Some info on HD-games

I received an email the other day from a guy who got a bit muddled over HD-games. He wondered why AIAB didnt make his ADF games any more compatible, and asked how he could play the ADF games from the AIAB setup. Anyway, I sent him quite a long-ish reply, and rather than rewrite it, thought I'd just paste it in here ;)

Hi!

Ahhhh....I get you now!

Unfortunately, you're rather asking too much of the humble AIAB ;( You cannot simply load it up, and insert an ADF of a game and expect to be able to double click it there and then - this isnt how HD-installed games work.

99% of ADFs use non-dos disks, in otherwords Workbench cannot read the information on them as the filesystem is alien to it. These games usually rely on having a bit of code on the first few sectors of the disk, telling it where files are etc.

Anyway, it is possible to hd-install these games, but you need a specifically written 'loader' either for WHDload or JST (both programmes required to 'boot' the loader). However, the catch is that the installers are always written for the original game in mind, meaning if you have a copied or 'cracked' game (usually with a small chip tune or picture which you need to click past first in order to get to the game) it will almost certainly not work with the installer (as it wont be the original).

However, the remaing 1% of ADFs floating around the net do use a dos-style filesystem. These games (if the disk is inserted on a Workbench setup, such as AIAB) will show a disk icon, which can be read, and sometimes if the games was written to be installed onto a HD (such as an adventure like Monkey Island) you can double click some of the icons to run the game, but this doesnt always work.

Hopefully this will make things a little clearer regarding ADFs and HD-installed games. Admittedly, I ought to put a guide together discussing this sort of thing, since it is pretty difficult for non-Amiga users to get thier head around.

Anyway, let me know if you've got anymore questions,

Merry Christmas,

James

This was actually a genuine reply I sent to the guy, and I've not re-edited just to make myself look good ;) Anyway, as it says at the end, this ought to give people a better understanding of HD-installed games, but if it doesnt, just email me ;)