OneLoad64 Games Collection v5 is here!

[Hodor]

Just read on LemonC64 that the author of one load is still having real life issues and this is therefore delayed.

We will patiently wait then.

[gus0650]

OneLoad64 is by far my favorite way to play 64 games on the MiSTer. I use CRT images because it is so super convenient. No more shitty cracktros, trainer menus etc For me the new de-facto standard to play C64 games!

Some games that were missing/broken in V2 and that you may want to add to V3:
Castles of Dr Creep
Psi-5 Trading Company
Beach-Head II
Supremacy

I also have a suggestion regarding the games "Barbarian" and "International Karate". These come in two separate files ("Side A" and "Side B"). I wonder if it is possible to combine them into one single file? Using CRT bankswitching or something like that. For those two games I also hope someone will create a menu so that the games modes & options can be selected with the joystick, without having to use a keyboard. Keyboard is very inconvenient when playing on TV from the couch.

For the "Cybernoid" games I would also love a patch to start the game without keyboard.

Please keep up the great work, I am looking forward to OneLoad V3!

[StatMat]

Great to hear you're all looking forward to the new release. I'm sorry it's gone very quiet. We recently moved home and had COVID in our household, so it's been difficult to set aside time to finish up. But things should get easier shortly.

Some games that were missing/broken in V2 and that you may want to add to V3:
Castles of Dr Creep
Psi-5 Trading Company
Beach-Head II
Supremacy

Thanks for the suggestions. I will see what we can do. An EasyFlash version of Beach-Head II by the Joker was added to the Extras\OtherCRTs folder in v2 though.

I also have a suggestion regarding the games "Barbarian" and "International Karate". These come in two separate files ("Side A" and "Side B"). I wonder if it is possible to combine them into one single file? Using CRT bankswitching or something like that. For those two games I also hope someone will create a menu so that the games modes & options can be selected with the joystick, without having to use a keyboard. Keyboard is very inconvenient when playing on TV from the couch.

Sure, I could certainly look to combine them into a single CRT like that in a future version. So far I've just focused on getting the individual titles added as a basis. And sure, I can also potentially look at modifying the game code to allow joystick buttons to start the games.I have done this sort of thing with quite a few games now.

For the "Cybernoid" games I would also love a patch to start the game without keyboard.

Good suggestion. I've patched both games to default to joystick and allow the fire button to start the game, so these will be included in v3.

[Alkadian]

@StatMat,
I am glad to hear you are all good now and congrats on your house move!

[Darthcustom]

Happy to get you back!!! If you need beta testers, let me know

Best regards

[gus0650]

Thanks, you are my hero!

One more suggestion. On my Mister i organize ROM files by developer, each in a separate folder. It makes the browsing experience more enjoyable and gives you a sense of the style of each artist and team.

Maybe an idea for V3 to also do that?

[StatMat]

Many thanks for your continued support! Sorry for things taking longer than originally planned, but the wait is finally over!

Download link in the video:



New Features or Changes

Added support for loading music and raster bars to the Magic Desk CRTs which are combined with loading screens for a simulated tape loading experience (these can be skipped with any key or either fire button just like the plain loading screen images). This means that games with loading music such as the classic Ocean loaders can now be enjoyed with the CRT files.

The MagicDeskBINs folder now contains two subfolders, one which contains plain 64kb files, along with another which contains larger files where games have added extras like loading screens or music. This allows more flexibility when choosing which EPROM size to use when writing the games to a physical cartridge.

Games using joystick port 1 for primary control are now denoted by having the (J1) suffix in their filename. This not only acts as a visual cue to the user, but is also automatically used by emulators such as LR-VICE to swap joystick ports (https://github.com/libretro/vice-libret ... rt-control).

All screenshots have now been replaced with new images at 384x272 to ensure the borders are included. Many thanks to the volunteers who helped to perform this task (CentralPerk, CommFor, cringle, docbobo, nls, nc513, oldschooljoe, Remzi and ricky006).

The crunched PRGs no longer have the "-[ex]" suffix in their filename, as
these were rather redundant and made the process of maintaining the collection a little harder than it needed to be (i.e. when renaming files in conjunction with the new primary control suffix above).

