MiSTer FPGA Forum

What is it ?
TinyLauncher is a simple WHDLoad Launcher for Amiga.
Basically, you put your games in the Shared directory, you scan them, and then you launch them with
the browser. It's perfect for doing your own compilation.
You don't need a keyboard/mouse. So it's perfect for an arcade cabinet, a CDTV or a CD32

Why for the Mister ?
Because you will be able to scan your games directly from the "Shared" directory of the mister.
Understand, you will be able to remove/add your games by FTP.
Cool ah ?

Full screen ? What does it means ?
Well, many Amiga games have a black border at the bottom. you will be able to play without
this black border.
For this, I have made 4 profiles:
Xenon, Cannon Fodder, Shadow Of the Beast & Blood Money.

You launch your game and you are happy: (Well done, enjoy!).

But let's take an example: you launch "Super Hang On".
And ohhh, you see a black border at the bottom.
To get rid of this, you will only need to create a blank file with the notepad and name it: "tl.xenon" and
you put it inside the "SuperHangOn" folder.
Then, when you launch the game, Tiny Launcher will play 3 tones. It means it has detected the
file and is going to scale the game to fullscreen.



So far there are 4 profiles:
tl.xenon : when the screen is on top of the screen with a large black border at the bottom.
tl.shadowofthebeast : when the game use a little screen (usually 288x192), it works with
lot of aga games (lion king, marvin marvelous etc)
tl.bloodmoney : it scale horizontaly. in games like Blood Money, when the player is on the
left, you can not see half of the sprite.
tl.cannonfodder: when the screen is not really at the top, but almost centered.

You need to setup your Minimig like this (in mister.ini)
[Minimig]
vsync_adjust=1
vscale_mode=2
video_mode_ntsc=8
video_mode_pal=9

vscale_mode=2 is important.
vsync_adjust=1 you can try 2 if you screen is not centered.

Set your Minimig to boot on the "TinyBoot.vhd" harddrive

For copyright reason, the hardrive image doesn't contains any kickstarts.
Just copy your kickstarts in a the folder Kickstarts that you put in "games/amiga/shared" and put the kickstarts files inside (like in the screen capture).
When you boot"TinyBoot.vhd", a script will copy them in Devs:Kickstart for you.
Here are the kickstarts files that needs to be copied:
Of course, once the kickstart files are copied, you can rename shared/kickstarts to shared/kickstarts_
If not, you are going to lose time each time you boot "TinyBoot.vhd"

SUMMARY:
In shared/ you should have:
Kickstarts [dir]
Games [dir] contains your whdload games.
reglages [dir]
tinymister.exe (the executable).

Once you are in TinyLauncher, don't forget to Scan your games.
You go in "Sysconfig" and press F1.

Important : If in the "/media/fat/config" directory of your minimig there is a file named "minimig_vadjust.dat",
delete it or rename it. Enjoy Legaly Amiga Gaming


Perfect Scaling and beautiful Scanlines

Very nice, thank you for sharing. I have been using several of your menus already Used one no my Amiga 1200 to help boot into different modes placing it early in the startup and the options would then generally reboot the Amiga into different modes. But that was a boot menu and not a WHDLoad menu.

Looking forward to trying this one

Thanks.
I have simplified the process.(you need to download the new image attached)
Now you only have to put the 'kickstarts' folder with the kickstarts files in the shared directory, and the boot script will copy them for you into Devs:Kickstarts
I could have Assign Devs: to the shared folder but I don't wanted to put the mess in this folder

[ignore me]

What video_mode would you recommend for 15KHz CRT for Amiga?

kalach.x wrote: ↑Sat Jan 22, 2022 1:45 pm What video_mode would you recommend for 15KHz CRT for Amiga?

You shouldn't need any video_mode for a 15khz display? Just set vga_scaler=0 (or direct_video=1) and enjoy the original analog signal of an Amiga.

Neat!

Very interesting, but what I think certain games will have issues when lha expanded in a non-Amiga file system due to certain filename restrictions resulting in problems. Unless there's a solution for this I'm not aware of. Can someone confirm? Thanks.

