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AppleWin Help Needed


Gumdoc

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Hi all,

Trying to figure out how to use AppleWin; I'll eventually try to get around to using MAME when it comes time to try IIgs games, I just want to try //e for now as I find MAME to be quite confusing.

My question is, is there a way to launch games that are in hard drive format? I can launch .dsk games using the -d1 parameter, but I have a bunch of games that are in hard drive format. I enabled the hard drive controller for slot 7 in Applewin, but when I try to launch a game, it just opens AppleWin, I have to manually then mount the image in AppleWin. Is there not a way to have LB do this step? I'd prefer to not have to use a parameter if possible since some of my games are still in .dsk format, some are in .po or .hdv hard drive format, I'd want LB to just open the game based on whatever I'm trying to run.

Thanks for any help.

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You have to use the -h1 parameter instead of -d1 if using HD images and launching via command line (which is in essence what LB is doing on backend).  Using -h1 via command line will automatically enable the disk controller.  If just have a few HD images then can set those using Edit Game, Launching, Emulation, and check the Use Custom Command-Line Parameters. 

If have quite a few HDV/PO files intermixed with floppy images then easier to setup two emulator instances in LB. One with parameter -d1 (say AppleWin_Disk as emulator name) and another with -h1 for HD images (say AppleWin_HD). You can call the emulator whatever you want and select all HDV images and change the emulator to that instance. 

Edit Note:  you do need to add this to the HD command emulator or AppleWin will not unload Slot 7 HD and when you then try to launch a disk it will launch the hard drive image instead.  AppleWin has a pretty good help manual with more detailed info on command lines. 

-s7-empty-on-exit -h1

 

Edited by sundogak
Added note on Slot 7
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Thanks for the help, that worked like a charm! What do you recommend for IIGS? I read (or tried to read) the thread on setting up MAME for the IIGS:

 and got quite lost. Is that the best method for running IIGS games or would something like ActiveGS or some other emulator be easier to setup?

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MAME is easy to get setup for IIGS particularly if sticking to one disk autoboot games.  Skip to Step 5 if you are somewhat familiar with MAME and have been messing with Apple II already. That gives you the base commands in LB to get working in MAME.  Someday I will go back and strip that down or hide the detail in my post since most won't/don't look at it. 

The other emulators like KEGS and GSPort work well enough and ActiveGS (standalone) is using a backend KEGS platform. I haven't messed with it much but looks a lot like AppleWin in how it works.  It also seems to have relatively recent updates.  If just using outside LB would say ActiveGS would be quickest to setup but have no experience as to if ActiveGS can be called via command line and/or how will work with LB.  

The issue you get into with the IIGS is start seeing games more frequently that need to either be launched from the desktop (like early Macs) or have to have system image to launch.  That complexity will be same with any emulator however.  

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Almost all the IIGS games I want to run have already been cracked and converted to a hard drive image, usually a .po. Do I have to convert those to .2mg or .hdv in Ciderpress first? And, do I just use the command line that you use, the apple2gs -sl7 scsi -noautosave -hard1 one?

Thanks again for all the help!

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po, hdv, chd, and 2mg hard drive images will all launch now in MAME if running recent updates (somewhere +214 version).    

The newer command I use is below.  The "cffa2" addition/update is what changed in recent versions of MAME which is more flexible than the scsi option on file types it will allow. Basically the command emulates a compact flash drive.  Below has worked for all the HD images I have in po, 2mg, and HDV format (along with some had converted to CHD).  For IIGS, a hard drive image is way to go.  Less fiddling around with swapping disks.   

apple2gs -sl7 cffa2 -noautosave -gameio joy -ramsize 8M -keyboardprovider dinput -hard1

 

Edited by sundogak
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7 minutes ago, Gumdoc said:

Can I use MAME for plain old Apple II games as well? 

Yes.

7 minutes ago, Gumdoc said:

What would the command line be for those, most are multi-disk games.

Something like 

Quote

mame.exe apple2e -flop1 yourdiskname.woz

Some will support 2 disk drives so:

Quote

mame.exe apple2e -flop1 yourdiskname1.woz -flop2 yourdiskname2.woz

Other times you will have to use MAME's in game interface to change disks.

10 minutes ago, Gumdoc said:

Does MAME work with .woz files?

Yes.

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1 hour ago, Headrush69 said:

Other times you will have to use MAME's in game interface to change disks.

Is there a tutorial for setting up MAME? I went through sundogak's and realize I'm not even ready for that, I don't have the software folder, there's no mame.ini, it looks like I need some apple2 bios files? Sorry for all the questions, kinda lost on this one...

Thanks.

