Wing Commander CD32 on an AGA miggy

Justin

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Hi All,
the CD32 version of Wing commander rocks (seriously, try it!) but setting it up can be a pain if you can't read German, so with the help of Laudrup (thanks m8(y)) and Mrs JuvUK here is an easy to follow guide based on the fantastic work of [FONT=&quot]aPEX & Turrican

hope this helps, JuvUK :)

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]The Wing Commander CD32 guide

[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Wing Commander is an ingenious game, especially the cd32 version with 256 colours it has achieved cult status amongst Amiga Fans. Sadly, the game is unplayable on the more powerful Amigas (or, at best, is too fast to play). [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The guide explains how to play Wing Commander on fast Amigas

1. Installation

The CD32 CD version has no install-script. But this isn’t a problem – all that is needed is to copy the whole directory from the CD to your Amiga HDD. The fastest way is with the shell-command:

copy CDx: Game:WC32 all

Please make a note of your drive names and directories and change them!

2. The Patch

Have you copied all the files to your HDD?[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Next you need the WCpatch. Download it from: [/FONT][FONT=&quot]http://aminet.net/game/patch/WCPatch.lha[/FONT][FONT=&quot]

[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Extract the archive into your existing Wing Commander directory. After extraction you have a file called “WCpatch” which you have to use to start the game.

3. Start the game with the patch

To start the game with the cheat/trainer change to your wc-directory and execute the following command in your shell:

wcpatch exe=wing.german s=65000 SD=3

This is an example how the command could be.

“Wcpatch” starts the game with the patch
“exe=wing.german” start WC in German language (obviously for the UK version you need to replace the word “german” with “english”)
“S=65000” sets the stack size to 65000
“SD=3” slows down the game with factor 3

4. Activate the cheat/trainer

Some missions are really hard. If you need some help, you can activate the cheat with the following shell command:

wcpatch exe=wing.german s=65000 SD=3 I (again substitute “german” for “english”)

The parameter “I” activates the cheat. You`re now invisible and in God mode. You can destroy your targeted enemies with shift+F5.

5. Make a start icon for the game

To make the game start much easier, it’s possible to build an icon.
follow the steps below to create your icon:

1) find your favourite icon
2) open the icon information window
3) change the type to “project”
4) change to “C:iconx” as standard program
5) change stack size to 8192
6) save the changes and close the information window
7) change the icon name to “WingCommanderCD32.info”
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
clip_image001.gif
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]create a text file with the start command of the game and save it to the same name without the ending .info

[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]That’s it. You can now start the game easily with your icon. If you want to make any changes just open the icon with a text editor.

Have fun !

6. Make gamesaves

Cd32 makes the game saves in his own flashrom. The A1200/A4000 has no flashrom so we need a detour.
1. Find the “nonvolatile.library”
2. If this library doesn’t exist on your system, you can find these in NVTools (Aminet)
3. Create a directory on your HDD for the gamesaves, (i.e. DH0:CD32_savegames)
4. Save a textfile with the path (i.e. DH0:CD32_savegames)
5. Change the textfile name to “nv_location”
6. Copy the textfile to DH0:[/FONT]p[FONT=&quot]refs/env_archive/sys

[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] A 2nd and easier method:
1. Create a directory for the savegames (i.e. DH0:CD32_savegames)
2. Write the following command in shell:

[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] echo "DH0:CD32_savegames" >envarc:sys/nv_location

Have Fun !

Original text written by aPEX & Turrican
Translation by Laudrup [/FONT][FONT=&quot]
clip_image003.gif
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Helped by JuvUK & Mrs JuvUK[/FONT]
 
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Great tutorial! I recently got a platinum edition of the regular WC.
What I would like to know whether it is possible to play WC with analog joystick and are there any Amiga compatible joysticks?
 
if you're brave

Amiga joystick circuits


PC Analogue Joystick to Amiga

The PC Joystick has a 15 pin normal-density male D-type connector which will be wired to female 9-pin D-type connector, which will go into the Amiga port. To make this conversion work the software has to support analogue joystick, examples of games that do (and to good effect) are Formula 1 Grand Prix and Gunship 2000 (Microprose).
9-pin Male 15-pin female

3 2
4 7
5 6
7 1
8 4
9 3

PC Gamepad to Amiga

PCGamepad2Amiga project at http://wwwipr.ira.uka.de/~abuerkle/privat/Joystick.htm escribes how to build an adapter for connecting a [COLOR=blue ! important][COLOR=blue ! important]PC[/COLOR][/COLOR] gamepad or joystick to the Amiga and use it as digital joystick.

