Hi,

I bought an A1200 with a 4gb HD with 1200 games installed. Great I thought.
No. Very few of the games work without extra RAM.
There is an Ebay seller who sells a HD with 2200+ games who says most will work on a basic A1200 (no extra RAM or accelerator).
Is there any way I can clean up my HD to run on a basic A1200?

Cheers

Pete.

@pmc280

Just get a RAM board or Accelerator - you won't regret it, it gives a stock A1200 a new lease of life. Regarding the games. Some might work on a basic A1200 but by the time workbench and whatever else is loaded, some of the 2MB will be consumed. Try booting with no startup sequence and running the games from the shell.

Are you sure it is memory that the games that don't run require? Some might need to run in ECS mode and suchlike.

When you say "clean up" I guess you could delete the games that won't run on your configuration, but then you are no further forward but you no longer have the games if you upgrade.

_________________
Amiga A1200, 3.1 ROMs, Blizzard 1230 MKIV 64MB & FPU, 4GB DoM SSD, Workbench 3.1

@A1200

Accelerators are too expensive and RAM boards appear to be non existant on the market.
The guy on Ebay seems to have the system running lean enough that most games will work. I was just wondering how to get an A1200 to run with a minimal amount of memory useage. It is obviously something about how he has his HD setup that allows the Amiga to run using minimal memory.

Cheers

Pete.

@pmc280

Run with no startup sequence.... reboot holding down both mouse buttons and then you should be fine. The basic OS3.0/3.1 install does not have anything in WBStartup, so unless you put anything in it, the machine is running as lean as it can.

You can also clear unused libraries from memory by changing the last line in s:startup-sequence to

LoadWB -Debug Cleanup

Then when workbench loads, you should have a flushlibs option on the tools menu - click this and it should save you some memory - do this whenever you have run a few programs and you are down on RAM.

_________________
Amiga A1200, 3.1 ROMs, Blizzard 1230 MKIV 64MB & FPU, 4GB DoM SSD, Workbench 3.1

How are the games launched? Is WHDLoad used? How much "Graphics" memory is free when Workbench loads? Because WHDLoad will require more RAM than the game would by itself. Starting with an absolute minimum Workbench (or no Workbench) will give you almost the full amount of memory free, but it will still consume a small amount, and some games need the entire 2MB to run. Really, an extra little bit of memory will do it the world of good - I doubt there's much different with that other hard drive you were talking about...

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RobTheNerd.com | InstallerGen | SMBMounter | Atoms-X

@pmc280 Hi i am so pleased you have one of theese only i too have bought one off ebay ,lol and you are right the guy has his running like a dream ,he has included all the ways of cutting back on memory ,so tomorrow when mine comes i will have ago and see what happens , i still think it would be better to buy some more memory,only im not too sure what i should be buying,yet lol,so if anyone has a clue i would be glad to hear it ,best wishes Brian

Is the AmigaOS and games software supplied on these drives licensed or is it pirated? I notice that these drives are sold for a premium

Hopefully no WHDLoad keys are supplied as Wepl does a great job with developing WHDLoad and his hard work should be rewarded

Last edited by amigakit on 18-Jul-2010 at 07:32 PM.

_________________
Amiga Kit Amiga Store
Links: www.amigakit.com | New Products | A600GS

@amigakit

Hi what does that mean WHDLoad keys ,sorry but i am new to this ,so what excactly are we looking for ,and if Ebay are selling some thing they shouldnt be why is nobody doing some thing about it, i would like to know because im buying stuff of there ,that i am really know little about ,best wishes Brian

@scarrabri

WHDLoad is the program that allows old games that are written for the Amiga 500 run on Amiga 1200 hard drive ( www.whdload.de ) WHDLoad requires registration through a keyfile system after the user has purchased the key. This is a shareware type scheme to reward the author, WEPL, who spends many hours writing patches for WHDLoad to allow the many old Amiga games run on an A1200. Registarion information for WHDLoad: http://www.whdload.de/reg.html

Ebay is not selling the drives, the seller using Ebay is. Hard disks should not be sold with Workbench loaded on them without license. Also the games should not be copied and distributed without the original games disk (it is a rule of Ebay).

Selling 2,200 games distributed on a hard disk without license is profiting from other peoples Intellectual Property.

