I admit I just don't understand why this is such a hassle!

I haven't even been able to play 'Exodus: The Last War' yet because I can't set up the CDDA device properly (the cd-rom device?)! Why can't these AHI dialogue boxes just auto-detect? I have no idea how to set up Game Music to play with these systems! I much prefer old Paula music anyway
How do you configure them. It is a standard SCSI CD-ROM on my A4000T.

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@Thread

T-Zero and Napalm are the same! I can safely say that thus far I have never heard an Amiga CDDA based soundtrack on anything other than a normal CD player.

The only difference this time is that Exodus refuses to load unless you configure the CDDA sound settings correctly!!!!

I hate the way AmigaOS assumes you know what 'Unit No.' and 'device driver' each of your storage devices is using at ALL TIMES!!! I'm sorry but I'm not that organised or geeky to know much beyond simple User-Startup editing and the odd use of SnoopDos!

Actually with Napalm I've got 2 copies of the game for Null Modem play. So for single player I can listen to the soundtrack on a regular CD player while I'm playing

However, there has to be a better way?! How do you configure CDDA sound in these games?!

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

Exodus the last war should work easier on an lder system than OS4.x

Well, I can give you my settings I have here, but not sure if it would help you at all, as you are using a classic.

CDDA for me is set to this

sii3114ide.device and is set at CDDA unit 0

To get this information originally, I went into the Media toolbox.

Maybe you can go to the toolbox in your OS version to find out the same info.

Cant be bothered turning on my cd32 in the other corner to find this out right now.

Cheers

_________________
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Flex is 800mhz
A1000 with Classic 520 Amiga OS3.2.1
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@BigD

I can tell you were this "hassle" came from...

As these are 68k games, developers had to bear in mind that some people still have very old CDROM drives. As older CDROM drives sometimes are not "standard" regarding the commands they accept, its near to impossible to detect the right drive (some people have two or more drives!). Developers would have risked crashes then. Imagine yourself trying to start a game that crashes right from the start (because of failing CDDA autodetect) and the support tells you "rearrange your CDROM drives"

A very similar thing is AHI... most people want to choose the "proper" audio mode themselves.

But for nowadays programs this shouldnt be a hassle anymore... CDDA autodetect is possible and 44.1KHz AHI audio modes should be ok for anyone.

@Gebrochen

Thanks

@Thread

What's the OS3.9 A4000T SCSI CD-Rom equivalent of the sii3114ide.device? It doesn't sound familiar!

How do I use toolbox to find this out?

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

Assuming that you have a CD filesystem installed and mounted (i.e. CDs show up on WB when inserted) then you can use PlayCDDA to find out the device driver name and unit number. Just type the command "PlayCDDA drive CD0:" and it will list the information you need. Of course you could also then just look at the mountlist file in DEVS:DOSDrivers (the device and unit values you need should be either in the file itself or in the icon tooltypes).

@whose

Quote:

As older CDROM drives sometimes are not "standard" regarding the commands they accept, its near to impossible to detect the right drive

Well this isn't about detecting the drive, it's about where the drive sat in the system, with it's Exec device and unit number. So we are not even talking to the drive yet at this point.

@BigD

Quote:

I hate the way AmigaOS assumes you know what 'Unit No.' and 'device driver' each of your storage devices is using at ALL TIMES!!!

I agree. I hate this too. Most people have their drvies at CD0 or CD1, etc. And the program could have let the user chose the DOS device from a list and work out the Exec device and unit.

But having said that, all you should need to do is look at the device driver icon in DEVS:DOSDrivers for your CD drive. It should be in the tool types. If not in the file itself. After all that you probably are looking simply for scsi.device.

HDToolbox and Mounter should also tell you what Exec devices you have with drives hanging off.

@Hypex

I see it from a programmers POV, and there it is about detecting the right drive

I made some code for this lately, but it wont work reliable on OS3.x machines using very old drives (even more if some of them are present at the same time).

BigD asked why there is such a hassle and I told him where it came from.

For a programmer, now it isnt a big thing to detect the drive that carries the game CD with audio tracks (or CDDA discs in general). Even if the user has several drives, the exec devices and dos.library have all necessary functionality to detect the right drive by software, so that the user (potentially) doesnt need to know device and unit # of the drive he uses.

CDx: naming scheme is just one way to accomplish this (and not the best one), MMC commands are another. There is even a way to travel down a list of all known removable drives in the system including information about which type of removable drive it is exactly.

So it is quite easy to find the drive by software, without any hassle for the user who otherwise has to know which device and unit # the drive is attached to.

I think developers should take more care about this in future.

@Hypex

Devs: CD0

Says it's the scsi.device unit=5

It doesn't list scsi.device in the list of options for Exodus Prefs though! I typed in scsi.device and unit=5 and clicked save but it still doesn't work!

Why is this so hard?