Added the use of $D030 to switch to 2Mhz mode on the C128 and the MiSTer C64 core to speed up the decrunch of the crunched PRGs (has no effect on a real C64).

[StatMat]

Thanks, you are my hero!

One more suggestion. On my Mister i organize ROM files by developer, each in a separate folder. It makes the browsing experience more enjoyable and gives you a sense of the style of each artist and team.

Maybe an idea for V3 to also do that?

Apologies, as I wanted to get v3 without further delay, I haven't looked at something to help in this regard yet. But I will certainly give it some thought (i.e. we can consider adding publisher info to the XML metadata in the Dumps folder which can be used by scripts - but I'll probably look for some volunteers for this, as I want to start work on new games for v4! )

[Darthcustom]

Thank you very much!!! You made my day

[limi]

This is incredible, thank you! Important to preserve the experience of the loading screens for these classics as well as the games themselves.

[SwedishGojira]

Thank you for all the hard work!

[gooface]

Thank you for this great collection!

I assume the correct way to use this on a Mister is just to copy the files from the root directory (all the 1534 .CRT files) archive and put them in a folder in the C64 games folder? (thats it?)

Thank you again!

[StatMat]

Yeah, that's right. Just copy over the CRT files and you should be set!

[StatMat]

Hey everyone! So, the core v4 games list for OneLoad64 is now finalised and complete! All that's left for Santa's elves is to put the finishing touches to the collection ready for Christmas!

As for the anticipated release date, we're aiming to provide a download link to subscribers of my YouTube channel (link in my footer) one week before Christmas on the 18th of December. The general release will take place a week later on Christmas day. So don't forget to get your friends to subscribe to the channel in order to get exclusive early access to the new release!

Take care,
Stat

[Alkadian]

Very nice to hear from you @StatMat! Awesome news, thanks a lot for that!! Very much looking forward to Christmas then!!

[Caldor]

Nice Looking forward to this

[StatMat]

Okay guys, the day has come, the waiting is over! OneLoad64 v4 is here! Now with over 2,000 games, including nearly 100 new multiload conversions bringing MultiLoad64 to life!

Happy Christmas to everyone. I hope you get to enjoy all the season has to offer, including some C64 goodness!

[limi]

Thank you for continuing this amazing work to you and everyone else helping out, you’re the best!

[StatMat]

No problem at all limi, many thanks for all you support of the project too, as well as all your sterling work for our other favourite Commodore computer with MegAGS.

[Akuma]

Very nice, can any game be ported to CRT format? because I was hoping to find Golden Axe among them.

[StatMat]

Sure, technically any game can be converted to CRT, including multiload games. And you're in luck as the MultiLoad64 folder has almost 100 conversions, including Golden Axe.

[Chris23235]

Many thanks @StatMat. I prefer the D64 versions for my MiSTer to get the authentic feel of... waiting while the game loads from disc, but on my Miyoo Mini this collection is just what I want.

[neogeo81]

Okay guys, the day has come, the waiting is over! OneLoad64 v4 is here! Now with over 2,000 games, including nearly 100 new multiload conversions bringing MultiLoad64 to life!

Subscribers of my YouTube channel will now see a download link at the top of my channel page here: https://www.youtube.com/@StatMatsVidz

And for anyone who didn't subscribe yet, don't worry, you can do so any time before the general release next Sunday to get early-access to the collection.

Happy Christmas to everyone. I hope you get to enjoy all the season has to offer, including some C64 goodness!

Hi
First of all thanks a lot for this pack!

I have some noob questions i couldn't figure out myself:
What is the difference between the CRTs on the root folder and the multiload64 ones?
What is the difference between crunched and uncrunched PRGs?
Where can Tapecar and Easyflash be used?
What is the difference between the multiload and root CRTs and the official ones?

Thanks

[StatMat]

Many thanks @StatMat. I prefer the D64 versions for my MiSTer to get the authentic feel of... waiting while the game loads from disc, but on my Miyoo Mini this collection is just what I want.

Indeed, this is a perfect example of how it's always good to have different options.

[StatMat]

Hi
First of all thanks a lot for this pack!

