Hello!
I'm trying to get FDSloadr to work with the RAM adapter, but I encountered a problem that I can't find on the internet anywhere.
Images loads fine at first and I can see the intro/attract screen on every title I've tried. I can even play one sided games and demos like DigDug or Chris Covell's Ai Senshi Nicol music player. The problem is that when I change side (or change disk) I get error 21 in game which supposedly is a header error. But the header is intact on all my images. Also if I load a disk image, unload it and tries to load another image I get error 21 on the BIOS screen and it keeps throwing error 21 every time I try to load until I reboot the computer. Turning off and on the Famicom has no effect, only rebooting the computer running FDSloadr helps.
This means that all games that uses more than one side are unplayable for me. One sided disks are playable but I need to reboot the computer every time I want to play another game (that's not such a big problem though, as DOS boots fast).
I've double checked the FDSloadr cable and it's as it should be according to the FDSloadr readme and nothing is bridged or anything. I'm running MS-DOS 6.22 on a computer that is sharing the TV with the Famicom as I don't have a separate screen for it.
Thanks in advance for any advice!
Just from how you described it, it sounds like the timing is drifting in your DOS computer, so that when you load an FDS image for the first time, FDSLoader has been running for less than a second. But after that, perhaps because of an incompatible parallel port, or overly fast (or slow) CPU, FDSLoader's timing goes off... (??)
When you get the disk error, does leaving the Famicom running and restarting the FDSLoadr (or entire PC) give it a chance at loading again? Ofcourse that wouldn't be ideal, but maybe it would get you further into a game.
But it does sound like you need to try a new PC, or maybe it's related to the mode or settings on your parallel port.
Thank you for your replies!
Leaving the Famicom running and restarting FDSloadr or PC doesn't help. It gets back to the loading screen between disks (omachikudasai etc) and then throws another error 21 and sometimes even error 22.
The other day I tried Nazo no Murasamejou, a game which lets you register your character on side A (unlike Zelda) and now I got error 21 when I confirmed my registration. So I tried Clu Clu Land (a one sided game) to see if it saves. I played a bit and entered my name in the high score, back to the title screen, pressed F4 to update the source image file and exit FDSloadr, rebooted the computer and loaded Clu Clu Land again. My name was not saved but I didn't encounter any errors like in Murasamejou.
I forgot to say that I tried all parallel port modes available: SPP, EPP, EXP and ECP+EPP but it doesn't make any differences. The processor is around 1 GHz if I remember correctly and the previous owner had been running Windows XP on it. The paralell port is built in on the motherboard, and I have a PCI paralell port card I could try installing but I heard they are also different from the built in ones.
Today I was fiddling around in DOS sometime before I started FDSloadr and to my surprise it didn't even load the first time but instead gave me error 22 on the BIOS screen. I begin to think ccovell's theory about the processor or parallel port is true. Guess I have to find another computer with a built in paralell port.
I found a file which I had some success/failures, but this was with some old boards,
Seems like EPP mode works the most. Unfortunately, I dumped all these boards a while ago.
Success
-------
Abit BX6-2 (300mhz EPP mode 1.9) (Award BIOS)
Abit BH6 (400mhz EPP mode 1.9) (Award BIOS)
Abit BM6 (366mhz EPP mode 1.9) (Award BIOS)
Asus A7N266-VM (EPP mode) (Award BIOS)
Failure
-------
Intel P90 (AMI BIOS)
HP Pavilion (Phoenix BIOS)
Dell Inspiron 4000 (Dell BIOS)
Packard Bell (P75)
Sounds like a somewhat older PC might be what you are looking for in that case.
Yeah I guess... I got this computer from a friend for free anyway. But finding a 300Mhz computer nowadays isn't as easy as I hoped. I wish my family didn't throw out my old pentium 2.
Drk421 thank you. You can add a Dell Inspiron 510m laptop with Dell/Phoenix BIOS to the Failure list. It gave me error 27 every time which is according to others an incompatible computer/paralellport.
