Amiga 1200 n00b questions

sir_beaker

sir_beaker

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AmiBayer
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Hi, first off sorry if this has already been answered somewhere else but I wonder if someone can help me? I am a complete n00b when it comes to the Amiga 1200. I bought an Amiga 1200 from Jebi1717 back in January having never owned one before in lovely white condition. Since then I've installed a CF hard drive I bought from someone on ebay, and an 8MB RAM card from Fitzsteve. (y)

I noticed before I bought the 8MB RAM card from Fitzsteve that a couple of games seem to have some screen tearing going on. I've included some pictures of Alien Breed 3D to show what I mean. The same thing seems to happen on Wing Commander. Other games like Alien Breed 2 AGA seem fine and even Workbench seems fine. It's not the TV as I've tried it on a Sony Trinitron CRT and Pioneer Plasma TV and both have exactly the same issue. The initial screen seems fine but then the lines appear on the options screen and in the game. I've literally no idea where to start looking as I am sure that can't be normal?..

The other issue is an unresponsive mouse button for a Commodore mouse. Are they worth repairing or am I better buying a new one?

Thanks in advance,

Beaker
 

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does it do this on a workbench screenmode as well?

or other games.

its not your tv or the scart cable.
 
Thanks for the quick reply. The workbench screen seems OK. This is the one it boots up into from the CF card on both the CRT and plasma.
 

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see if you can comment out the line in your startup sequence for fblit and see if it gets any better.

the mouse is repairable,if its a microswitched version it might be easier to fix than the other type with leaf springs.
 
Thanks Roy_bates. I'll have to read up on the start up sequence and how to comment out the fbit line (I really am that green around the Amiga) and get back to you. It give me somewhere to start, thanks :)

I've taken the mouse apart and given it a bit of a clean so see how it goes. If not I guess it's a new switch?
 

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Not sure if I've done this right? I used semi-colons next to the lines I hope needed changing, saved and rebooted then launched alien breed 3d with the same issue...
 

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Thread moved to AmiOracle as a more suitable place that will get more views.
 
Thanks Merlin :)

I'll try a few games in the coming days and see which cause the issue.
 
Sorry for the delay. Finally had some time to try out different games :oops::

I changed the startup to also include blazewcp but the problem persists. I noticed when double clicking on workbench to open a folder lines appear for a split second - not sure if they were there last time and I just missed it?

These are the games I've tried and have the lines: (n)
Gunship 2000 AGA
Jurassic Park AGA
Quik Thunder Rabbit - The lines scrolls with the character
Alien Breed 3D2 - The lines scroll with the game
All New World of Lemmings AGA
Lion King AGA (although only on Simba)
Gloom Delux - Playing area is small but they are present to the left of it.

Games that seem fine: (y)
Burning Rubber AGA
Zool AGA
Sleep Walker AGA
Army Moves
Alien Breed
Cannon Fodder 2
Cool Spot
Crazy Cars
Turrican 2 CDTV
Myth History in the Making CD32
 
Do the same Games give the same results when played from Floppy Disk?
 
Hi Fitzsteve, thanks for the reply; unfortunately the CF card came pre-loaded with games and the only game from the list that I also have on floppy disk is a cracked copy of Jurassic Park which seems to be a non-AGA version (the gates don't appear behind the flags when choosing the language) and that doesn't contain lines. I've loaded the non-AGA version from the CF drive and that also doesn't have lines when loaded. I then tried the AGA version again and that does contain the lines. I don't know if that's any help?

Just worth a mention... if it is easier, I don't mind posting it for someone to take a look at it? I don't know much about the internal workings of the machine and I am not sure if I am giving any useful answers? :unsure:
 
Hi Again!

No worries, always happy to help where I can. I would suggest writing to floppy disk from ADF one of the Games that is erroneous and test it.

Sometimes corrupt data can cause graphical glitches, you see it with aging floppy disks but not usually on CF cards I must say.

My other thoughts would be failing PSU, although I'd expect to see constant issues or failing capacitors another possibility.

Lastly maybe a fault somewhere in the custom chipset?

It looks like you have Classic Workbench so you should have TSGui for writing the Floppy Disk, do you have a means to transfer the ADF onto your Amiga?
 