I get a DOS Error #205 (object not found) on locking data, with everything I have tried.

We are meant to extract the lha files?

[edit-

I got it working. I had downloaded the wrong files, sorry

]

I would not recommend using the Shared drive for anything but file transfers. We tested a version of that with MegaAGS quite a while ago, and it… didn’t work very well. It’s a super nice convenience layer to get files onto the real Amiga file system, but it can’t really be a replacement for the Amiga file system in its current state.

I’m sure some games work fine, but it’s introducing another thing that can go wrong, with hard-to-debug errors.

douglasamcintosh wrote: ↑Sun Jan 23, 2022 9:47 pm I get a DOS Error #205 (object not found) on locking data, with everything I have tried.
We are meant to extract the lha files?

Yes, you need to extract your games if they are compressed, so Tiny Launcher can scan the *.slave files.

limi wrote: ↑Sun Jan 23, 2022 10:07 pm I would not recommend using the Shared drive for anything but file transfers. We tested a version of that with MegaAGS quite a while ago, and it… didn’t work very well. It’s a super nice convenience layer to get files onto the real Amiga file system, but it can’t really be a replacement for the Amiga file system in its current state.

I’m sure some games work fine, but it’s introducing another thing that can go wrong, with hard-to-debug errors.

I have worked for years on a non amiga file system for developping (even my 3.1 Amiga OS is not installed on an Amiga file system) and so far, I have tested Tiny Launcher with the full whdload compilation (4500+ games if I remember).

Can you tell wich games are not working if you can remember ? Are they essential ?

So far I put 60 of my favorites games on the mister shared directory and all went fine.

I can’t remember specifically which games, but one of the things I remember is that some game saves would fail when running from the Shared drive.

Anyway, if it works for you, that’s good news indeed!

Hi,
It works for me and it will probably works for anybody !
The games that won't works from ExtFat are the games that files contains unsupported ExtFat characters.

To be concrete :
I took an illegal MegaAGS compilation, and I have copied all the games in my ExtFat.
From 2244 games, 16 had issues.
To show that I did the job, I'm going to list them:

-Breakout Revolution AGA (contains ">")
-Corporation Mission Disk (contains "ç" in "Français")
-Cruncher Factory (weird chars)
-Distant Armies (contains "?")
-Football Manager WCED (weird chars)
-History Line (contains "ç")
-Mach3 (contains ".........")
-Might & Magic 3 (Contains germany chars)
-Mindbebder (Contains germany chars)
-Oswald (contains " ")
-Racter (contains weird chars)
-Rage V2 (contains "*")
-Simlife Aga (contains weid characters)
-Starball (contains weird characters)
-Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo Aga (contains weird chars)
-Trivial Pursuit (contains weird chars).

So it represent : 0.7% of games and those games are not the best amiga games.

For those 16 games, the advanced amiga users can copy them to the HDF partition into "WeirdGamesFilemane" for ex and TinyLauncher will merge the 2 lists, like if there's only one.
I haven't tested some game saves but I can also add a directory in the HDF to save games.

The advantages is that my solution is more convenient for somebody that don't know the Amiga. He only needs to drop files like he would do for a NES or Genesys from the FTP.

I look a bit at this MegaAGS compilation, and it's a lot more complex to add games.
I suppose the guy that did this compilation is the developper himself.
He probaly did that to help the users but they are a lot of people that for helping distribute illegal stuff.
I don't know if Mega AGS is related to the CD32 AGS compilation : CD100, CD200, CD444, CD888 but they have always distributed illegal stuff: All kickstarts, games, and even whdload fake keys, the workbench...etc

With my solution, you add/remove games, you scan and you're ready to go.
I have simplified to the max the process to help the users that doesn't have a big Amiga knowledge, the startup-sequence copy the kickstarts files where it's needed.

Maybe my solution is not optimal yet, but it's free, easier and legal (I only share my own stuff).

So, if you are the guy that recomend here what is good or wrong and if I need your approval, tell me if you're agree, so I know if I must remove my stuff or not.

