A1200 with WHDLoad stuttered and hooks

[chris.magson]

Hi fellow Amibayers,

I've an A1200 with zero expansions and a CF HDD (266x 4GB CF card).
There are irritating (and experience ruining) hook-ups noticed (sound stops, screen blanks) when playing demos or games using WHDLoad.
I'm not sure if it's because of WHDLoad, but just before the end of the hook-up, the HDD lights up significantly. On repeating demos, it appears if the hook-ups occur at the same points.
I've not noticed any hook-ups when booting a game from floppy. (I have tried just 2 games this way though)

Is what I have normal without a memory expansion? Is there anything I can do about it? Faster CF, reinstall CF, etc?

Thanks for your wisdom.

 

[Sardine]

unfortunately that is normal behavior on an unexpanded A1200

the minimum for normal whdload use is 4mb fast ram + 2mb chip ram

8mb or more would be better for the larger games.

the other option is a gotek drive and run all your games from emulated FDD or real FDD disks as 99% are designed for the stock 2mb chip ram.

once workbench loads, whdload and buffering the game images your out of memory before the game even starts, frequent black screens while it loads in the same manner a microsoft windows machine would swap to the HDD when memory runs low.

I would save for an ACA12xx (compatibility with your board permitting) or a used ram/accelerator,

 

[chris.magson]

Thanks Sardine! I needed to hear that. *sigh of relief*
I've already had so much problems with this board. (Now running with s-video hack... also in this forum).

Gotek seems like the shortcut to happiness then and I'll save for ACA12xx for the long haul.
Cheers!

 

[Harrison]

Yeah, you definitely need some fast ram, then you will be fine. Sadly ram only expansions are getting harder to find these days, but a full accelerator cards makes the whole experience much nicer anyway.. Obviously at a price.

Regarding the Gotek, these are brilliant floppy drive emulators. Work really well, and are definitely a great alternative to HDD installed software. The only downside is that games will load at the same speed as a floppy, whereas from whdload games load near instantly and don't require disk swapping, which again you will need to swap adf during multi disk games.

 

[oykas_20]

If try to play games with whdload from the cf card 98% it will crash in various time and reason. Had the same problem. You can play whdload games from your HD with minimum ram 2mb without the cf inserted or "drivers" for the cf loaded but you will have shattered music and loading times. When the actual gameplay starts you will be 99% fine. But as mentioned before, when I installed an ACA1233 (128mb) every last problem was gone. I even play games directly from the cf. Everything is fine. So good luck saving for an ACA.


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