User avatar
Zippy Zapp
CA, USA

Posted Tue Sep 01, 2020 10:20 pm

In the Ultima VI NTSC thread there is some discussion and good info about these games in NTSC land. I thought it might be better to have its own thread so I created this one. If you want to move your messages to this thread I am sure @intric8 could move them. (just a thought)

One thing that was mentioned was that the NTSC version is a hacked PAL version. I think that is a possibility and unfortunately was not uncommon in the later years of the Amiga when Euro games were released over here. I have the originals of both games and attached pics of them.

I havent played these in years but I will take them to work and make images with KryoFlux and see if they work still. My Amigas are not currently setup so I cant really test on real hardware right at the moment.
Attachments
Pinball3.jpg
Pinball Fantasies NTSC Program Disk

Pinball2.jpg
Pinball Fantasies NTSC Table DIsks

Pinball1.jpg
Pinball Dreams NTSC


User avatar
Shot97
Detroit, MI, USA

Posted Tue Sep 08, 2020 6:00 pm

Send me a download link when you accomplish this if you're okay with that, would love to test these exact disks out myself.

User avatar
Zippy Zapp
CA, USA

Posted Tue Sep 08, 2020 9:30 pm

Shot97 wrote:
Tue Sep 08, 2020 6:00 pm
Send me a download link when you accomplish this if you're okay with that, would love to test these exact disks out myself.
I've got no problem with that. I put them in my bag so I won't forget to bring them to work and image them.

User avatar
Zippy Zapp
CA, USA

Posted Wed Sep 09, 2020 9:30 am

Ok I ran the ADFs available on this site and they seem to be PAL images although they do run in NTSC. They work in Amiga Forever (WinUAE) but as the pictures in the other thread show they cut off the bottom of the screen because of the PAL resolution. On WinUAE it is even more cut off.

Pinball dreams is copy protected so I could not create an ADF copy. I used KryoFlux to create a raw flux image(s) but you can't load that in an emulator. I then used my SuperCard Pro to create a SCP image for preservation. With this I was able to load it into Amiga Forever as WinUAE supports .SCP images. I can confirm, at least emulated, the screen is not cut off and you can see the entire image with the exception of the top score area. I have not tried to run these on my real Amiga because they are not presently connected. My emulated Amiga was set to NTSC, Original speed, 1MB RAM, 1.3 ROM,

Here is the opening image:
PBD1.png
Pinball Dreams NTSC Opening 1

And the Title Screen:
PBD2.png
Pinball Dreams NTSC Title

Main Menu:
PBD3.png
Pinball Dreams NTSC Main Menu

Ignition Table:
PBD4.png
Pinball Dreams NTSC Ignition Table

Notice how the score is cut off at the top. I don't remember if this is the case with real hardware but I think it will be close to the same.

Keep in mind that if you want to make copies of these back to disk you either have to convert them to a format that can be written or have the SuperCard Pro which can write these images back to floppy.

As for Pinball Fantasies I haven't yet been able to make an image that works in emulation. It boots to an Expansion Memory Located screen and then freezes. It could be my copy is bad or the dump was bad. I have to try these on my actual Amiga to see.

User avatar
Shot97
Detroit, MI, USA

Posted Wed Sep 09, 2020 12:54 pm

So cool! Never so happy to be found wrong! Warms the heart to see a pure PAL 320x256 game receive a decent conversion to NTSC 320x200. Perhaps it's even running in NTSC overscan, hope I can get it running on my 500 and I'll be happy to confirm!

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Wed Sep 09, 2020 2:32 pm

You might have convinced me to get a Supercard in the near future. I have some games I'd LOVE to keep original - with copy protection - yet do worry they'll eventually fail. And, I have no way to actually copy original, protected disks. Doing an exact supercard copy means I actually could have clones of my disks without having to resort to cracks. Hm...! Of course, not an easy thing to share as it's a very proprietary format.

Damned intriguing, though. Are they hard to set up and actually use?

ZZ, it looks like you can use the Supercard Pro from a target device and write to an ADF. Have you ever tried that?

That would convince me to get one for sure if it really does clone an original disk, copy protection and all! Wow!
Screen Shot 2020-09-09 at 2.31.00 PM.png

User avatar
Zippy Zapp
CA, USA

Posted Wed Sep 09, 2020 2:57 pm

intric8 wrote:
Wed Sep 09, 2020 2:32 pm
ZZ, it looks like you can use the Supercard Pro from a target device and write to an ADF. Have you ever tried that?

That would convince me to get one for sure if it really does clone an original disk, copy protection and all! Wow!
I did try the function to make an ADF with pinball dreams and it doesnt work because of the protection. It does work on regular AmigaDOS disks though. So if you want to make a copy of a protected disk you have to save it as a flux image (.scp) which you can handily email to others that also have a SCP.

With disks as old as they are if you have a lot of originals I think personally this is a must. I also have a KryoFlux but SCP is for sure easier. KryoFlux has some command line tools so it may be a bit more flexible and it is great for writing back downloaded ADFs but most of us can do that anyway with just our Amigas.
Shot97 wrote: So cool! Never so happy to be found wrong! Warms the heart to see a pure PAL 320x256 game receive a decent conversion to NTSC 320x200. Perhaps it's even running in NTSC overscan, hope I can get it running on my 500 and I'll be happy to confirm!
Cool man! I hope you get it working and show some real screenshots vs these emulated wannabes.

User avatar
obitus1990
USA

Posted Wed Sep 09, 2020 6:10 pm

Didn't someone in the Amiga cracking scene actually program this game, and asked that other sceners NOT crack his game or something like that? I could have sworn it was something like a Fairlight member programmed the game for the software house he worked for, asking other crackers to not crack it, and Skid Row decided to break the "honor among thieves" pledge and cracked it anyway...

User avatar
Jimbob

Posted Sat Oct 24, 2020 4:38 pm

obitus1990 wrote:
Wed Sep 09, 2020 6:10 pm
Didn't someone in the Amiga cracking scene actually program this game, and asked that other sceners NOT crack his game or something like that? I could have sworn it was something like a Fairlight member programmed the game for the software house he worked for, asking other crackers to not crack it, and Skid Row decided to break the "honor among thieves" pledge and cracked it anyway...
Sounds about right , Things never change I guess. I really enjoyed this game. I remember letting a friend borrow this game of me and he spilt coffee on the loading disk, sadly it never worked after that. He never got another game again.
Good memories though.

User avatar
Mixel

Posted Mon Oct 26, 2020 1:03 pm

I have PB:Fantasies NTSC WHDLoad.. I don't seem to have Dreams, though I could've sworn I used to. Must look into that.

It feels like its running at the correct speed, the music certainly is.. It's hard to tell with physics based games compared to things like platformers.. The combination of "faster than it's supposed to be" + reduced vertical resolution would've been baaaddd.. I might capture footage of them and compare.. Things like the ball spring felt faster in NTSC?! I may be imagining it.

The vertical resolution does make a big difference though. :( Until you memorise the tables and it wouldn't be such a big deal.





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