I have some noob questions i couldn't figure out myself:
What is the difference between the CRTs on the root folder and the multiload64 ones?
What is the difference between crunched and uncrunched PRGs?
Where can Tapecar and Easyflash be used?
What is the difference between the multiload and root CRTs and the official ones?

Thanks

You're welcome, glad you're enjoying it!

The CRTs in the root folder are single load game conversions, whereas the MultiLoad64 contains multiload conversions. Also, all of the single load conversions are in Magic Desk format, but only some of the multiload ones are, whilst most are in EasyFlash format.

Crunched PRGs are compressed with Exomizer, making them smaller and compatible with anything which can't support CRT files. The uncrunched files are special files which can only be used with emulators which have the ability to inject the whole uncompressed file into memory for quicker loading. Again the reason for these is some emulators may not support the Magic Desk CRT files.

Tapecart and EasyFlash compilations are just in the specific format for those two devices.

And official CRTs are those games which were commercially released during the C64s mainstream lifetime.

Hopefully that clarifies things.

[StatMat]

ol64-v4-xmas.png (80.09 KiB) Viewed 11846 times

Hey everyone!
Santa has now arranged for everyone to get access to OneLoad64 v4 today! The download links can be found in the description of the release video [here].

There have also been a few fixes since the subscriber exclusive release a week ago, so for anyone who already downloaded v4 over the past week, there is also an update pack available [here]. Just extract over the top of your existing v4 folder. And as an added bonus we've also added Lordsfire which was kindly recovered and released by Games That Weren't and Bard's Tale III - Thief of Fate from Nostalgia in Extras\OtherCRTs!

Merry Christmas to all and here's to productive and enjoyable 2023!

And don't forget subscribe to my YouTube channel for future exclusive access to content and releases.

All the best,
Stat

[angelotax]

@StatMat
Thanks for your amazing work, diehard fan here.
If i can, i would suggest to go back to divide the oneload files by folders and letters, this one is a bit messy in my opinion.

Kind regards and keep up the good work !

[StatMat]

Many thanks, glad you're enjoying it! And sure, you're quite right, it is starting to become a little difficult to work with given the number of games now. We will certainly give it some thought for v5.

[ericgus09]

@StatMat
Thanks for your amazing work, diehard fan here.
If i can, i would suggest to go back to divide the oneload files by folders and letters, this one is a bit messy in my opinion.

Kind regards and keep up the good work !

Yea, for example I was trying to find "KnightGames" and I had to dig a bit to actually find it .. it was there just in a really obscure folder. I kinda get the reasoning behind some of the organization but OTOH if you just want to find a file and go, its not quite as clear, and on platforms like the mister you can't really use a nice menu system that has screenshots and cross-referencing or anything else like that, so on non "PC" systems the issue is amplified even more .. Honestly id be ok with file duplication i.e. the same "crt" file being in a couple places vs trying to keep one unique file per collection.

Other than that, the collection is fantastic and thank you for taking all the time and effort to compile it..

(would be nice to know which are NTSC friendly and which are PAL only but thats just a would-be-nice, I live in NTSC land and its helpful to know upfront, its obviously less of an issue for Mister and other FPGA users (eg Ultimate 64) but for users of real hardware its probably more important for those with real NTSC machines )

[StatMat]

Thanks for the feedback. As you've obviously surmised, the reason for breaking the collection down into different folders is to distinguish between the CRTs in the core collection (the ones in the root folder which are single-load conversions), the exclusive multi-load conversions (in MultiLoad64), the original CRT dumps (Extras/OfficialCRTs), and those which are conversions by other people in the scene (Extras/OtherCRTs). But I can quite understand the desire to have all of them brought together and broken down by letter for easier use on the MiSTer etc.

Here are a few potential options we could look at:

1. Write a script in Java which can merge all the CRT folders in the collection into a single destination folder selected by the user
2. Duplicate files in the folders themselves as you suggested, but this would bloat the download and actually would make the various folders harder to understand - however maybe just having a merged and simplified 7z archive within the main archive would suffice (this comes in at about 85mb, so would still add bloat of course)
3. Have two different downloads with different folder structures; the full one as now and another with a merged and simplified structure (I like this one the least because it prevents the whole collection from being distributed in all cases)

However, I will continue to mull this over and see what we can come up with for v5.