Adding four joystick to Commodore Amiga

Normally Commodore Amiga provides interface for two joysticks, but for some multi-user games more joystick are needed. For this purpose, it has been designed a multi-joystick extender circuit, which have bocome kind of de-facto standard for adding more joysticks to Amiga computers.
The circuit is very simple adapter which is connected to the parallel [COLOR=blue ! important][COLOR=blue ! important]printer[/COLOR][/COLOR] port of Commodore Amiga. The circuit consists only of three connectors (on BD25 male and two BD9 male) and some wiring. That's why it is very easy to build.

Multi-joystick extender circuit wiring

Port JOY3 JOY4
----------------------------------
2 1 UP
3 2 DOWN
4 3 LEFT
5 4 RIGHT
6 1 UP
7 2 DOWN
8 3 LEFT
9 4 RIGHT
11 6 FIRE
13 6 FIRE
18 8 GROUND
19 8 GROUND
Circuit Diagram

Note: none of the wires join when crossing each other. They all
~~~~~ go from one pin straight to another pin.
JOY3 6 1o------ o5 9 JOY4
--------o ! o
! o-----!-- ------------o
! o ! ! ! o--------
! o-----!-!-- --!-----------o !
! -----o ! ! ! ! ! o !
! ! o-----!-!-!-- --!-!-----------o !
! ! o ! ! ! ! ! ! ! o---- !
! ! 9 o ! ! ! ! --!-!-!-----------o 6 ! !
! ! 5 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 1 ! !
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ----------------! !
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! -------- !
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
! ! o o o o o o o o o o o o o ! !
! ! 1 DB-25 (Parallel) 13 ! !
! ! o o o o o o o o o o o o ! !
! ! 14 ! ! 25 ! !
! !---------------------!-! ! !
!------------------------!---------------------! !
!------------------------------!



---------- Post added at 12:13 ---------- Previous post was at 12:07 ----------

slightly OT but anyone fancy making an Amiga lightgun?

Light gun connections

Light guns are floating around from old [COLOR=blue ! important][COLOR=blue ! important]video [COLOR=blue ! important]games[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR]. The best know light gun might be the Sega light gun. The light gun has a special connector, which is not suitable for any other than Sega [COLOR=blue ! important][COLOR=blue ! important]game [COLOR=blue ! important]systems[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR]. Fortunately the electronics in the light guns are quite generic, so conversion is usually possible just by changing the connector. One method for converting Sega light gun connectors was presented in article "First look: Inside the XE Game System: [COLOR=blue ! important][COLOR=blue ! important]Hardware[/COLOR][/COLOR] surprises revealed!" in Antic Magazine, August 1988, Vol. 7, num. 4. Using the same ideas and correct pinout configuration it is possible to convert Sega light gun to Commodore Amiga computer.
To modify the Sega gun for the Atari, you'll have to cut off the incompatible connector. The wires must be stripped back and soldered into an Atari joystick connector as follows:

SEGA GUN ATARI JOYSTICK PORT
Blue wire Pin 1 stick FWD
Gray wire Pin 6 trigger
Green wire Pin 7 +5 volts
Black wire Pin 8 Ground
Once it's all hooked up, you'll notice that gun fires when you release the trigger, which is annoying. The Sega trigger wiring is the opposite of what the Atari light gun uses. To rewire the trigger [COLOR=blue ! important][COLOR=blue ! important]switch[/COLOR][/COLOR], remove the five screws (one is under the Sega logo on the side). Find the trigger micro-switch with three connections. Wire to the normally closed contacts instead of normally open.
How light guns work

Light guns work in the same way as light pens. On your typical tv set the electron gun (in the CRT) scans across the screen (phospor) one line at a time. It starts at the upper left corner of the screen then draws going to the right. When it gets to the right the electron gun turns off goes down one line and turns on and draws the next line. It does this until it gets to the bottom of the screen. Where it goes back to the top and starts over again. These are called raster lines.
Well when the electron beam hits the phosphor it glows brightly and slowly dims until it is struck again by the electron beam. Our eyes don't really notice this bright and dimming because they do not refresh that fast. You can see the bright/dim effect if you record the picture on the tv with a camcorder. Since the TV and the Camcorder refresh at about the same frequency you will see a bright group of lines that roll up the screen.
