0MHz DOS Collection 2024.03.20 Released

[limi]

The currently followed approach here is not going to work. The source of truth can never be the live GitHub file pulled straight from main.

Either one needs to work out a system with tags and atomic releases, or — if one wants to have it be a live evolving project with the binaries being updated as soon as they are ready — a system that e.g. uses checksums and decides whether to update the binaries based on that.

The current setup isn't designed for an "updater", just grabbing a live file from GitHub that may or may not have anything to do with what's currently on archive.org will just result in chaos like what you are currently seeing.

Anyway, I don't want to speak for Mr. Emu, he's the one that is doing this work, but if an updater is something that should exist, this probably needs to be coordinated between you two. The binary checksum approach is the more robust and simple as far as workflow goes, but there are issues with that too.

The other complication with an updater is of course that it will overwrite your save games on the image, and also that the image will be a different checksum if it has been written to, so the binary checksum approach mentioned above will have issues with this.

There’s a reason we do versioned, atomic releases of AmigaVision — if you pulled files from any of our 1100+ commits on GitHub and just applied them to an existing image, the likelihood of that working isn’t exactly 100%.

[AmintaMister]

The currently followed approach here is not going to work. The source of truth can never be the live GitHub file pulled straight from main.

Either one needs to work out a system with tags and atomic releases, or — if one wants to have it be a live evolving project with the binaries being updated as soon as they are ready — a system that e.g. uses checksums and decides whether to update the binaries based on that.

The current setup isn't designed for an "updater", just grabbing a live file from GitHub that may or may not have anything to do with what's currently on archive.org will just result in chaos like what you are currently seeing.

Anyway, I don't want to speak for Mr. Emu, he's the one that is doing this work, but if an updater is something that should exist, this probably needs to be coordinated between you two. The binary checksum approach is the more robust and simple as far as workflow goes, but there are issues with that too.

The other complication with an updater is of course that it will overwrite your save games on the image, and also that the image will be a different checksum if it has been written to, so the binary checksum approach mentioned above will have issues with this.

There’s a reason we do versioned, atomic releases of AmigaVision — if you pulled files from any of our 1100+ commits on GitHub and just applied them to an existing image, the likelihood of that working isn’t exactly 100%.

I agree, I’m writing a script based only on archive.org and based on local xml file to keep mapped also the new versions of existing games and not only the new ones.

[Idelacio]

They may be candidates for removal.

Oh! Well no worries then, went and fixed it for myself.

[Emubastard]

Great stuff!
Two things I noticed: Simon the Sorcerer has an ISO and a chd, not sure if that's correct?
Joe & Mac only has MT-32 version

Ok. Extra double super top secret fixed this time.

-=Emubastard=-

[Emubastard]

Issues relating to the main collection-

Both versions of Civilization run like molasses.
The torrent is distributing borked files that fail CRC checks on export.

How were you able to fix these?

-=Emubastard=-

[mrchrister]

This is a very simple idea of an updater. I mostly wrote it for myself and then decided to release it since it might be useful to the community.
Please correct me if I'm wrong but the problem with checksums is that you need to download the files first in order to perform a checksum.. is there a way to do this on archive files without downloading?

I liked how emubastard solved this. Leisure Suit Larry 2.zip extracts a vhd called "leisure suit larry 2.r3.vhd". This way we know that the version is the most up to date since the mgl points to that file. As long as the zip doesn't contain this file (eg the user still has r2) the mgl doesn't link up to the most recent version and an update is triggered.

Anyways, happy for suggestions or if someone has better ideas. It's been fun getting this working and I'm happy with the state of the updater.

[ItalianGrandma]

Hi guys, thank you for this great collection. ive just added one game so far to test "Super Cars International" the game works fine but only with keyboard.
i have no response from my game controller, i am using 8BitDo M30 2.4g i mapped the core to my controller as well.
i watched Pixel Cherry Ninja youtube video and he said it worked out of the box.

Is their something else i am missing?

First thing to do is to define your controller in the ao486 OSD menu.

If you go into the "Player Options" menu in the game, there is an option for changing Control to Joystick and there is also a Calibrate Joystick option...it might work for you? That said, it did not work for me when I tried.

If the joystick option doesn't work for you, you can use the "Button/Key Remap" feature in the core as described here: https://github.com/0mhz-net/0mhz-collec ... 2025660853

I'd suggest going to the "Player Options" menu, selecting "Keyboard" for Control and then clicking "Redefine Keys". Take note of the controls you need and then assign some keyboard keys that make sense to you to your controller via the Button/Key Remap feature (note: I recommend mapping Enter and Exit to a couple controller buttons as well). Once you're done, go back to the Redefine Keys menu and set them controls using your controller. Save it and you should be good to go.

