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From: cjp@vax135.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Need help, Balance of Power run from RAM?
Message-ID: <1830@vax135.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 10-Apr-87 14:18:51 EST
Article-I.D.: vax135.1830
Posted: Fri Apr 10 14:18:51 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 12-Apr-87 17:37:09 EST
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel, NJ
Lines: 28
Keywords: BOP, fixhunk, fastmem, Marauder, decode

Has anyone succeeded in modifying the game, Balance of Power, to run
from RAM rather than disk?  It has the potential of being a great game,
but due to its heavy use of program overlays, it's UNBEARABLY slow.
Every time you change screens: GRIND, GRIND, GRIND for about 20
seconds.  After a few "years" of this, you WANT to "press the button".
I've tried some things but they don't quite work.

To start with, one uses Marauder II "decode" to deprotect the thing.
One could then presumably copy the entire disk to a RAM directory, and
ASSIGN bop:  to that directory.  Unfortunately the d**n game refuses to
run in the presence of FAST memory, and there isn't enough CHIP memory
to both run the game and have the disk copy in RAM.  Yeah, it changes screens
real fast now but the screens are filled with garbage.

I'm pretty sure I tried doing the copy to FAST RAM, then running "fastmem"
to hide the rest of FAST ram before running BOP.  Don't remember why this
didn't work.

I tried to treat the BOP executable with "fixhunk" from some Fish disk, to
force loading into CHIP mem, but it said 'sorry but this version can't treat
overlay files'.  Is there perhaps a newer version around that does overlays?
And if so, is this likely to fix things up?

FYI: I run a stock Amiga 1000 with 512K + 512K Alegra.

Any help on this will be much appreciated.

	Charles Poirier (ucbvax, decvax, ihnp4, attmail!ho95b)!vax135!cjp