COS 3.0 Emulator Config Help Needed

[Ushgarak]

Hi Leo= thanks for the reply! I am very new to Linux btw, so a lot of this is me feeling things out.

My second attempt at pointing Win UAE to the roms went fine- there was something weird going on with the directories the first time but second time I was able to point it to z: drive where the roms were just fine, so a false alarm on that one.

You have answered another thing I couldn't work out, about why I could not find the config app for FS-UAE! The only issue I have with using that is that I cannot work out how to get it to swap disks mid-game (good examples of games needing this immediately are Xenon 2 and Rocket Ranger); the guides online say it needs to be done through config and I am unsure if there is a work around. I can eject discs from the f12 menu but not swap them as far as I can tell. I tinkered with WinUAE years ago sao I can swap to that in the meantime but I do like the convenience factor of everything being integrated like you did with FS.

I worked out the .t64 association thing. But I am having an issue with the Cloanto roms. I pointed VICE to C-64-kernal, c-64-basic and c-64-chargen, but it's just coming up with a ROM mismatch kernal panic. The issue seems to be the kernal file as it keeps defaulting back to the original one, as if it doesn't like the cloanto one- unless I am using the wrong file? I coaxed Vice into life in the end with a different kernal file I had access to, but I also seem to have an issue that whenever I save the config file with a different kernal rom set as default, VICE crashes on startup (I had to find the config file and delete the kernal path entry manually to get it to work again). I had some difficulty getting disc files to run until I manually pointed the disc rom files at the ones in the drive folder- not sure if that is how I was meant to do it or not. I'll keep tinkering to see how well I can get this running. Right now it works but I have to redo the config manually each time as I cannot save a working setup without it crashing on launch.

I am indeed online and the first thing I did was to run your update tool which ran perfectly! The version that comes up with that command is V.3 (beta 6) build 37. I then indeed ran the Radio command and it started blasting out the Ocean loader at me! Awesome!

I am having a lot of fun and I shall keep working on things my end. Many thanks, and all advice appreciated!

[LeoNigro]

Hi Ushgarak,

In a perfect world all the ROMs would be licensed and set up to go. Perhaps in future it will.

Unfortunately, you're fighting against the automation when you adjust the folder paths.
Everything will get put in the right place after you run the various setups from the Settings manager.
My fault for not making this clearer. Perhaps I should put in some automation to ensure everyone sees it.
Maybe at the bottom of the installation notes.

If you put the C64 ROMs in the ROMs folder specified and run the Cloanto ROM setup for 8-bit they all get put in the right place.
In fact, don't even bother bringing your own C64 ROMs.
Just follow the instructions to download C64 Forever when prompted, and the ROMs for 8-bits will be auto configured.
I haven't put in a an RP9 runner just yet....That's coming. Ran out of time. Will be in an update, but you'll probably have to associate it.

Also, for the Amiga roms, just place them in the folder as specified and run the Cloanto ROM setup for Amiga.
You don't have to buy them if you already have them. If you download Amiga Forever it will even extract the games that come with it.
Even though you can't use the ROMs as they need to be patched in windows (not wine).

The LOAD automation is a substitute for not having the FS-UAE front end.
It should set up sequential disks in each drive.
There are of course circumstances where games only want to use a single drive in which case you have to swap them.
I guess in those situations, if we can't find a short cut, you'll have to use either Winuae or Amiberry.
The configuration file will be periodically updated. ie. RP9 currently not loading.
And eventually other emulators. Ran out of time.

Glad you liked the Radio...What did you think of the dj?

BTW: When you start your machine for the first time do you have the terms and conditions window come up?
Just wondering if they're installing the OS as expected as they get installed in the UK and I'm in Australia.

Cheers,
Leo

[Ushgarak]

Hmm, I am not sure what I did wrong. When I started to look at the emulators, the first thing I did was run the autosetup for the 8-bit roms. I downloaded the free version of C64 forever, the msi file went into Downloads, and I ran the second step. It all seemed happy, it extracted the system roms and it put the Cloanto c64 game roms into the games folder, but as far as I can tell the emulator itself was still running the open rom generic build. That's when I started to point it at the system roms manually, and also the drive roms as the defaults it was looking for didn't exist (the drive roms work perfectly once I told VICE where they were).

I've tried running it again but it's not made a difference, though at this point it's after I've made my own changes.

So right now the roms that were extracted from Cloanto are all in usr/share/commodoreos/roms/8bit, and also in usr/share/vice/c64- is that where they should be?

Running from that setup after I ran the auto-extractor, it will run disk games (if I tell it where the drive roms are), but it won't load tape games. I could only get tape games loading after manually pointing to c64 system roms (causing the C64 OS to appear), but that's where I ran into the issue above where I can't get that config to save without VICE crashing on startup.

I've not bought Amiga Forever yet so I've not tried that automation process yet; I had an old self-extracted a500 kickstart rom I was experimenting with. I think Xenon 2 indeed is a single drive only game.

Just got the radio running again in the background whilst checking all this- I love the DJ! I guess this is designed for people making fresh installs? It's hilarious that I can recognise the music for The Last V8 at once despite never having played it (I understand I didn't miss much). I got caught out at Arkanoid though- somehow had never heard that one! (Also that was an awesome Thrust remix...)

I can't swear to it but I don't remember terms and conditions coming up I'm afraid (in the UK here).

Just going to tinker a bit more with those ROMS. Thanks for the continued help!

[Ushgarak]

Just in case this is ever useful for anyone else, I have found out why VICE kept crashing afer I manually pointed it to rom paths.

For some reason (not quite sure), every time it closed it changed the kernal search path to look in default directories instead of where I pointed it. But it also made a small change to the filename (also not sure why!). My file is called kernal.901227-02.bin, but VICE was looking for kernal-901227-02.bin (as in with a '-' instead of a '.' after the word 'kernal'). As a result, it could not find a kernal file and so exited immediately.

I copied a version of my kernal into the default directory and renamed it with a '-', so now even when VICE changes where it is looking for the file, it now finds it and runs fine.

One issue though- I can load VICE and then tell it to run t64 files and it works fine, but if I try to run a t64 file directly via Run Commodore, it doesn't run. The run commodore loading dialogue briefly says this:

/usr/share/commodoreos/scripts/RunC64Keys: line 97: cd: too many arguments

And then just exits. VICE's log says this:

AUTOSTART: Autodetecting image type of `BUBBLE*.T64'.
Filesystem Image: Error - Cannot open file `BUBBLE*.T64'.
Tape: Error - Cannot open file `BUBBLE*.T64'
CART: '/home/Commodore/BUBBLE*.T64' is not a valid CRT file.
AUTOSTART: Error - Cannot open `BUBBLE*.T64'.
AUTOSTART: Error - `BUBBLE*.T64' is not a valid file.
Error - Failed to autostart 'BUBBLE*.T64'
Initiating render thread 0 shutdown

It seems not to find it valid when run that way. Not sure why!


Still not quite sure where I went wrong so that the Cloanto extraction didn't work properly for me.

[LeoNigro]

You're absolutely right. Something has gone wrong with the ROM setup which is really weird because I tested it only a few days ago.
Let me investigate and get back to you.


5 minutes layterr.

Well that's embarrassing.....
I see the problem, vice was configured to load just the "kernel", "chargen" and "basic" files, but now it wants the whole name, because I stuffed around with the vicerc file.
It could be fixed by renaming the files to that, but the problem is compounded by a problem in vice where the kernel change won't actually take.

Give me an hour or so(maybe less) and I'll hopefully have an update that will fix the problem.
Keep the default settings.

[Ushgarak]

Oh, glad I could help! I shall wait on the update. I did wonder why it wouldn't accept my kernel path changes; glad it was not just me!

Will this help with the t64 loading issue above as well? I edited the error log into the post after I first posted it so it might have slipped by.

[LeoNigro]

Thanks for that Ushgarak ..... I nearly had egg on my face.

Fixed in build 41.
T64 issue let me check.
(edit) Looks like its all fixed to me.

Still that annoying issue with the height not matching the window... It won't seem to save away.
It's like VICE has gone a little bezerk between versions or I just plain stuffed it up.
Probably the latter.
Sometimes after a clicking to fullscreen, it wants to stay above the top menu....which thankfully you can make disappear with those arrow keys at the top.

So as long as people update after the install we'll be good.
Annoyed that such a thing would slip through my testing.
Oh well.

[Ushgarak]

I mean I cannot imagine how difficult it has been to get and keep this whole project going; the odd thing was bound to slip through but it's been a great success.

Just returned VICE to default settings and we are 99% successful! The system and drive ROMS all work properly. The only issue is, the t64 files are still tricky. As above, they run fine if I load VICE separately and run the tape, but if I just activate the file it gives the same error as above (/usr/share/commodoreos/scripts/RunC64Keys: line 97: cd: too many arguments) and exits. Log says the same too- t64 not recognised as valid.

As I can run them by loading VICE first, it's not a huge issue. Thanks muchly for the update!

[LeoNigro]

The problem is that I keep the build machine totally pristine free of the ROMs. Which means I configure by copying files from a test machine, and sometimes, there's something missed. I'm afraid of accidentally leaving one of those sacred ROMs on there. Even though practically every emulator you download these days seems to come with them.

What's the t64 file?