Hello... I've managed to play a few carts on Vice20, but only in the same way that you would on a real Vic. I've not found a way of autorunning the carts, but I may have missed something obvious! The following is useful knowledge anyway...
Basically, the Vic uses a number of memory banks for ram expansions and cartridges. Game carts usually occupy bank 5 (some use more than one bank and others have been modified to run elsewhere).
If you download cart images off the net, most of them will be set up to load automatically into bank 5. On a normal Vic20 you'd have to have a ram expansion to load the cart into (and you'd need a switchable one, like the official Commodore 8k expansion, to make it use bank 5) but I think Vice20 automatically has all expansion banks switched on anyway. I'll try and check this laters.
Once you got your favourite game's .prg file you load it in Vice20 in the same way you would launch a games on ViceX (or indeed any Xport emulator). The problem is it doesn't look like it has worked as when the game "runs" you just get the "READY" prompt. Relax - the game is there, you just need to reset the Vic.
Switch on the onscreen keyboard and enter "sys64802" (I think that's right) and press enter. Hey presto! Your game should appear... hopefully.
Hope this helps... if you want to run a game that loads into two banks, you have to load each block of the program seperately and then issue the sys command. I suggest that you save a state once you've got the game running!
More info (from real Vic20 experts!) can be found here:
http://sleepingelephant.com/denial/cheers
Rob,
Thanks for your feedback - the sys command worked perfectly. I just have two more questions... maybe someone can help..
When the Gorf cartridge loads, you have to center the image onscreen using VIC keys. Anyone know what the equivalents are on the vice20x virtual keyboard?
And..
How do I load a game like Radar Rat Race that has two parts? I tried following your instructions, but I think I've messed something up... I load one part... then use R3 to get back into the menu and load the other? Is that right?
Any help would be massively appreciated...
Not sure why Gorf won't let you position the screen. I've got a vague bell ringing in the back of my head that the same problem occured on my real Vic when I loaded the cartridge - you may have to use the function keys instead of the cursor keys. Alternatively, use Vice20x's menus to change the screen size and position

As for two part games, the only way I can think of doing this is to create a disk image with both parts on it. Switch on all the RAM banks in Vice20x before loading the first image as normal (unless you know exactly which 2 banks the games uses, then you should enable just them). Once the game has 'run' and nothing has happened (ie you get the ready prompt), you'll have to use the onscreen keyboard to load and run the second part in the same way as Vice20x loaded the first. In otherwords, type the same commands but using the second part's filename in place of the first, and then "RUN"ning it. This will be quite long winded!
Once that's done, the magic SYS command should work and the game will come up on the reset. Hopefully. Saving the system state in Vice20x would then be an incredibly good idea.
Let me know if this works!
Rob,
Just tried what you suggested - no go. The Vic runs out of memory, and produces an 'Out Of Memory' error.
I had all the ram banks switched on. Maybe we'll need to wait for a new Vice20x
Of course, if you have any other ideas, let me know...
David.
Hmm... odd. Not sure how to do it then. It might be that you should only have the two ram banks used by the cart switched on and nothing else (ie bank 5 and another) - or it could be some basic copy protection. If I think of anything, I'll post it here. Hopefully a new version of Vice20x will fix this (I think Winvice supports carts automatically, so I don't think it would be a big thing to add - but what would I know!)
At least most of the carts can now be loaded!
cheers
I dunno, Rob. I'm too mentally feeble to be much help. Hopefully XPort will add in cart support at some point - I'm itching for Vic Donkey Kong and Radar Rat Race!
Thanks for all your help, though. And Xport, if you're reading this, any chance of an update with true cart support?
David
I don't have any great insight into carts other than I've heard in the past that people were having problems with running them. It's on the todo list....but it's not very high on the list unfortunately.
Hiya,
I'm one of the developers of the main-stream version of VICE and I would like to merge the Xbox version into the main-stream version, where can I find the source code for the Xbox version though?
QUOTE(monkeyfleas)
When the Gorf cartridge loads, you have to center the image onscreen using VIC keys.
nope.the real vic20 needs joystick to adjust screen in this game.So in the vice20X you simply have to use your joypad digital keys or analog thumb.