[limi]

This is a very simple idea of an updater. I mostly wrote it for myself and then decided to release it since it might be useful to the community.

Yes, and it’s cool! We just need to coordinate a bit to avoid the most obvious problems

Please correct me if I'm wrong but the problem with checksums is that you need to download the files first in order to perform a checksum.. is there a way to do this on archive files without downloading?

We’d have to update the checksum when a new archive is built, but that could easily be put in a checksums folder on archive.org for an updater to use as reference. Or something similar.

I liked how emubastard solved this. Leisure Suit Larry 2.zip extracts a vhd called "leisure suit larry 2.r3.vhd". This way we know that the version is the most up to date since the mgl points to that file. As long as the zip doesn't contain this file (eg the user still has r2) the mgl doesn't link up to the most recent version and an update is triggered.

Yes, Mr. Emu and I discussed this when your updater came out, and we wanted it to work like that so your updater could detect it. So it’s not a coincidence that it was done that way.

Anyways, happy for suggestions or if someone has better ideas. It's been fun getting this working and I'm happy with the state of the updater.

Yes, it’s really nice. The main thing we have to figure out is how to get away from the reliance on the MGLs for the updater itself, since they will always be in flux and ahead of the actual files.

[Idelacio]

Issues relating to the main collection-

Both versions of Civilization run like molasses.
The torrent is distributing borked files that fail CRC checks on export.

How were you able to fix these?

-=Emubastard=-

More a workaround than a fix per se, I copied the version from Exodos and reused the RUNGAME.BAT. Works fine after that.

I also migrated the build to a slightly larger VHD (8MB) as the saves can build up and eat a fair bit of space.

There's an error in the Rungame.bat for the regular version that calls the full filepath for sysctl (c:\mister\sysctl.exe 90Mhz L1+ L2+) rather than just call the application, that seems not to work in applying the settings in MiSTer. I didn't experiment much though once everything was working, so I could just be wrong.

As an aside I've made Win 3.1 Civ available, as it seems a rarely thought of version.

[mrchrister]

We’d have to update the checksum when a new archive is built, but that could easily be put in a checksums folder on archive.org for an updater to use as reference. Or something similar.

That makes sense! 0mhz is awesome and it's already in a great state, happy to support whatever system you guys have in mind.

One idea for a simple approach to version control could be to use the view content feature on archive. If we peak into the archive before downloading and the mgl doesn't match the content, keep the old mgl.

[MiSTerTea]

Hi. Total noob at this. Please go easy on me. Followed the instructions on pixel cherry ninjas youtube video about setting this up. I get a error message when launching a game. Boot failed could not read the boot hard disk. Boot failed could not read the boot floppy disk.. fatal no more boot devices. I know I have some boot files but maybe I just have them in the wrong directory?

Also I am running this on a CRT, it's a 33-in Mitsubishi that accepts both RGB and VGA. I'm only able to get a stable picture on my CRT when I have video_mode=2 in VGA mode. Could not get a stable picture in any other mode or through RGB at 480p. Setting video mode=2 prevents the Amiga core from working.

Any help is greatly appreciated

For boot issues when running a game, make sure that you don't have a floppy drive mounted because it may try to boot from floppy before the hard drive. Also you may need to check that no hard drive is mounted in IDE 0-1 (such as the Top_300 etc.) as it can cause the drive letters to be changed around especially with games that need a CD mounted as drive D: (it will then be mounted as drive E: if hard drives are mounted in IDE 0-0 and IDE 0-1).

In terms of CRT configuration, I am running the AO486 core on a Computer CRT monitor (not TV), and find that this configuration works well:

Code: Select all

[AO486]
forced_scandoubler=0
vga_scaler=1
video_mode=4
vscale_mode=1

video_mode Info:
1 - 1024x768@60
2 - 720x480@60
3 - 720x576@50
4 - 1280x1024@60
5 - 800x600@60
6 - 640x480@60

video_mode=4 may not be possible on all monitors since it sets the display resolution to 1280x1024 at 60Hz. That resolution will likely not work on a CRT TV unless it was built with specifications that allow for it (You may need to check the TV's manual for the resolutions it can handle).

Have you tried video_mode=6 or 5 ?

You may need to change forced_scandoubler=1 in order to run a 15Khz display as if it's a PC Monitor at 31KHz

I believe the AO486 core used to send VGA output directly but was changed to only use scaler modes which is unfortunate but that's all we have to work with now and is not an ideal situation for using CRT displays.