Thank you for this new version of Tinylauncher for Mister, and I find your idea interesting
I site " I can also add a directory in the HDF to save games"

gibs wrote: ↑Mon Jan 24, 2022 1:27 pm The games that won't works from ExtFat are the games that files contains unsupported ExtFat characters.
From 2244 games, 16 had issues.

Yes, there are some issues with file naming too. That was not my point, it has other reliability issues. But they may not be a big deal for gaming, but I have save data and other custom setup on mine, and some of that stopped working when I tried using the Shared folder.

I’m just mentioning it so people are aware of the trade-off.

I look a bit at this MegaAGS compilation, and it's a lot more complex to add games.

Yes, it’s not optimized for adding more games after the fact.

He probaly did that to help the users but they are a lot of people that for helping distribute illegal stuff.
I don't know if Mega AGS is related to the CD32 AGS compilation : CD100, CD200, CD444, CD888 but they have always distributed illegal stuff: All kickstarts, games, and even whdload fake keys, the workbench...etc

OK, some clarifications here:

- AGS is short for “Arcade Game Selector" is an open source game launcher — it performs a similar task to TinyLauncher: https://github.com/MagerValp/ArcadeGameSelector

- MegaAGS is a script that takes your own games and produces an image with everything set up, with any thumbnails, metadata and curation categories, using AGS as the launcher. You still have to bring your own games, kickstart, etc.

- The CD32 software you mention above has nothing to do with MegaAGS, nor with AGS (outside of them using the AGS launcher, I assume) — and yes, MegaAGS should probably have a new name to not confuse matters.

With my solution, you add/remove games, you scan and you're ready to go.
I have simplified to the max the process to help the users that doesn't have a big Amiga knowledge, the startup-sequence copy the kickstarts files where it's needed.

MegaAGS is also legal as it is just a bunch of scripts and a ton of work put into curation, top 10/100 lists, themed lists, demo scene, rich metadata, getting the correct 5× zoom + offsets, etc — but just like with TinyLauncher, some people make their own setups that they put online. We (= the people who work on MegaAGS) do not distribute copyrighted software.

Maybe my solution is not optimal yet, but it's free, easier and legal (I only share my own stuff).

I was not implying that it was not optimal, TinyLauncher is great too! :)

So, if you are the guy that recomend here what is good or wrong and if I need your approval, tell me if you're agree, so I know if I must remove my stuff or not.

I think you’re reading something into my message that was not there. If it came across as saying people shouldn’t use TinyLauncher, I apologize. TinyLauncher is great, AGS is great, and I’m happy that they all exist — different priorities for different projects! :)

Anyway, all I was trying to say was: The Shared drive on MiSTer/Minimig has some issues (in addition to the file name mapping), so if you care about data loss to things like e.g. save games or graphics/music projects that you may be working on, I would keep those on an Amiga file system, and use the Shared folder for file exchange.

What you’ve done with TinyLauncher here is a cool way to use the Shared drive to launch games, and a great way if you want to add a few games easily to a launcher. It works great for that!

Hi Limi,

Ok thanks for clarification.
So you are the guy behind AGS and MegaAGS: Congrats for your work.

I'm trying to find an easy way for the users that want to try the Amiga core.

I would like to make their life easy, as if they were using a console core (NES, SNES, or GENESIS)...

Maybe I'm a dreamer

Take care.

I personally like both tools. Tinylauncher for the ease of use and small footprint - easy to move to another setup/system. MegaAGS for all the work that went into lists/configs/screenshots/infos and completeness of games.
Atm I am using personalized MegaAGS for my desktop with a little script to migrate to new versions but Tinylauncher seems great for my Arcade setup especially with the fullscreen options.

So just a big "thank you" to both of you for your great work! And a big appreciation to you gibs for all your beautiful remixes - pure art. Just listening to your version of BA1/SCS - any new additions lately?

gibs wrote: ↑Mon Jan 24, 2022 10:24 pm I would like to make their life easy, as if they were using a console core (NES, SNES, or GENESIS)...

Yup, both projects have the goal of making this easy, just two different approaches to accomplish an improved experience for people that aren’t particularly familiar with the Amiga.

So you are the guy behind AGS and MegaAGS: Congrats for your work.