Last edited by amigakit on 18-Jul-2010 at 08:13 PM.
Last edited by amigakit on 18-Jul-2010 at 08:12 PM.

_________________
Amiga Kit Amiga Store
Links: www.amigakit.com | New Products | A600GS

@scarrabri

Quote:

Hi what does that mean WHDLoad keys

WHDLoad is package of "installers" that allow to install floppy based games to HDD even with improved compatibility on expanded computers (eg. with 68030 or 68040 CPUs). WHDLoad is shareware, you can use it without registering, but there are some limitations (eg. small delay before the games start). After registering WHDLoad you can obtain "keyfile" from its author, that removes all limitations. Some installers need registered WHDLoad to work.

See www.whdload.de for more info.

You can even (legally) download some games installed by WHDLoad utilities(eg. from www.back2roots.org site).


Edit: AmigaKit was faster...

Last edited by pavlor on 18-Jul-2010 at 08:18 PM.

@amigakit

Hi again well thankyou for the information, well i hope i have not got one of the illegal ones ,i havent got it yet ,but i will be complaining if i have ,thankyou for bringing this to my attention ,i really have got myself off to a bright start into the world of amigas,best wishes Brian

@scarrabri

Well if it has Workbench 3.1 on or any other 3.1 files, then the seller requires a license to legally distribute it.

Also the 2,200 games supplied need to all have publically distributable licenses.

_________________
Amiga Kit Amiga Store
Links: www.amigakit.com | New Products | A600GS

@pavlor wow whish i had spoken to you first ,i can see my amiga days coming to an end ,thanks for the information,my friend best wishes Brian

@scarrabri

I think there are other links that can help you in the world of Amiga:

www.aminet.net - over 70000 applications, games, demos, music and image files for all Amiga flavours (and all for free).
www.os4depot.net - over 2500 native applications for AmigaOS 4
www.amiga.org - another great forum
www.amigans.net - forum dedicated to AmigaOS 4
eab.abime.net - another forum, mostly interested in UAE, Amiga emulation and classic machines.
hol.abime.net - source of information for Amiga games (screenshots, other material, etc.)
www.amiga-hardware.com - The Big Book of Amiga Hardware, basic informations about nearly all hardware ever produced for Amiga
www.morphzone.org - MorphOS forum
www.aros-exec.org - AROS forum
www.amigakit.com - distributor of many accessories for Amiga computers
www.vesalia.de - another Amiga distributor

Hope it will help.

Last edited by pavlor on 18-Jul-2010 at 08:32 PM.
Last edited by pavlor on 18-Jul-2010 at 08:31 PM.
Last edited by pavlor on 18-Jul-2010 at 08:28 PM.

@pavlor wow i dont really go a bundle on games but i like making and recording music, thanks for the list best wishes Brian

@pavlor

Hi again my friend ,hey theres some really good stuff here on your brilliant list ,is this all legal lol only joking i sure i cant get stung twice in one day ,best wishes Brian

@amigakit

Hi again in answer to your question it has workbench 3.0 on it , hope thats ok best wishes Brian

@scarrabri

Don´t worry about legality of your OS. You aquired it in good faith and I can assure you neither Hyperion, nor Amiga.Inc will prosecute you.

@scarrabri

If the seller has a license to distribute Workbench 3.0 then its OK. There are only a few limited licensees of Workbench 3.0

@pavlor

It is not right that a person sells a CF HDD to an unsuspecting customer on Ebay for £40 preloaded with illegal software. If we did that we would get into trouble legally. It is suprising that Ebay allows this to be sold on their site.

Last edited by amigakit on 18-Jul-2010 at 09:25 PM.

_________________
Amiga Kit Amiga Store
Links: www.amigakit.com | New Products | A600GS

@amigakit
Hi again,i really dont know if the seller has a license ,i never even thought to ask ,infact untill you told me i had no idea , well did you ever wish you had not bought something, its strange really i had none of this when i was i was in the Spectrum zx forum ,i just bought off ebay spoke of what i had bought in the Spectrum zx forum ,and a good time was had by all lol ,o well we live and learn or so they say ,let me compliment you on your amigakit shop of which i have had the pleasure of ordering a few things,not got them yet ,but you seem to sell evrything ,anyway must not ramble,best wishes to you my friend ,Brian

Last edited by scarrabri on 18-Jul-2010 at 09:37 PM.