No means of transferring an ADF file unfortunately. I bought the A1200 just as a WHLoad machine so I could see what I missed out on by holding onto my Amstrad CPC until the bitter end.


You mentioned the failing PSU and I remembered I was getting General Error, left click to continue messages about 6 weeks ago that seem to appear randomly when switching on the machine and when loading games but they don't seem to have come back since then. From memory, I think the screen would sometimes turn on and it would just be red but again that hasn't happened for a while. I think I even asked Bryce about it at the time and he mentioned the PSU then I got sidetracked and forgot all about it :Doh: Apologies, I should have mentioned that before as it probably has some bearing on the situation (my bad :double).

The PSU I am using it the Commodore 25W (PN 391029-03) outputting 5V 3.0A, 12V 500mA and -12V 100mA, and as I think I mentioned in an earlier post it's powering the A1200 with CF card and the 8MB RAM board from your good self, so I am not sure if it's struggling? Would it be worth my while putting a wanted post on the forum asking for an Amiga 500 PSU and then go from there?
 
sir_beaker said:
No means of transferring an ADF file unfortunately. I bought the A1200 just as a WHLoad machine so I could see what I missed out on by holding onto my Amstrad CPC until the bitter end.


You mentioned the failing PSU and I remembered I was getting General Error, left click to continue messages about 6 weeks ago that seem to appear randomly when switching on the machine and when loading games but they don't seem to have come back since then. From memory, I think the screen would sometimes turn on and it would just be red but again that hasn't happened for a while. I think I even asked Bryce about it at the time and he mentioned the PSU then I got sidetracked and forgot all about it :Doh: Apologies, I should have mentioned that before as it probably has some bearing on the situation (my bad :double).

The PSU I am using it the Commodore 25W (PN 391029-03) outputting 5V 3.0A, 12V 500mA and -12V 100mA, and as I think I mentioned in an earlier post it's powering the A1200 with CF card and the 8MB RAM board from your good self, so I am not sure if it's struggling? Would it be worth my while putting a wanted post on the forum asking for an Amiga 500 PSU and then go from there?
Click to expand...

You have a pm.
 
if its not a corrupt games issue,then it might be a hardware problem .

lets hope its a software problem.
 
Hopefully. If it does turn out to be hardware, and is fixable, I don't mind throwing money at it.

Thanks for the PM Status. (y)

I've put a wanted post for an Amiga 500 PSU as well that I am hoping someone will answer so we can rule that one out.
 
You might want to get another cf card and put a bog standard workbench 3.0 or 3.1 install on it - then install whdload and install a few games to test - CWB is excellent but I had a few software issues with it - have you tried booting the early CWB screen (right mouse button at boot??) and then just booting a bog standard workbench and testing from there - maybe it's something in Classic workbench that your system doesn't like?
 
Long shot, but can you check the MaxTransfer setting in HDToolBox, a friend of mine bought a CF HDD from eBay and many Games would not work, this was due to incorrect MaxTransfer.

Open HDToolBox and click on the 'partition drive' option, then put a tick in 'advance' settings, tell us what value you have there for MaxTransfer

It should be 0x1FE00 if it is anything else change each partition's MaxTransfer value to 0x1FE00, you must press 'enter' after you input the value or it wont save.

After you should 'save changes' to the drive, make sure you didn't change anything else or your partitions can be damaged!

If you see any warning that changes will result in loss of a partition please cancel.
 
Hi Peter and Fitzsteve,

The setting in HDToolbox looks correct. I've attached some screenshots below.



Peter, I apologize before writing the next bit as I've probably messed up royally.
I right-clicked while booting and selected the safe boot option (hopefully that's the correct option?) but the same issue exists. This is where my inexperience is going to show more; I have 1 workbench 3.0 disk which I loaded from booting the machine, clicked a run icon on my desktop and clicked on the WHLoad option and selected games option (there was KGKoad, Games, Demos options) but when I attempted to load Jurassic Park AGA from the hard drive I got the WHLoad error. I was hoping it would load the WHLoad into memory but I don't think it works anything like that does it? Maybe a path I need to set to the WHLoad? :double





 
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