Edited by Gumdoc
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1 hour ago, Gumdoc said:

ut I don't have one I can directly give Is there a tutorial for setting up MAME? I went through sundogak's and realize I'm not even ready for that, I don't have the software folder, there's no mame.ini, it looks like I need some apple2 bios files? Sorry for all the questions, kinda lost on this one...

Thanks.

MAME is very flexible, so don't have to use software lists. In the example I gave you, it's very simple, The parameter apple2e is telling MAME the machine to emulate, the -flop1 is telling MAME we are giving you a disk image to use in disk drive 1. That's it.

Yes you will need BIOS files, but you'll likely need those with any apple2 emulator, not just MAME.

If you don't have a mame.ini file, just run MAME without any options (double clicking in Windows Explorer will work), pick Configure Options and then Save Configuration. You will now have a mame.ini

I'm sure there are lots of tutorials, but I don't have a link to one I know for sure is good and up to date. There isn't really much you need to configure in MAME in most cases to just get roms running. Setting the path to your roms and having a matching romset is the major thing. Within that MAME UI you can set a lot of the mame.ini options. Just remember to save the configuration after making changes.

Edit: To change disks in MAME just hit tab to bring up the UI and go to File Manager. Should be fairly straight forward to navigate and pick the next disk you want to add to any disk drive.

Edited by Headrush69
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Thanks, I will definitely give it a shot! I've never had issues finding BIOS files for systems like PS2 or Sega but seem to be coming up empty on Apple II. Guess I'll try Asimov or other locations to see what I can find. I was able to find IIe and IIGS ROM files, are these what are needed?

Thanks again!

Edited by Gumdoc
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42 minutes ago, Gumdoc said:

Thanks, I will definitely give it a shot! I've never had issues finding BIOS files for systems like PS2 or Sega but seem to be coming up empty on Apple II. Guess I'll try Asimov or other locations to see what I can find. I was able to find IIe and IIGS ROM files, are these what are needed?

Thanks again!

If you're talking using MAME, these are the files required.

Quote

PS C:\Users\ARCADEPC\LaunchBox\Emulators\MAME> .\mame.exe apple2e -listroms
ROMs required for driver "apple2e" (including devices "a2diskiing", "d2fdc", "votrax").
Name                                   Size Checksum
342-0133-a.chr                         4096 CRC(b081df66) SHA1(7060de104046736529c1e8a687a0dd7b84f8c51b)
342-0133-a.chr                         4096 CRC(b081df66) SHA1(7060de104046736529c1e8a687a0dd7b84f8c51b)
342-0135-b.64                          8192 CRC(e248835e) SHA1(523838c19c79f481fa02df56856da1ec3816d16e)
342-0134-a.64                          8192 CRC(fc3d59d8) SHA1(8895a4b703f2184b673078f411f4089889b61c54)
342-0132-c.e12                         2048 CRC(e47045f4) SHA1(12a2e718f5f4acd69b6c33a45a4a940b1440a481)
sc01a.bin                               512 CRC(fc416227) SHA1(1d6da90b1807a01b5e186ef08476119a862b5e6d)
341-0027-a.p5                           256 CRC(ce7144f6) SHA1(d4181c9f046aafc3fb326b381baac809d9e38d16)
341-0028-a.rom                          256 CRC(b72a2c70) SHA1(bc39fbd5b9a8d2287ac5d0a42e639fc4d3c2f9d4)

These are the individual files, which are normally found in the following files: apple2e.zip, a2diskiing.zip, d2fdc.zip, votrax.zip that are in a MAME romset.

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Thanks, is there any way to find just those files? The romset I was looking at is like, 50+ GB, seems like a lot to download just for 4 files.

EDIT Looks like I can just pull them off of archive.org. Most are .7z format, can I just unzip and put the individual files in the roms folder?

Edited by Gumdoc
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42 minutes ago, Gumdoc said:

Thanks, is there any way to find just those files? The romset I was looking at is like, 50+ GB, seems like a lot to download just for 4 files.

EDIT Looks like I can just pull them off of archive.org. Most are .7z format, can I just unzip and put the individual files in the roms folder?

MAME can use them in 7z format,

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1 minute ago, Headrush69 said:

MAME can use them in 7z format,

Thanks. Final question for now (I promise), where do they go? I have a blank roms folder and a blank software folder (that I created). I have many multidisk games that I'd like to have in their own folders. Do I put those .7z files inthe root of the roms folder and then create subfolders in roms for each game?

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Files like those for the apple2e (bios and device files are what those are) can go in any folder, MAME just needs to know that folder. That is set in the mame.ini file manually or by using the MAME UI. By default, MAME looks in the roms folder in the MAME directory, so you can put them there.

The actual disk images can be placed anywhere and LB will pass the path to MAME when launched.

If you want to use software lists, you have to follow the tutorial posted earlier as it is more strict about disk images and where they are placed.

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