exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Good morning everyone.

First things first. Thanks for producing this card. Every since I bought my first CD32 back in late 93 early 94 (can’t remember exactly) I wanted to turn it into an A1200 with a CD drive. However, after waiting what seemed ages for the SX32 I bailed and bought a PC instead.

Anyway been back on the scene for a few years now and really love what people are doing.

I now have a TF330 from superduper and it is an excellent piece of work. The ocd in me would love to have a battery backed RTC on the board and maybe VGA so I can connect to a normal monitor but these are minor points.

I have been using the card off and on for a bit now but I thought I would feed back some things I have noticed. Last night I booted the CD32 into workbench which was supplied preloaded. I then put in an original elite 2 cd in and ran it from the WB. The result was the game loaded but the colours on the game were completely wrong. Can’t comment on the sound as I didn’t plug it in. When I then reset the CD32 and loaded it natively it ran without issue. Again didn’t check the sound. Just for clarity my CD32 was recapped this year and was repaired due to a blown capacitor under the board.

I have also loaded the included disk natively which has wing commander and dangerous streets. DS just won’t load. From a cold start I get the screen shot I have attached and it fails back to the disk menu. Try to run it again you just get a blank screen and then fail back to the menu.

When I tried wing commander the first time it wouldn’t load and just hung on a blank screen. When I then tried again after cold restarting the CD32 then game loaded but all the graphics were wrong.

When I tried this disk a couple of weeks ago less the TF330 they both ran without issue. I will try it again later this evening without the TF330 just to confirm the game is working.

The Demos worked with out issues

I have a TF330 r3 board

Please let me know if there is any further info you need.

Yes not all game disks are going to run with fast ram and , thats why there is a disable jumper on the TF330, just remove the jumper on the card or make a long fly lead like I mention on the TF328 so you can hang it outside the case and take the jumper off without opening the CD32

Also do not expect every game to work as some will fail they either need to be re-coded for WHDload for them to work , there are guys on the EAB forum who hack some of them to work

Remember these are software problems not hardware :)

Hi Mark,

I completely understand your point regarding the software issues. The reason I thought to mention it was because from memory Wing Commander was one of the only games that used the Akiko chip and reading the forum I noticed Stephen was having some issues with the chip in general.

Thought this might be related. 🙂

Good call fella :)

Milesunder wrote: 09 Mar 2019 12:26 reading the forum I noticed Stephen was having some issues with the chip in general.

Thought this might be related. 🙂

Well..we need more feedbacks to be sure about...for now few persons have some issues - that's all we have. Will send my CD32 to Stephen, so will know more about next weekend, i hope.
Would be great if persons who have issues with booting TF330 check their Akiko chip revision - this will help a lot

I guess to identify the revision of the chip you need to use mk1 eyeball? These isn’t a command and program to use that will bring that info back?

Don’t mind cracking the case open in the persuit of science 🙂

I tried this..you can lift the top case off leaving cables connected the it leaning against the side of something ( be careful that it will not fall) then lift the two top shield retaining tabs at the back by the power and video out then up remove the screw holding the top shield by the Expansion port then you can carefully lift up the top cover enough and with a small light to see the revision on the Akiko chip :)
This will take only minutes to do and do and no fiddling around with the damn CD flat cable :)

Try this game + disk image on WinUAE with CD32 hardware and an 030 + 64Mb of ZIII fastmem before cracking machines apart.

The issue you are seeing is not the Rev0 Akiko stuff. I'm not convinced that issue is all the same issue.

When I originally decided to make an 030 card for the CD32 I was told most games wouldnt work. Hence i opted for the ram expansion only option first.

Another rabbit hole ? what do you think

I always tell buyers not to expect 100% of games to work

terriblefire wrote: 09 Mar 2019 14:41 Try this game + disk image on WinUAE with CD32 hardware and an 030 + 64Mb of ZIII fastmem before cracking machines apart.

The issue you are seeing is not the Rev0 Akiko stuff. I'm not convinced that issue is all the same issue.

When I originally decided to make an 030 card for the CD32 I was told most games wouldnt work. Hence i opted for the ram expansion only option first.

I tested using WinUAE last night and it did exactly the same thing as reported on the physical hardware.

So as you mentioned it seems to be a software issue. Funnily once I disabled the Z3 ram in WinUAE and left the CPU as an 030 the game ran so fast it was unplayable. It was like it was running the game with the fast forward button pressed 🙂.

Perhaps a sticky post with working and non working games and applications could be set up?

Again thanks to everyone who had made this card possible!