different disks but they aren't - But as Steppe pointed out, the Ultima files are not like that.
I have a 1581 and an FD. Sweet! |
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Steppe
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 1510 |
Yeah, still you can't throw everything onto one 3.5" floppy and play ahead. It would work loader-wise, as U5 uses standard kernal routines. However the datafiles called "L" and "U" exist on all disk, they are the ones with differing content.
Now if only someone motivated enough could hack the game to work on 1581 - I'd die for it! :-) |
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Bender
Account closed
Registered: May 2003
Posts: 9 |
I own an FD2000 and AFAIK it's said to be 100% compatible with the C1581, or am I wrong? Well, the Nostalgia releases won't work even on the "c1581-disks" (DS/DD, formatted for 800K), has anyone else come upon this problem. I also haven't been able to get The Games: Summer Edition/DSD 90 to work, even though it claims to be 1581 compatible. Have you had the same experience or know if something I don't, please tell me.
Btw, I have quite a bunch of games working on FD, if you anyone wants a list, I'll put it up here (all games are easy to find, I've just taken the time to check out if they work - which will save YOU a lot of time!). |
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Stryyker
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 468 |
FD is not 100% compatible with 1581. I've found some stuff that works differently on both although coded to be generic (FD set up with 1581 disk etc.). I also noticed it with my own experiments. Although many things cannot tell difference and work fine on either. |
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Steppe
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 1510 |
Allright, I finally got my new drive mechanic installed and tested Leaderboard, Bender.
So far I can't share your experience that it takes too long to search the BAM because of the vast amount of files. At least not with Jiffy DOS, every hole doesn't take more than 2 seconds to load.
But I got a different problem here:
Both Star Commander and 64copy don't allow me to copy more than 296 files to the d81, although there are still over 700 blocks free on that disk. Hence, I miss out on courses O and P. Still, it's fun to play without having to swap disks all the time.
Does anybody know if that limitation of 296 BAM entries can somehow be overcome? |
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CyberBrain
Administrator
Posts: 392 |
I have no clue, but just an idea that might work: Maybe you could make a new partition and put the rest of the files in there? I think each partition has it's own BAM. |
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Steppe
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 1510 |
Yeah, but how do I change partitions while a program is running? %)
(Already had this thought myself with several games) |
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