I'm not sure what video_mode works best on a CRT TV as various games will use various resolutions.
For example many DOS games will run in 320x200 or 640x480 resolution, and the DOS prompt will be in 720x400.

You may not find a suitable TV resolution that matches the horizontal/vertical lines that is presented by the AO486 Computer core, so you may need to use a different vscale_mode in order to stretch the picture and lose some of the original aspect ratio (maybe vscale_mode = 0 or 2 or 3).

[limi]

Hi. Total noob at this. Please go easy on me. Followed the instructions on pixel cherry ninjas youtube video about setting this up. I get a error message when launching a game. Boot failed could not read the boot hard disk. Boot failed could not read the boot floppy disk.. fatal no more boot devices. I know I have some boot files but maybe I just have them in the wrong directory?

Did you copy the ao486.cfg file? Have you run update_all lately? Are you using external storage, like USB or a network drive?

https://0mhz.net/docs#can-i-put-the-gam ... rk-storage

[LamerDeluxe]

It can download both. Just run the script twice (with and without prefer_mt32 set)

I tried this, after the non-mt32 downloads were finished and unfortunately it deleted every non-mt32 mgl file again (the media files were untouched). Maybe that is because I have the option to always redownload mgl files enabled.

[AmintaMister]

We’d have to update the checksum when a new archive is built, but that could easily be put in a checksums folder on archive.org for an updater to use as reference. Or something similar.

That makes sense! 0mhz is awesome and it's already in a great state, happy to support whatever system you guys have in mind.

One idea for a simple approach to version control could be to use the view content feature on archive. If we peak into the archive before downloading and the mgl doesn't match the content, keep the old mgl.

Simply check the <mtime> on archive.org to know if an archive was updated and compare it with a locally saved data (in XML form).

[ItalianGrandma]

Issues relating to the main collection-

Both versions of Civilization run like molasses.
The torrent is distributing borked files that fail CRC checks on export.

How were you able to fix these?

-=Emubastard=-

There's an error in the Rungame.bat for the regular version that calls the full filepath for sysctl (c:\mister\sysctl.exe 90Mhz L1+ L2+) rather than just call the application, that seems not to work in applying the settings in MiSTer. I didn't experiment much though once everything was working, so I could just be wrong.

Oh, that’s interesting because all of the Rungame.bat files that call sysctl use the full path like that…for this game you’re saying it didn’t work with the full path? I’m presuming you just replaced the path with "sysctl" alone?

[limi]

Simply check the <mtime> on archive.org to know if an archive was updated and compare it with a locally saved data (in XML form).

Modification time would work as well, yes — I am not familiar with the APIs here, so I will leave the implementation to the ones actually writing the code

[AmintaMister]

Simply check the <mtime> on archive.org to know if an archive was updated and compare it with a locally saved data (in XML form).

Modification time would work as well, yes — I am not familiar with the APIs here, so I will leave the implementation to the ones actually writing the code

Any idea about a special .vhd to store saves?

[ItalianGrandma]

Simply check the <mtime> on archive.org to know if an archive was updated and compare it with a locally saved data (in XML form).

Modification time would work as well, yes — I am not familiar with the APIs here, so I will leave the implementation to the ones actually writing the code

Any idea about a special .vhd to store saves?

I could be off base here, but something like that seems like it’d be a crazy amount of effort and require a lot of game specific things in order to make something like that work. In theory, it seems like for games where you could specify where the save goes easily, it might be possible to mount a secondary VHD and save to that location, but I think lots of games wouldn’t even give the option and you’d have to script something to look for that game’s specific save file after exiting and copy it over to the secondary VHD.

Edit: Not to mention, I think no matter what you do, you'd always have to make sure to exit your game back to a DOS prompt properly before shutting down the MiSTer to ensure your save was backed up.

[virtuali]

Any idea about a special .vhd to store saves?

We already discussed earlier. It can be done, sure, but it would require custom scripting for each game, since most of them won't allow you to officially select a different drive for saves, so you would need to backup/restore all files involved in saving in the game .BAT launcher.

Doable, it's just a lot of work, because the batch file should be customized and tested for each game.

[MrMister1985]

Hi guys, thank you for this great collection. ive just added one game so far to test "Super Cars International" the game works fine but only with keyboard.
i have no response from my game controller, i am using 8BitDo M30 2.4g i mapped the core to my controller as well.
i watched Pixel Cherry Ninja youtube video and he said it worked out of the box.

Is their something else i am missing?

First thing to do is to define your controller in the ao486 OSD menu.

If you go into the "Player Options" menu in the game, there is an option for changing Control to Joystick and there is also a Calibrate Joystick option...it might work for you? That said, it did not work for me when I tried.

