Newbie with Amiga Forever: how to debug games not loading?

[Branais]

G'day all,
I'm new to the emulation thing, not to computing or to the Amiga (though I no longer have any real Amiga hardware.)

I have Amiga Forever 2012 installed on my Windows PC. I'm hoping someone can give me some tips, or point me to any, on what to do if an adf starts to load, then stops on a Workbench screen with an empty prompt.

It could be a bad rip of the disk in the first place; or it could be that I need to change the configurations in the emulation for this particular file. I've tried setting it to a later Workbench (it was starting at 1.2), but that hasn't done it.

I know Amiga Forever has a Facebook page, but I've never been on Facebook, and I really don't want to start now. Forgive me.

Has anyone got any pointers they can toss in my direction, please? Many thanks.

[lifeschool]

Haven't had any experience with Amiga Forever but I have noticed a few ADFs don't work - even through winuae. I tried all-ways to get the Star Wars ADFs working the other day and out of the six ADFs I tried, 1 went to the blue screen and stopped, several others required WB 2 or later, and two more appeared to load but had crashed graphics. If you're in any doubt I'd suggest at least changing to a later rom (2, or 3) and certainly avoiding 1.2. - although 1.3 will be handy for very old titles I suppose. Sorry I can't be of any more help.

[Branais]

No worries, lifeschool, thanks for your thoughts.

I figure it's reasonable to expect that some things just won't deal with the environment. Or they could be unsuccessful rips in the first place. I suppose it's only with time and experience that you start getting a feel for what's going on, eh?

[Ze Emulatron]

What game/program were you trying to run ?

[Branais]

It was a multipart adf called "Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis", which I downloaded from The Game Archives.

I like the idea in Amiga Forever of being able to set configuration options with each game installed ... as long as you have a clue what those options should be. If you don't, it's a bit daunting, and if the adf doesn't run properly, I (as a newbie) don't know enough to know why -- hence my posting here. (Amiga Forever doesn't appear to have a forum -- only a Facebook page.)

[Ze Emulatron]

Sorry for being a bit slow to respond, I have been a bit busy with tests / exams for my course. I think you have the version cracked by Dynamic Technologies

I believe this disk can be run from workbench as it has the files Installer and Atlantis on it.



If you don't run it from workbench just type "atlantis" without speech marks at the prompt and press enter and the game should load.

When you get to the protection screen it shouldn't matter what you pick as the game is cracked.

The manual can be found on

http://hol.abime.net/2628/manual

[Chuckles]

Most/all this is presumably covering the loading of
the '.adf' Amiga disk files.

You might wish to go to that FaceBook site and ask if
the developer(s) has/have any particular advice concerning
testing and running downloaded games through their
frontend, because the games that come with the Forever
package are by and large, pretested. There should be, if
there is not already, info in their help files, concerning this
problem area--and--if there is not, then you would be
within your rights to ask them about this/why
there is not.

I bring this up because I've had problems like you had,
on previous versions of AF. I've then fixed the problem
by dinkering with the config file, usually directly from the
WinUAE loader--but this may take half an hour, or longer
for some of those really early games.

If you find a satisfactory solution to running a wide range
of game types and period, then post back and let us know.
I'm currently using the AmiGame frontend, which is a
superior loader for the WHD loadable types--but that's
another story...
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