Thanks! I’m just helping maintain and refine it, the main work was done by “Magervalp” on the AGS software, and “Optiroc” put in the majority of the work on the MegaAGS scripts and curation before I started helping out. And there is of course a bunch of other contributors that have helped out with both of those projects too. :)

Thx a lot for this port to MiSter !!!
Just one more question, is it possible to use another place for the share directory --> on CIFS for example...

I did a new release : "TinyLauncher Mister Edition 1.02"

Now you get :
TinyBoot.vhd & TinyMemoryCard.vhd

TinyBoot is the first hard drive.
TinyMemoryCard is your memory card.

TinyBoot is 8MB (Yes 8 Mega bytes)
TinyMemoryCard is 64MB, there are 2 32MB partitions: DH1 & WHDSaves

In DH1: you can copy some games that can not live in the Fat FileSystem.
Your saves are going to be saved into WHDsaves.

Now I want to do a little parenthese on those games that can not live in FAT FS.
I did note a few: less than 0.7%.

In my previous example, I did mention MACH3.
The Mach3 WHDLoad was coming from a MegaAGS compilation.
I could not copy it because there was a file named "............." (a serie of points) in a datas folder.

1/ The game could work perfectly without this file copied (I tested it).
2/ I look at my slaves (that are not in an Amiga filesystem as I told in a previous message) and it's not the same release at All !
In my slave there is no datas directory but a disk image named disk.1 which contains probably all the files.
and My slave can be copied to FAT without problem.

Ok, if I'm talking about MACH3 it's because this game is cult because of the tit

Enjoy

Thank you gibs for your effort.

Tested and approved.
Like usual, great work M.G!

Thanks

I have updated 'tinymister.exe' which correct this behaviour : viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1709

(for those who want to use it from the workbench).

To update, you just have to drop the new version of tinymister.exe with your ftp client in the shared folder as it lives in the exfat

gibs wrote: ↑Mon Jan 24, 2022 12:30 am I have worked for years on a non amiga file system for developping (even my 3.1 Amiga OS is not installed on an Amiga file system)

The potential problem is not "non amiga file system" as such, nor is it ExtFat... the potential problem is "what does a game loaded with WHDLoad do with the MiSTerFileSystem that is loaded in RAM" - there are good reasons to, for example, turn off networking before loading games, WHDLoad essentially suspends the running software - including OS resources, depending on slave, also potentially MiSTerFileSystem - replacing it with its own kickstart and whatever else the slave brings.

Have you tried loading the workbench 1.3/3.1 slaves from the shared folder?

http://whdload.de/apps/alla.html

Hi Gibs !
Am definitely gonna give it a try.
Do you have some favorite scanlines + shadow masks combinations for the Amiga core, at 3x/4x/5x scaling factors ?
(as you can compare with a genuine Commodore monitor
Take care

Hi manhen and welcome back.

My monitor is a 24" 1080p LCD iiyama

Like I said in the 1 post :
I set my mister like this:
"Gibs RGB.txt" contains:
You can alternate with this below if the result is too bright:


If an official preset is created with these settings, please name it: "Michael Gibs CRT". Thanks

Hi Gibs ! Thanks for the reply !!
Are your custom shadows mask appropriate for small scaling factors, like 3x ?
(yep, I must be the only one, but I enjoy having a small picture as I used to on my 36 cm TV, it looks so fine !

Should be perfect !

Hi Gibs, I finally gave your settings a try.
I noticed I had to push the brightness of my screen a lot,
due to the combination of

- "vfilter_vertical_default=Scanlines - Brighter/115pct Brightness/Scan_Br_115_15.txt"
1st question : I used to use something closer to Scan_Br_115_50.txt : is there a good reason to stick to Scan_Br_115_15.txt ?

- And of the shadow masks which make the picture super dark.


But it's not really a problem - I can raise the brightness.

2nd question : your Shadow Masks don't look good with the "default" 3x scaling of the minimig core but I think that was expected and actually I'm pretty sure it kind of defeats the purpose to use shadow masks at such a low scaling factor.

With your provided 5x vadjust files it's way better but maybe too big to my taste. I'll check with a 4x one ASAP

Thanks again