Best way to run Xak II

Expert (125)

06-11-2019, 12:30

Hi there.
How would you recommend running Xak II if not directly form diskettes?
The games is on 5 disks and together with a user disk it will be more than 4 mb, which is the limit for SofaRun on Carnivore2.
Can Multimente load more disks?

Por siddy6581

Expert (125)

06-11-2019, 13:00

...or is the sofarom4.rom only to use for when loadin ROMs and not DSKs in Sofarom with Carnivor2?

Por Meits

Scribe (5658)

06-11-2019, 13:06

You can run it with Sofarun. You're not loading the complete game into ram.
Just concatenate all disks and you're good to go.

Por siddy6581

Expert (125)

06-11-2019, 13:17

So is Sofarun only loading one disc at the time? meaning the Sofarom1.rom will be enough if i'm only going to play dsk-games in sofarun (most disk being 720 but not more).

Por Meits

Scribe (5658)

06-11-2019, 13:33

go to your pc, start cmd
copy /b disk1.dsk+disk2.dsk+disk3.dsk+disk4.dsk+disk5.dsk xak.dsk
that will give you one big DSK file containing all seperate DSK files.
Sofarun by default boots the first DSK inside that big DSK. If you got to change disk (at the end of the intro demo Xak 2 asks to insert disk 2 and press space) keep number key pressed and press space.

Por siddy6581

Expert (125)

06-11-2019, 13:50

Thanks Meits.
I know the copy /b process and how that works.
I just though you needed a the sofarom flash to be big enough for all the disks that would be merged. But I guess Sofaun will only load one dsk-file within the merged dsk at once (overwriting the previouis one in the flash I guess).

Por Meits

Scribe (5658)

06-11-2019, 14:06

That would require more ram than most of us have, even with single disks
Not sure if flashram is being used. An altered version of Runit is being used. Runit does not use flashram at all. It runs straight from the mass storage medium. My guess is that it remained like that in Sofarun.

Por siddy6581

Expert (125)

06-11-2019, 14:11

... so does that mean I won't need to reserve an entry for sofarun at all with Carnivor2? (if i'm only going ot play dsk-games that is) I rarely use sofarun since flashing roms in Carnivor2 work's just fine.

Por Meits

Scribe (5658)

06-11-2019, 14:18

I don't believe so, but I'm not sure if or if not Lauthrax decided to use available flashram. So give it a try and you're sure. My guess is that anything you flashed in the flashram will still be there after playing a DSK game through sofarun.

Por sd_snatcher

Prophet (3092)

07-11-2019, 01:15

Tip: It's not necessary to concatenate the disks to run a multi-disk game.

You can just use use:

SRI /D1 XAK2A.DSK XAK2B.DSK XAK2C.DSK XAK2D.DSK XAK2E.DSK

Sofarunit doesn't require any flash. It emulates the disks directly on the MSX, with its own resources.

Por siddy6581

Expert (125)

07-11-2019, 11:44

Hi again.
Yes that's also a way to do it, but I've already merged all my disks collectoin so now I can easily acess all the bundles.

I've tested to run wihout any sofrom flashed and works just fine. Just as snatcher said it emulates directly on the MSX, which makes sense since all runs form the IDE sunrise, just like a HD-install.