Adaptation of games continues ..

[Anemos]

@ene,"Haga" is new method adaption,more compatible with all machines ST,STE,STF,and Falcon, and more compatibility with different TOS ROM,s
also have easier way for save - load state..
right ppera? 

[Petari]

Gamex was "compatible" with all Atari ST(E), TT, Falcon machines too. Could say 100%    But was not compatible with less popular hard disk drivers, with 1GB Falcon partitions, with much RAM occupied by diverse resident SW, large driver caches. HAGA is made after 4 years experience, and beside better compatibility it has many new solutions considering PMMU, MFP handling, concept with library file, + mentioned statesaves - simpler usage, but still possible to add comments in .

Now little technical blah:   basically, old system (called Gamex often) has straight disk access, what is achieved by installing little modded TOS 1.04 core in high RAM, then virtually booting hard disk driver in high RAM too. It resolves RAM conflict, so game is in low RAM, TOS and hard disk driver are in high RAM, and you can swap between game and TOS very fast.  And limitations are result of it:  TOS 1.04 can not handle parttitions bigger than 512MB. I did support only for my hard disk drivers + AHDI and Hddriver. While it is best with my drivers because they are made fully relocatible in RAM. So, my driver is not really virtually booted, just copied in upper RAM (very fast).

HAGA and some other systems use regular TOS, built in machine, and regular, normally booted hard disk drivers. As they conflict with game, it is solved by swapping RAM areas - before game start TOS workspace and hard disk driver are saved in high RAM, and when some disk access is required low and high RAM are swapped, so can perform disk access. It is pretty good compatible, but may be slow - especially if there is many disk access (many short files). Therefore, usually some caching, RAM disks are used to avoid lot of slow swaps.
And it means additional troubles, especially with TOS calling games.

Actually, harder part are games with regular files than games with raw data on floppies. Because we must care about TOS version compatibility, RAM usage + fast file access. So, HAGA may use again D15*** files (modded TOS 1.04 core), but little different than Gamex.
All it is more complicated - for instance using Pexec needs some nasty tricks. And even statesaves are more complicated.  You need not just restoring game state (RAM content, MFP, PSG etc contents), but TOS 1.04 at same position - otherwise it will crash at first TOS function call.  This is something what missing from ULS - it just can not handle TOS calling games which work in low RAM.

Unfortunately, updating old adaptations to new system HAGA goes not so fast as I thought earlier. Especially TOS calling games need more work - I need to compose files in larger RAMdisk files because of mentioned speed problems, making file lists etc.  And work on 1MB machines is slower than with Gamex - because then RAMdisk size is limited (max some 200KB). Actually, it is not real RAMdisk then, but read-ahead cache. When asked file is not in cachem you need slow RAM swap.
Situation is better on Falcon and TT, where I managed to use PMMU of CPU for very fast virtual RAM swaps. But because they have already a lot of RAM it is not much visible :-)

[MadMax2023]

Hello Petari,

i enjoyed the last games port (good idea for Dragon Ninja  ) and as often you make us discover some rare and cool games (like dream zone).

Is it possible to port the game Zombi (french version) which is a good adaptation of the movie "zombie", Final Fight would be also great running at 16 mhz, Golden Axe too.

Thanks to continue to port games, i guess it takes a lot of time 

[Petari]

Yes, currently i'm focused on dealing with some less known games (but good ones, of course).
I have over 30 games under work - what includes finding good version (Pasti in first place), good cover scan etc. After it may come adaptation self - it sometimes goes fast, sometimes very slow.
Final Fight is under work already. Will see those Zombies and Axes  ...

[MadMax2023]

Many thanks to have adapted Zombi !! 
It's a nice and easy to play survival/action game.

[paulwratt]

Is HAGA lib ready for public consumption? I would like to add support in future games.

Paul

[Petari]

I will publish it with instructions soon. Good 68000 asm + Atari ST architecture knowledge is required.

[paulwratt]

cool, thanx

looking forward to it

Paul

[Petari]

New adaptation ! - after some time :

http://atari.8bitchip.info/SCRSH/wheretss.html

Improved intro pic. show - overscan on ST(E), TT, Falcon show regular BMP.

[Anemos]

Cool thanks, and happy new year Petari!

[Petari]

Happy New Year to everyone

And another one:    http://atari.8bitchip.info/SCRSH/bonanza.html

[Anemos]

Woohoo ..new added adaptions games on the list!

[Anemos]

New alot adaption for interesting games..
Thanks petari!

[Anemos]

Thanks petari for the continue ..
This big collection it will go stay in history..
You keep a live Atari ST gamers.
great work.

[sardine]

just got myself an Atari STE IDE Doubler Interface by Alan Hourihane (Rev 3) (not fitted yet but comes with 1gb CF card),I'm  new to atari and have a 2mb Ste (upgrading the ram this week to 4mb),

been reading on hard disk games and found this great forum and website.

is there any better way of downloading the hard disk adapted games or do I have to download each one indavidually, is there an archive of them all somewhere ?

thanks,