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@Thread



Quote:

Devs: CD0 Says it's the scsi.device unit=5 It doesn't list scsi.device in the list of options for Exodus Prefs though! I typed in scsi.device and unit=5 and clicked save but it still doesn't work!

So basically does this mean that my CD-ROM shouldn't work? Is my CD-ROM filesystem not configured correctly? Don't I just install OS3.9 and get on with using my Amiga? I bought this A4000T second hand and I've never needed to configure the CD Filesystem! Before that I had a CD32 SX32 so the filesystem was built in with that machine.

If SCSI.device isn't present on any of my Workbench partitions how come my CD-ROM is working? I can play Napalm no problem, sound effects only (obviously without the poxy CDDA sound -THAT'S A GIVEN)!!!

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

OK, I did it, I managed to find just enough energy to have a look onto my retro system tonight.

I tell ya, it isnt easy to mustre and find energy these days to do the simplist tasks, think I am overworked during daylight hours, by the time I get home, everything happens in slow mo mode.

OK

This is what I found out,

The CD unit here is set on unit 2, als called sci.device correct. However, when I went into HD ToolBox, it wasnt in there?

I also noted, after rebooting, and holding down both mouse buttons, it also did not display my CD unit there? Strange I think.

Well, so thats officially told me, that I am unable to help you any further, sorry about that.

Cheers

_________________
Courtesy of SAM440Flex & Amiga OS4.1 only
Flex is 800mhz
A1000 with Classic 520 Amiga OS3.2.1
AmiKit 12
MorphOS PowerBook G4 (which can play youtube vids)

https://blitterwolf.blogspot.com

@Gebrochen

Quote:

The CD unit here is set on unit 2, als called sci.device correct. However, when I went into HD ToolBox, it wasnt in there?

I think you mean "scsi.device"!

What I want to know is how the CD-ROM is being controlled by a device which doesn't seem to be present in devs or even Workbench in general.

On the A4000T isn't the SCSI device in the 3.1 ROMS? How the hell do I tell the rubbish CDDA config program to look in there!!! This sucks.

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

I don't have a 4000T and even A1200 CD-Rom doesn't work at the moment, so I'm working from memeory to some extent....

But lets start from scratch:

• How is your CD_ROM attached to the A4000T ?
  
  Via IDE ? Via a real scsi interface? Via an IDE splitter?
  
  
• You are sure it works for normal CD-ROM access? Can you play CD's with PlayCD?
  
  If so what settings are setup for playCD? Try those.
  
  

Last edited by broadblues on 04-Mar-2010 at 12:17 PM.

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@broadblues

Quote:

But lets start from scratch: * How is your CD_ROM attached to the A4000T ? Via IDE ? Via a real scsi interface? Via an IDE splitter? * You are sure it works for normal CD-ROM access? Can you play CD's with PlayCD? If so what settings are setup for playCD? Try those. On my A1200 (which is ofcourse diferent) CD-Rom access was via atapi.device A further thought if PlayCD doesn't work, can you play an audio CD by pressing play on the CD Drive? (assuming it's got a play button....) if not is the CD audio output connected anywhere?

It is a REAL SCSI interface - The A4000T has a SCSI Controller built in, but the software is built into the 3.1 ROM chips.

CD-Rom access works. I can play Napalm (which requires CD access). I can look at Magazine cover discs, and regular data CDs etc.

I cannot play music CDs through PlayCD so no doubt that isn't configured properly either!

Last edited by BigD on 04-Mar-2010 at 12:22 PM.

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

And please tell us what type of drive it is. Exact model would be nice

@whose

Whatever CD-ROM drives the Escom/AT A4000Ts came with! This isn't rocket science! I'm not a newbie, I just don't find this aspect of the Amiga experience very easy or user friendly!

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

Hey, calm down, I want to help you with this issue. Sadly I dont know which model of CDROM drive was built into the A4000T by Escom. Thats why I asked.

But as it doesnt appear in HDToolBox and neither work with usual CDDA playback programs I suspect that its a non-MMC compliant drive with some "special" commands. This would explain your hassle and I could tell you that theres nothing we or you could do about, because the software has to be changed in order to get CDDA working with these kind of drives.

@whose

Okay, I'll check the manufacturer next week when I install a new SCSI drive in the machine. Would the manufacturer/model number be enough to confirm whether it's non-MMC compliant or what not?

Thanks for your help and sorry I'm grouchy. Exodus it my first new Amiga game in years and not only have I not only been able to play it in the 3 weeks I've had it but I've fried my Picasso IV board in that time too!!

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@Thread

How do you know which CD-ROM drive you should buy for Amiga Tower use then? If the Cd-ROM included with the A4000T is non-MMC compliant (whatever that means) why the heck didn't AT include one that was MMC compliant. They could have made it auto-detecting and issued the code to developers so that all this CDDA device and unit number rubbish was not needed! For a computer that invented 'Plug and Play' and 'Autoconfig' this simply isn't good enough!

Last edited by BigD on 04-Mar-2010 at 02:59 PM.

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios