flynnsbit / top300_updates

AO486 Update scripts to fix games in the ExoDos Top 300 Pack

MiSTer flynnsbit eXoDOS v5.0 Top 300 Game Pack Updater

AO486 Update scripts for the flynnsbit eXoDOS V5.0 Top 300 Pack. This is not the actual pack and only provides update to the scripts, ini files, and launcher fixes. There are no copywrite materials here.

How to Install and Update

1. ssh or F9 to get to the console of your MiSTer

2. cd /media/fat/Scripts

3. wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/flynnsbit/Top300_updates/main/_mister/AO486_Update_Top300_Pack.sh or wget https://tinyurl.com/updatetop300

4. wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/flynnsbit/Top300_updates/main/_mister/AO486_Update_Top300_Pack.ini

5. change the .ini file to the base path (BASE_PATH=/media/fat) where your vhds are located, /media/fat, /media/usb0, /media/fat/games/cifs, etc

6. Turn on your MiSTer, go to the Scripts menu and run this script from there. This will download the latest Top 300 Pack (updates only, base VHDs required before updating) release with any fixes to games, new features, and updated programs from this github. It will auto mount your VHD pack, update it, and clean up any temp folders.

CIFS SHARE WARNING: If you have your VHDs on a network share and are mounting them remotely and are not confident in your network design, using wifi, etc. then there is a chance of corrupting your VHD. You will see this when during the update your VHD mount switches to Read ONLY mode or you start getting I/O errors. You can try the update again if it fails. As a failsafe, you can just mount your two VHDs on your Windows/Linux/SAN directly and extract the contents of update.zip/C to the primary VHD and update.zip/e to the secondary VHD to update your pack manually. I've tried to minimize this by using rsync and forcing a write sync before disconnecting the VHDs. You can always manually update your VHDs using the contents of the released update.zip file and extracting to the C and E drives respectively.

7. Launch the AO486 core as you normally do with the Top 300 pack VHDs mounted.

---

More info:

Initial pack generated using ExoDOSConverter MiSTer option: https://github.com/Voljega/ExoDOSConverter

Future updates to the pack are contained in the flynnsbit repo: https://github.com/flynnsbit/Top300_updates

Version History and Releases

https://github.com/flynnsbit/Top300_updates/releases

top300_updates's Issues

Add Mister Update script for Packs.

Build Mister script with the following options.

Menu options for each AO486 Pack that has been released.
Update Top 300 Pack:
Update ExoFlynn V17 full Library:

To Do:
Clone latest release update.zip file to /games/ao486/shared (detection for folder location (SD, HDD/SSD, network symlink?)
Add Menu items for each pack
clone latest release/update.zip and store in shared folder.

Red Baron (1990) Hangs on loading screen after picking a mission.

I tried both 16MB and 256MB ram modes and also tried messing with L1 and L2 cache settings to no avail.

TDLIndexer needs an Exodos 8 character static mapping

Current TDL Indexer code uses a dynamic generation for the game directories which can change based on the amount of games that are supplied with the first 7 characters the same.
ULTIMA is a good example. If different packs were to skip Ultima 2 or 7 then their cache directory names could be different games once in TDL. This prevents updating of those games across packs requiring different github repo's per pack.

Need centralized naming to allow for updates across
Top 100
IBM PC Jr
Top 300
All 7200
etc.

Crystal Caves - Extremely choppy/flickering graphics when scrolling

Crystal Caves series behaves almost unplayable when the image is scrolling.
There is an in menu item in the game that "fixes non-standard SVGA" which greatly reduces the amount of flickering.
Unsure if loading VESA compatibility tooling or something outside will fix the problem.

Fix issue with zip update pack to include only Diff's from previous update

Add xcopy logic for diffs of files only to the Ao486 UpdPack.bat script.

Description
Pause
Do you want to continue (Require specific key)
Unzip to temp
xcopy diff to e:\games
list changes
pause
exit.

Wing Commander - Privateer - Laser Slowdown

Game has really bad slowdown when lasers are fired

Better Detection For Missing E:\

use chkdrv
attempt to mount if missing
fireError if we can't automount.

Prince of Persia - Crash At End Of First Level

Copy protection related ?

Color Scheme swapper for TDL Interface

Launcher Palette options selection utility.bat in -Utilities and System Files that allows for different TDL.INI files with different pre configured color changes.

Action Soccer (1995) Graphics issue

Scrambled graphics on launch and sound glitch, then locks up core.

Several games overwrite sound configuration and run in SB mode

I will edit this list as a I run through more, but the following games start in SB mode no matter what you set in the config. Many of them will skip the choices menu and jump right to SB as well.

• Dune
• Wing Commander(s)
• Where in the World is Carmen San Diego
• SimCity 2000
• Star Wars X Wing/TIE
• Prince of Persia

Pull FastDoom from Github and apply to pack

Add choice option for FastDoom into choice for Doom, Doom 2, Ultimate Doom.
Pull latest release from: https://github.com/viti95/FastDoom/releases/latest in updater script.

Wolf3d / Spear of Destiny - Speed Issues

QEMM, 30mhz, L1 enabled, L2 disabled

makes it so sound samples play reliably and less annoying bump/open sounds.

Constructor (1997) UNIVBE Issue

Fix paths in CONSTRUC\SETTINGS\INSTALL.DAT

UVCONFIG.EXE detects the Tseng Labs ET6000 SuperVGA but says:
The above graphics card has been detected, but is not currently supported. SciTech Display Doctor will not work with your graphics card, so no drivers have been generated.

Add Fastdoom Launch Options

I think these should have WASD setup too.

Prince of Persia 2 - SC or GM music and CRASH

Hello, I explained here about the Prince of Persia 2 crash on level 2, it is related to AO486: MiSTer-devel/ao486_MiSTer#66

But also, on the menu when selecting prince of persia 2, the Sound Canvas options quotes that music only works during cutscenes and not on game play, well I fixed that, it turns that the version 1.1 of the game is used for this release and has that issue, version 1.01 of the game works totally fine with SC or GM, this is the proof video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HQlHZ2_2_g

Also I show there about the level 2 crash which is not related to sound canvas but AO486 issue.

Test Drive II - The Duel requires all IDE drives to be readable (not part of 300 but should be)

The game requires all IDE drives to be mounted and readable including CD-ROMs.
Otherwise the game freezes on start with the DOS native "Could not read from drive. retry, ignore, cancel"-message.

Wing Commander 2

Sound config for WC2 not working when referenced from the origin2 folder. Work around, add the wc2.cfg file to E:\GAMES\WINGCOMC\WC2DLX\CD\WING2

Hard crashes on Secret of Monkey Island - Version 8 (Talkie Edition with MT32 Audio)

I've had a hard crash (not able to access the F12 menu, forced reboot needed) in the same area a few times in a row now.

I'm using a MiSTer with an MT-32 Pi Hat set up for MT32 audio.

The crash occurs when in the shop on Melee Island. You buy the sword, ask the shopkeeper if he knows where you can try it out, and then the shopkeeper leaves to visit the swordmaster. If you hit the bell on the counter the shopkeeper returns - and this is where twice out of four attempts the crash has occured.

I've tried both on USB storage and on SD. One crash on each, actually.

It's quite quick to get to this point:

1. Go to the SCUMM bar, head right to the important looking pirates
2. wait for the chef to leave the kitchen and walk to the other room. go into the kitchen.
3. pick up the pot
4. leave and go back to the start area, and exit right.
5. Go to the circus
6. launch out of the cannon wearing the pot as a helmet. get money. yay
7. go to the shop in melee island and buy the sword

The Legend of Kyrandia - Book One (1992) (voice issue)

Fix \games\thelegen\kyra1\kyracd\kyracd.cfg and copy to sb16 -- Set regular Sound Blaster for full speech audio.
fix audio for MT-32, set to regular soundblaster and copy cfg to mt32.

Update script failing with CIFS

Folders mounted to NAS using CIFS script.
Ran updater script
Disk image found OK
Script then displays lotsof error messages, such as:
"Cannot create /tmp/dos_games/E/utils
Input/output error
unable to process E/utils/"

If I then re-run the script the following error is returned:
"mkdir: cannot create directory ?/tmp/dos_games?: File exists"

I assume this is a permissions error

If I FTP into tmp/dos_games in MiSTer I can see dos_games folder is set to 0777
E : is 0755
Attempting to change E to 0777 fails due to various files being read only (Handlers.ini for example).

Discworld II - Mortality Bytes (1996) (audio issue)

Screeching sound on the homescreen music and in game, set music to 0 to play. Issue does not go away with any sound option.

Descent Errors On Start

crashes after interplay log with error "out of hash slots"

I think when we changed HMIMDRV.386 to fix a previous issue, we also modified some *.PIG and *.HOG files without realizing, that made it work for us when testing but when people just got the HMIMDRV.386 through the updater, it broke the game for them.

Wing Commander - Privateer - Audio Glitches

from twotone8:

edit: Managed to get rid of the audio glitch by modifying the emm386 settings in c:\config.sys
Under the [EMM386] setting I changed
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE AUTO 32768 ...
to
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE AUTO 16384 ...

Redo Menu order in config.sys

Change order of menu to a mor logical order based on use

1. HIRAM
2. EMM386
3. QEMM386
4. EXTENDED
5. CLEAN

Add menucolor=7,1
MENUDEFAULT=SELECTION,5

Variable == "> E:\launch.bat"
variable =="static launch.bat content or copy a base file from E:\utils\configs"

IO.SYS updates optional:
Change Title Header to MiSTer AO486 Core Boot Menu...

Game Loading Screen:
Swap logo.sys file to "Game Loading..." Screen when new memory manager needed and then swap it back to AO486 boot on the reboot on exit of the game (back to TDL).

Games that need a specific MemConfig

EMM386 Required

• 1830-RAI
• Dune
• Micromac
• Populoua
• Project-
• Starware
• Ultimaun
• Wingcoma
• Wingcomb
• Wingcomf
• Bioforge
• jurrasic
• The Dig

QEMM Required

• ISHAR-LE
• Nascarra
• Retrocit (QEMM and Q87)
• Ultimavc
• Wingcome
• Zorki-th
• ZorkII-T
• ZorkIII
• Wolf3d
• Wolf3d- Spear of Destiny

Gobliiins (1991)

Black Screen, core is not locked up.

Remove DOSBox References

Remove "loading using DOSBox" comments from run.bat files.

Manually Added games to -Your Installed Games-

Change header

Prisoner of Ice (mount is in run.bat)

the mount commands for this game are in the run.bat which prevented the original conversion from working and pulling over the CD. Needs corrected in the ExoDOSConverter. change to just cd into cd-us and run the game. no need to mount.

Lotus III: The Ultimate Challenge - Speed issues (game is not part of top 300 but should be)

Game behaves weirdly on MiSTER with noticeable slowdown compared to emulation and/or real computers.
Slowdown seems related to various settings including choice of sound/music output, where Sound Blaster is the obvious choice for the best experience.

Micro Machines locks up if SB selected and CPU above 30

when force reboot happens to select EMM for Micro Machines, change the cpu to 30Mhz and that will fix MM.

No MIDI in Sam & Max: Hit the Road with mt32-pi

Howdy,

In Sam & Max: Hit the Road, I'm getting no MIDI on the mt32-pi. Neither MT-32 or Sound Canvas audio is played, it defaults to Sound Blaster audio even after it's shown that it's attempting to load sounds. No activity is shown on the mt32-pi's screen either. I've already confirmed the mt32-pi operates normally for both synthesizers are functioning in other games.

Games do not have copy protection removed

I came across two games with copy protection that could not be bypassed

• Monkey Island 2 - Hangs at copy protection screen
• Commander Keen 6 - Will ask to name a creature and then tells you wrong name

Flight Unlimited (1995) (Audio but No Video)

Game sound plays but stays at dos prompt, no video.

Master of Orion won't load with MT32-Pi

Going to edit things here as I work to figure it out. EMM386 option with Sound Blaster works fine as expected. But trying to either use the option for MT-32 or setting it up manually with the aid of remowilliams on the irq and mca it still would tell me to reconfigure hardware options, so it doesn't seem to detect the MT-32.

EDIT: Also default setup of MOO currently has incorrect Sound Blaster IRQ currently. Even when setting the MT-32 settings to the correct IRQ it doesn't work for some reason.

Gobliiins 2 - The Prince Baffoon (1993)

Black screen, core not locked up.

Unmount all Floppy disks for games that mount it

unmount all floppy games after game completes. add to end of their 1_start.bat

Duplicate DOSBox use of C drive for each game load

Can we replicate the mounting of the C drive by game so that the setup is exactly like exodos using a combination of imgset c / assign / subst to get the right directory in the right place at game runtime. This would fix 90% of the larger issues with the conversion.

Needs testing.

Blackthorne (1994)

Black screen, sounds lock, core locks using EMM or QEMM

Heroes of Might and Magic II (Deluxe Edition) (1998) (Converter Issue)

imgmount to ../eXoDOS/... still in run.exe and cd image did not get copied from ExoDOSConverter.

Tyrian - Speed Issue

This runs much better with L2 off and set to medium details for good gamespeed

Pro Pinball Big Race (Black Screen)

Black screen after launch. Tired swapping to dos32a and reinstalling to E: and had the same issue.

Mortal Kombat audio does not play when selecting MT32 option.

Both the Soundblaster and CD version plays fine, but won't run MT32 audio.

Process for cleaning up stale or deleted files

Process for cleaning up pack files and deleting old files not in use, without deleting files that could have been added by the user, saved files that wouldn't be in the pack update, etc.

Lands of Lore no Talk audio

(FIXED) Call of Cthulhu - Shadow of the Comet (1994)

EMM Required. Fixes game

Lemmings 2 will not boot with L1 set. Disable it to fix. If you re-enable while it game it will hang until you disable it.

Prisoner of Ice Crashes

Game crashes back to TDL just after the captain gets taken by tentacles, this happens about 2 minutes into game.

Happens on all versions. Think its possible a problem with the game files as when messing around with settings using dos prompt i saw a brief error about a 'test' file before reset

Scorched Planet (DOS4GW)

2021-01-17.20-09-36.mp4

"Domain error in pow" over and over again. Videos cut scenes will play if using the cd version and it is mounted but main game will fail. No path to using dos32a using all the methods as they error and break the exe.