If the joystick option doesn't work for you, you can use the "Button/Key Remap" feature in the core as described here: https://github.com/0mhz-net/0mhz-collec ... 2025660853

I'd suggest going to the "Player Options" menu, selecting "Keyboard" for Control and then clicking "Redefine Keys". Take note of the controls you need and then assign some keyboard keys that make sense to you to your controller via the Button/Key Remap feature (note: I recommend mapping Enter and Exit to a couple controller buttons as well). Once you're done, go back to the Redefine Keys menu and set them controls using your controller. Save it and you should be good to go.

Many thanx, ill give that a go. Just wish it worked out the box as it did for Pixel Cherry Ninja on his youtube channel. that might be down to the joystick Pixel was using.

[ItalianGrandma]

Hi guys, thank you for this great collection. ive just added one game so far to test "Super Cars International" the game works fine but only with keyboard.
i have no response from my game controller, i am using 8BitDo M30 2.4g i mapped the core to my controller as well.
i watched Pixel Cherry Ninja youtube video and he said it worked out of the box.

Is their something else i am missing?

First thing to do is to define your controller in the ao486 OSD menu.

If you go into the "Player Options" menu in the game, there is an option for changing Control to Joystick and there is also a Calibrate Joystick option...it might work for you? That said, it did not work for me when I tried.

If the joystick option doesn't work for you, you can use the "Button/Key Remap" feature in the core as described here: https://github.com/0mhz-net/0mhz-collec ... 2025660853

I'd suggest going to the "Player Options" menu, selecting "Keyboard" for Control and then clicking "Redefine Keys". Take note of the controls you need and then assign some keyboard keys that make sense to you to your controller via the Button/Key Remap feature (note: I recommend mapping Enter and Exit to a couple controller buttons as well). Once you're done, go back to the Redefine Keys menu and set them controls using your controller. Save it and you should be good to go.

Many thanx, ill give that a go. Just wish it worked out the box as it did for Pixel Cherry Ninja on his youtube channel. that might be down to the joystick Pixel was using.

It could be, but it could also be that he has some button/key remap in the core that's already set and he didn't realize it. There could be a situation where the keys he had mapped to his controller just happened to correspond well enough with the game's controls.

When I initially went to configure new keys in the game menu, I realized that my controller presses were already registering as keys. I didn't realize that I already had a saved button/key remap file. As a test, I cleared that file and then it didn't work at all until I remapped everything.

[Shaneus]

Has anyone here who's been creating their own games/packages been using the 'setname same_dir="1"' flag in their MGL files? I've created a few, and it's great for saving things like specific configs (obvously) but I think it also allows saving of custom keyboard to controller mappings? So if you remap the d-pad to the keyboard arrow keys and whatever letters/keys to the fire buttons, that config sticks across reboots/restarts etc. (as long as you save the config from the OSD first).

It saves having to faff around with JoyEm, which I thought would need to be done with everything and is unfortunately stuck with 4 button mapping only.

FWIW I've used the naming convention of adding "0mhz_" prefix to each game. So for Tempest 2000 my MGL has this line in it:
<setname same_dir="1">0mhz_tempest2000</setname>

Hi guys, thank you for this great collection. ive just added one game so far to test "Super Cars International" the game works fine but only with keyboard.
i have no response from my game controller, i am using 8BitDo M30 2.4g i mapped the core to my controller as well.
i watched Pixel Cherry Ninja youtube video and he said it worked out of the box.

Is their something else i am missing?

First thing to do is to define your controller in the ao486 OSD menu.

If you go into the "Player Options" menu in the game, there is an option for changing Control to Joystick and there is also a Calibrate Joystick option...it might work for you? That said, it did not work for me when I tried.

If the joystick option doesn't work for you, you can use the "Button/Key Remap" feature in the core as described here: https://github.com/0mhz-net/0mhz-collec ... 2025660853

I'd suggest going to the "Player Options" menu, selecting "Keyboard" for Control and then clicking "Redefine Keys". Take note of the controls you need and then assign some keyboard keys that make sense to you to your controller via the Button/Key Remap feature (note: I recommend mapping Enter and Exit to a couple controller buttons as well). Once you're done, go back to the Redefine Keys menu and set them controls using your controller. Save it and you should be good to go.

Fake post edit: I just read the github comment you linked to, and it was in response to my issue in the first place! I'll leave this post here anyway, just so people can see the full timeline. Thanks for letting me know, even though I should've checked that github issue days ago

[MiSTerTea]

Issues relating to the main collection-

Both versions of Civilization run like molasses.
The torrent is distributing borked files that fail CRC checks on export.

How were you able to fix these?

