ADFFS 2.86 public beta

[JonAbbott]

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K.V.                            [JFD][NOT WORKING]
Zelanites (Play It Again Sam 3) [ADF][NOT WORKING]

Thanks for testing, could you please confirm Auto flush is on for those two images as I currently have them as Read only in the database - which I'll correct so they image with auto-flush enabled by default.

Wasn't sure if ADFs are supposed to support Auto Flush

Yes, ADF's perform a full save whenever written too.

I also tried Nosher, but when I did a Save As, the new JFD just gave a black screen after the loading screen.

I've reproduced this, so will investigate.

[JonAbbott]

I also tried Nosher, but when I did a Save As, the new JFD just gave a black screen after the loading screen.

The protection relies on unformatted sectors, which were only added in 2.86 to support dynamic creation of missing sectors. Instead of using Save as, reimage the mounted JFD with the JFD imager and it should hopefully work.

[JonAbbott]

I've looked at the disc protection I've documented and found these floppies need reimaging as they have unformatted sectors:

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F1009001 Conqueror (1988) (Superior Software)
F1016401 Formula Two Thousand (1994) (TBA Software)
F1022301 Last Ninja, The (1992) (Superior Software)
F1025101 Minotaur (1987) (Minerva)
F1027401 Pandora's Box (1991) (The Fourth Dimension)
F1030701 Ego: Repton 4 (1992) (Superior Software)
F1038501 Wimp Game, The (1990) (The Fourth Dimension)
F1040201 Zarch (1987) (Superior Software)

[wmd]

I notice that Cyber Chess is not listed in the Boot scripts thread: viewtopic.php?t=73

I have an original disc, which I just made a JFD of, but it does nothing when mounted and the "Boot floppy" option is selected. With the JFD mounted, and the files copied to hard drive, double clicking on !CyChess locks the machine up at a black screen.

[wmd]

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K.V.                            [JFD][NOT WORKING]
Zelanites (Play It Again Sam 3) [ADF][NOT WORKING]

Thanks for testing, could you please confirm Auto flush is on for those two images as I currently have them as Read only in the database - which I'll correct so they image with auto-flush enabled by default.

K.V. - write protected is not set to Y, and Auto flush is set to Y. Zelanites (Play It Again Sam 3) is an ADF, so there is no option to Auto flush when imaging.

[wmd]

I also tried Nosher, but when I did a Save As, the new JFD just gave a black screen after the loading screen.

The protection relies on unformatted sectors, which were only added in 2.86 to support dynamic creation of missing sectors. Instead of using Save as, reimage the mounted JFD with the JFD imager and it should hopefully work.

I re-imaged the JFD, got a high score and it saved. So this one works.

[JonAbbott]

K.V. - write protected is not set to Y, and Auto flush is set to Y. Zelanites (Play It Again Sam 3) is an ADF, so there is no option to Auto flush when imaging.

Thanks for confirming, I'll check both games. Zelanites could also be an issue with writing ADF back - so I'll check that as well.

[JonAbbott]

K.V. - write protected is not set to Y, and Auto flush is set to Y. Zelanites (Play It Again Sam 3) is an ADF, so there is no option to Auto flush when imaging.

Thanks for confirming, I'll check both games. Zelanites could also be an issue with writing ADF back - so I'll check that as well.

Zelanites isn't flushing because the game disables interrupts. It will probably on a RiscPC/Pi etc (I've not checked) as the code is patched, but I've yet to roll the patching back to RISC OS 3.1x

K.V. - I can't actually see where it saves the highscore file in its code. It's done via SWI and the only occurrence I've found is in the level editor, which will reset the highscore file when you clear the level.
If you play the game, quit back to the desktop and then immediately re-run it from the taskbar it hasn't saved the highscores, so a bit odd.

[wmd]

K.V. - after getting a high score, if you then select "6" return to desktop, but do not exit the desktop app on the iconbar, then go back into the game by clicking on the iconbar icon, then the scores are retained. Selecting the Exit option on the iconbar icon, then reloading - score is gone. The Data/SCOR file seems to be where the scores are stored. It would be highly unusual for that file to be only used for loading scores but not saving to?

[JonAbbott]

The Data/SCOR file seems to be where the scores are stored. It would be highly unusual for that file to be only used for loading scores but not saving to?

Looking at the code, that file is used to reset the highscore table, I don't think it's used to save the highscores. I've yet to debug the SWI that performs the highscore save to see what it does.

EDIT: It looks like the highscores are saved with the map, so use Save from the designer.