This computer that partly works is a GA-8STXC with around 1-2GHz Celeron probably (I have to check later) and Award BIOS.
Anyway thanks everyone for your advices!
I have FDSLoadr work fine on a 1ghz Pentium III. The only thing required is that the system is on plain DOS. (under windows 98 it "almost works" but loses it at longer loads due to timing errors)
The computer has windows 98se installed. Booting with F8 and using only plain dos prompt is enough. Apparently FDSLoadr will work better if DOS has NOTHING loaded (himem.sys, emm386 are not needed by FDSLoadr, mind you.)
I think I might be on the "fastest possible" side of it as the number of cycles FDSLoadr shows on the screen is quite high...
Also make sure you set the printer port as SPP at bios setup.
Edit: after giving another read to your post, sometimes I get it stuck with error 20/21 but when I unplug and plug it again (without power cycle) it starts to work once again.
I have pure MS-DOS 6.22 dual-booting with Debian via GRUB if that matters.
I just tried setting the parallel port to SPP and disabled himem.sys as well as a few other programs that wasn't absolutely necessary in autoexec.bat and config.sys. Still the same problem as before, only now I got error 22. Unplugging and plugging the FDSloadr without rebooting anything sends me to the in-game loading screen (omachikudasai) again and then just gives me another error 22.
The older to computer the better. i've had success rates much higher using freeDOS.
computers i've ran fdsloadr on ranged from 486 through pentium4 they worked but saving back to the disk image is very tricky on newer machines. timing is different on every computer with the lpt1 port still intact.
if anything try your best to look for a pentuim mmx cpu or anything below 1 ghz.
this is one hell of a long shot but disable all energy savings in bios.
Are you sure you built the cable right? crossing wires even on pins you don't connect can and will interfere with the cable. what did you do with all the other wires that were not connected?
Pokun wrote:
You can add a Dell Inspiron 510m laptop with Dell/Phoenix BIOS to the Failure list.
laptops don't work i believe its stated in the read me for fdsloadr
Ouch, if laptops don't work that's a real downer. It's not a big deal to have an old laptop around for sure a thing, but a full sized desktop is very cumbersome.
i take back what i said about laptops being stated in the readme. i read through it again just to be sure and it just talks about tolerance and PC's
i've tried 3 different laptops all which gave out strange results
both IBM thinkpads that are spread far apart generation wise yielded the same results. no ram adapter present.
swiped a toshiba satellite to try and it pretends to work but just generates disk errors. it has to be something about how power is managed on the laptops
Did you try them while plugged in or running off battery power? I've used my laptop with the Game Doctor SF and Tototek PCEPro card with success I believe.
because of the age of the laptops they all run off AC adapters since the batteries are long dead
Ratix wrote:
this is one hell of a long shot but disable all energy savings in bios.
Are you sure you built the cable right? crossing wires even on pins you don't connect can and will interfere with the cable. what did you do with all the other wires that were not connected?
Thanks. I quadrupple checked the cable. All uneeded wires are isolated from everything else. PIN 15 is bridged with the grounded pins, nothing else is bridged. I might try again later when I have time.
When googling around they said that laptops works sometimes but generally not. And the reason was supposedly because of cheaper LPT ports on laptops. The Inspiron 510m I tried had both working batteries and AC adapter. It needs the battery to keep the CMOS battery charged.
Pokun wrote:
When googling around they said that laptops works sometimes but generally not. And the reason was supposedly because of cheaper LPT ports on laptops.
ISTR being told that a lot of laptop parallel ports ran at 3.3V instead of 5V, which could be the problem, maybe.
Actually a lot of laptops have special hardware rigged on their printer ports. It's not "cheaper" it's "different".
Some laptops use the printer port as output for POST or even as an dongle for factory mode. Because of that the ports may not be 100% standard.