-=Emubastard=-

Here's a version that uses eXoDOS v6 , plays music without the pops/clicks, uses a larger VHD for extra HDD space.

https://archive.org/details/civilization-0mhz

Cheers,

[Shaneus]

Is this where we're posting our own creations to be included in the collection?

https://archive.org/details/tempest2000_0mhz

[MiSTerTea]

Is this where we're posting our own creations to be included in the collection?

https://archive.org/details/tempest2000_0mhz

I believe there will be a 0MHz Addons where we can contribute games that are not on the official list. Not sure how it will be set up yet.

Made some that I felt were missing from the official list or preferred a different version of (using eXoDOS v6)

https://tinyurl.com/MiSTerTea-0MHz

[stefanem]

Issues relating to the main collection-

Both versions of Civilization run like molasses.
The torrent is distributing borked files that fail CRC checks on export.

How were you able to fix these?

-=Emubastard=-

@Emubastard where do you source the games from? Probably best to get them from ExoDOS v6 exclusively since there are thousands of eyes on these and Exo is very driven to get versions without missing files/best version/etc.

[Bas]

For anyone interested, I gathered A LOT of DOS stuff here:

ftp://ftp.area536.com/platforms/PC

[ThumbKnock]

This project is exciting! Thanks to the people who've been working on it!

A few questions:

Have you thought about using floppy images for some of the smaller games?

Commander Keen, for example, fits comfortably on a bootable 720 KB floppy image, and I was even able to squeeze it onto a bootable 360 KB floppy. (I used MS-DOS 3.30a, deleted COMMAND.COM, and set KEEN1.EXE as the shell in CONFIG.SYS. There was exactly enough space for the game and the score/save files. Not suggesting you should do this, but it was a fun experiment.)

There are already about 50 games that use 6.2 MB VHDs. (A couple are smaller than that, but 6.2 MB is the smallest common size.) I bet a bunch of them would fit on floppy images. And there are still a lot more games like that (early Apogee and Epic games, etc.) that aren't in the collection yet. It adds up!

Did you know your VHDs don't boot in DOSBox?

I've tried Commander Keen and Lemmings, and neither worked. I'm not sure why.

The 6291968-byte size seems to be non-standard, because DOSBox can't figure out the CHS geometry automatically. If I specify a geometry that's close to that size (512,63,16,13), it'll mount and read the image, but if I then try to boot from it, I can't get past "Booting from drive C..." I don't know if that's because the VHD image doesn't exactly match the geometry I gave DOSBox, or if there's something else preventing it from booting.

I know your goal is to make game packages for MiSTer, but it'd be nice if the VHDs at least mounted in DOSBox for testing and customization. And if they don't work in DOSBox, they might not work in other cases, either now or in the future. Broader compatibility would be a good thing, if it's not too difficult.

Anyway, thanks again!

[Idelacio]

Here's a version that uses eXoDOS v6 , plays music without the pops/clicks, uses a larger VHD for extra HDD space.

https://archive.org/details/civilization-0mhz

Cheers,

Using option 6 for custom sound? My issue is that I distinctly remember the soundblaster/Adlib sound version being period correct, the custom drivers sound wrong to me. Better in some ways certainly, but not correct. I played the game a LOT way back when and some of those sound effects are baked into my brain!

Additionally I don't think the pops continue into the game itself? Not 100% on that but I couldn't hear them after my short bout of testing. If so it could be that there's some kind of corruption on the intro.

I did try to find my original copy but I can't find the compliation CD... T_T

BTW I renamed the windows version to add the Sid Meier's bit at the start, for consistency. <3

[MiSTerTea]

Here's a version that uses eXoDOS v6 , plays music without the pops/clicks, uses a larger VHD for extra HDD space.

https://archive.org/details/civilization-0mhz

Cheers,

Using option 6 for custom sound? My issue is that I distinctly remember the soundblaster/Adlib sound version being period correct, the custom drivers sound wrong to me. Better in some ways certainly, but not correct. I played the game a LOT way back when and some of those sound effects are baked into my brain!

Additionally I don't think the pops continue into the game itself? Not 100% on that but I couldn't hear them after my short bout of testing. If so it could be that there's some kind of corruption on the intro.

I did try to find my original copy but I can't find the compliation CD... T_T

BTW I renamed the windows version to add the Sid Meier's bit at the start, for consistency. <3

I am not sure I understand. It is period correct. Sound Blaster has many versions the original plays mono sound, the Sound Blaster Pro could do stereo so which is period correct? Did you read the notes correctly? Option 6) plays Sound Blaster music.

It's an alternative driver option that exists when you start the game. Maybe you need to give it a try first and see?