TZXduino

Ustonz · 21:20, 26 December 22

Hi there, hopefully I'm in the right section for some advice- I have just received a nice CPC 464 as a Christmas gift which has an audio in jack so I've been using the TZXduino with mostly success- but there are an annoying 15/20% of games that refuse to load- they go the whole course and then crash out at the end. This tends to mainly happen on US Gold and Ocean releases- any idea what may be going wrong? Is there a way to adjust volume like there is on domestic cassette recorders? Or am I to search for better rom images?

abalore · 23:43, 26 December 22

Maybe it's related to the speedlock protection, are the tape images you are using cracked versions?

Ustonz · 03:00, 27 December 22

These don't appear to be cracked versions. I have tape versions of a couple of the games and the loading system is the same.

abalore · 04:00, 27 December 22

Could you post the file link for any of the games failing? So I can try here

WacKEDmaN · 04:18, 27 December 22

Quote from: Ustonz on 03:00, 27 December 22These don't appear to be cracked versions. I have tape versions of a couple of the games and the loading system is the same.

many games used tricky techniques to stop pirating..so many games need to be cracked to work correctly
you can grab most of the cracked versions at CPCPower..

Ustonz · 17:51, 27 December 22

Thanks for the tip, I went to the site and re downloaded Donkey Kong from the 'trained' version and it did the same thing. I shall try others.

Ustonz · 17:54, 27 December 22

Quote from: abalore on 04:00, 27 December 22Could you post the file link for any of the games failing? So I can try here

Titles that specifically seem to be failing are Batman (Ritman Drummond 1986) Kung Fu Master, Xevious, Donkey Kong.

SkulleateR · 18:31, 27 December 22

Just tested Donkey Kong from : https://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&onglet=dumps&num=741 and it loads and works fine ...

Ustonz · 18:39, 27 December 22

I took the same trainer file and loaded it through the TZXduino and it did the same as the original version bombed out at the end.

SkulleateR · 18:49, 27 December 22

There was always problems with the audio level on TZXDuinos , maybe you should use one with a built-in amplifier ? Wasn't there a newer version of the TZXDuino ?

EDIT : Found it : TZXDuino Reloaded

SkulleateR · 19:03, 27 December 22

Or, if you got an old Android Phone, you could try tapDancer ... newer Phones suck at audio level output but with older phones there is a good chance it works

WacKEDmaN · 02:59, 28 December 22

what i did if stuff failed was turn the baud rate down a notch and try again.. sometimes the tzxduino just tries to send it too fast...

eg..default amstrad tape speed is 1000bps..speedwrite can double that to 2000bps...
but the txzduino software can put it out at like 3850bps (default 3000bps iirc)...which failed on alot of games, especially if the game used its own speedloader...

there was a github that had some games converted to speedloader versions meant to work with tzxduino, they load the games super fast sometimes in under 1min! for a game that would normally take around 8min to load

a good example is the Breaking Baud demo... it required setting the baud rate to "normal" cpc speeds as their loader was looking for a particular speed..
some games like renegade, use a timed section, where they switch the relay and have a gap on the tape that is timed, for piracy protection.. that also requires normal baud rate else it tries to load before the game is 'ready' for it..

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