Since the Video Chip in the computer has to create the video signal it knows where it is currently drawing the curent raster line. The light pen when pointed to the screen detects this bright/dim effect and when the light goes from dim to bright it sends a signal pulse to the video chip. The video chip sets a latch which feeds 2 numbers, usually X location, Y location, into a memory location associated with the video card/chip. The computer program then looks at the numbers in the memory location. And can tell where the light pen is pointed on the screen by the two numbers.
In some games are made to flash the screen bright white to get both the effect of gun flash and also for getting stronger signal from the screen.

Alternative ways for light gun to operate

The way described above is not the only way for a ligth gun to work. There have been also some other light guns schemes in use:
The Action Max system used VHS tapes, it could not possibly have known where the scan was occuring at the time of the trigger press. It used a flashing pattern on each target, to determine friend or foe to the machine, and you were scored based on who you shot. The flashing was way too fast for a human, so you had to recognize your targets by observation, but I'm quite certain the system read the flashing pattern.
Other way used by some Sinclair spectrum light pen/light gun system was such that then it needed to detect the position on the screen, it first flashed one half of the screen white. If the the pen recognized the [COLOR=blue ! important][COLOR=blue ! important]flash[/COLOR][/COLOR], pen is in that part of the screen. If no flash, then it is on other part. When screen half was recognized, then this half is split to two halves and the part where pen is is detected. This is done as many times as the position of the light pen/light gun was detected acuurately enough for the [COLOR=blue ! important][COLOR=blue ! important]application[/COLOR][/COLOR]
.
 
Nice guide. It has been a very long time since I played Wing Commander. I've got a couple of copies of the CD32 version (the version included with the CD32) and I did set it up on my A1200 HDD at the time, but that was a long time ago.

A WHDLoad installer has been in development for some time. Showing 90% complete, but that was 24.11.2008, so I would guess its not going to get finished now. ANyone got any more info on that?
 
...[FONT=&quot]
5. Change the textfile name to “nv_location”
...[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]A 2nd and easier method:
...
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]echo "DH0:CD32_savegames" >envarc:sys/nv-location[/FONT]
Just a typo, but in case someone tried the second approach, it has to be exactly nv_location with the underscore to work :)

Also, the nvtools archive is probably not related to anything in these instructions (it does not contain the library and as far as I can tell those tools aren't needed for anything).
__

On a side note, does anyone know of a way to access the tool types of an icon from a shell script? I did find tools to do this on Aminet, but a way without external tools would be nice... I managed to make a script with an icon where you can set the save game directory with the tooltypes; this could be extended to the language and speed settings of WCPatch too. Probably the first time I have used the edit (line editor) command for anything ;)
 
& I just thought you were trying to increase your post count. :LOL:

Brilliant write up m8y & perhaps worthy of a Sticky in it's own Sub Section. :whistle:

@ Devs

Isn't it about time we had Sub Sections in the AmiOracle section? - Like Hardware, Software, Manuals & such?

AmiOracle is fast becoming a Trawl-Fest.... :coffee:

Kin
 
i would like to 2nd this motion!


thankyou


& I just thought you were trying to increase your post count. :LOL:

Brilliant write up m8y & perhaps worthy of a Sticky in it's own Sub Section. :whistle:

@ Devs

Isn't it about time we had Sub Sections in the AmiOracle section? - Like Hardware, Software, Manuals & such?

AmiOracle is fast becoming a Trawl-Fest.... :coffee:

Kin
 
Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I'm having trouble saving the game. I'm using a CD32 with a TF330 and I have copied the files onto the CF card. The game runs well using the sd=3 command to slow it down, but I have tried following the instructions above for the save games and I still can't save.

I'm not too familiar with how Workbench works, but I am starting to learn. I might be following the instructions wrong or it could be because I am using a CD32 and the instructions are for a normal Amiga without flashrom.

I'd really appreciate it if someone could explain in dummy's guide style how to make this work!
 
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