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[madmab]

Why not just combine your whdload and the whd.hdf file into one and call it a day?  If you have the kickstart set to 2.03 it should autoboot when you select the hdf file.  That's what I do.  Sure it takes up a little space, but it's all neglible in the long run.

Oh, and good luck with your project.  I've been slowly working through the whd set I have.  Got a ways to go though.

[killergorilla]

Combining the whdload and game hdf into one was indeed an option I looked into, but I decided against it as I didn't want to update every single game hdf when a new version of whdload was released.

You are right though that it does make it easier to configure the games in the emu...

Hmm...

I suppose it's where you want the effort to be taken up...

Single hdfs:

Easier to load, but if you want to stay up to date (you don't necessarily HAVE to, but the dats will change everytime a new whdload is released because I would be updating them) you'd need to redownload the whole romset again.

Two hdfs:

Harder to setup, but only need setting up once.  If there is an update you simply update the _whdload.hdf file.

I'll have a think about it.  Anyone else got any preference?

[ressurectionx]

I'd say whatever is the easiest to set up.  Anyone who's kept up with MAME knows what it's like to have to redownload roms all the time and it's worth it in my opinion.  

I'm wired a bit different than other people though.  I think I get more out of actually collecting and setting things up than I do playing the games, so I might not be in the majority on this one.

[ressurectionx]

Yep... they can be uploaded and put on another XBox.  It is the configs for setting up the XBox and for making the controller configurations among other stuff.

I think it would work fine for your purposes here.  I uploaded the Colecovision saves on my drive so people wouldn't have to configure all of those games from scratch.

[ressurectionx]

Sure... just don't go crazy with the save states before you upload them.  You'll upload every game you ever save as well as the configurations unless you go in and figure out which files you can delete.  Probably the best way to purge them would be to find out it's file extention and then do a search on it in the saves folder and just delete all the ones that come up.  

I'd probably back it up before I messed with that though.

Later,
~Rx

[madmab]

Unfortunately for the amiga emulator the config file stores the absolute address of the HDF files.  So (for example) if your HDF game is in "D:\amigadisks\whdload\c\cannon fodder.hdf" then the other use would have to have their .hdf file in the same location as well.

We ran into that little issue when I sent some config and .hdf files to RessX.

I've never followed the whdload updates to know what advantages are typically offered from one to the next.  But I would think if it functions for a particular title, what is the advantage of updating it?

But you line of thinking does kinda make sense.

[killergorilla]

Hmmm.

Absolute addresses is a bit of a pain in the ****.

It wouldn't be hard to create a small program that adjusts all of the paths before transferring, or what would be better is if someone edited the source code of the emu  

As for updating them, WHDLoad tends to only get updates every now and then, but there are functions (such as the newly added global save directory for highscores/gamesaves [not savestates]) which would make it worth updating.

It's also worth noting, that whilst I would be willing to host all of the games from my whdload site, I wouldn't be willing to host them if they contained kickstart images.  The Amiga scene is a strange one where companies actually actively seek out kickstart sharers and cause them trouble.  I've had a little trouble in the past with similar issues.

I know it wouldn't be hard to get them shared elsewhere but my main aim was to whack them all on my site, and then just share the whdload.hdf elsewhere.

[madmab]

Well I did modify WinstonX so that if a .zip file had a "hardisk.zip" within it that it would auto unzip that file and boot off of it.  So maybe I could do something with Winuaex to make it easier.

[killergorilla]

I found that using zipped hdf files in winuaex caused problems so I stuck with plain hdf files.

If WinUAEX could be fixed to run hdf files from zips, you could possibly then check inside the zip file to see if a text file called "whdload.txt" was in the zip, then boot _whdload.hdf in dh0: and the current hdf in dh1:

Or something similar, you get the idea.

That'd save time configuring.  

It'd also mean that configurations wouldn't need to be downloaded as well, unless you wanted to of course.

[madmab]

QUOTE(killergorilla @ Apr 1 2009, 10:01 AM)

I found that using zipped hdf files in winuaex caused problems so I stuck with plain hdf files.

If WinUAEX could be fixed to run hdf files from zips, you could possibly then check inside the zip file to see if a text file called "whdload.txt" was in the zip, then boot _whdload.hdf in dh0: and the current hdf in dh1:

Or something similar, you get the idea.

That'd save time configuring.  

It'd also mean that configurations wouldn't need to be downloaded as well, unless you wanted to of course.

Hmmm...

Well tell you what.  I'm not sure when I'll be able to get to it.  But I'll put the winuaex source on my pooter and see if I can modify it to do that.  It shouldn't be too hard (hopefully).  I can then send it to you and you can be a guinea pig for testing it.  

[killergorilla]

Hey, as long as it doesn't involve needles I'm up for testing anything!

Good to hear you're taking a look

[madmab]

QUOTE(killergorilla @ Apr 2 2009, 08:08 AM)

Hey, as long as it doesn't involve needles I'm up for testing anything!

Good to hear you're taking a look

ok cool.  I'll need one test image (plus boot disk/hdf).  Are any up on your site?  Once I get that working I'll hand it over to you.

I might look into the crazy screensize issue as well.  If it doesn't look too involving I might be able to fix it real quick.  I'm thinking that since the user can "size" the window that maybe x-port chose not to mess with it?  What are the most common sizes for games?  It's been a while..

320x200 non-interlaced
320x400 interlaced
640x480 interlaced..

I'll have to peek in winuae's setup tabs.

[killergorilla]

If you do add those screen settings, PLEASE do not remove the current way of sizing it, as I like my pixel perfect screens  (The settings are posted on a few threads on here, plus the awesome external website I can't remember the name of off the top of my head).

eilz, whdload doesn't use df0: at all, wHDload (the HD stands for Hard Drive) are loaded into DH0 and DH1.

You are probably used to adfs.

Once I've converted my HDFs using my new script and winuaex has been tweaked I'll setup a nice easy guide.

Most Amiga games use 320x256 by the way

[madmab]

Before I forget to ask about it.  Is there anyway you can set up your script so if the user is pressing a certain button (for example left mouse button) that it will go straight to the workbench?  Alot of the WHD stuff I has comes with game documentation, hints, etc, and it would be nice to be able to access that somehow.

Actually the only other catch is a few of them have multiple versions (like OCS, AGA, CDTV)...

[killergorilla]

If you wanted to load it with workbench you'd need to replace the whdload.hdf with a workbench hdf of some sort.  I'm not really fussed about booting in to workbench within WinUAEX myself.  If I want to look at docs I'll just go on the computer/internet and take a look  Just like I would do on Neogenesis, MekaX etc.

Not sure why you think that AGA/OCS/CDTV versions are a "catch".  Each of the whdload zips only contains one version of the game.  If you want to load the AGA version you simply load the AGA version