Basilisk crashing, OS 7.5.3 crashing, 256 colors, HELP?!? - Macintosh Garden

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2009, October 24 - 6:53pm

#1

jazzmoth's picture

jazzmoth

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Basilisk crashing, OS 7.5.3 crashing, 256 colors, HELP?!?

I have gotten BasiliskII to run, OS 7.5.3 is great, and most of the games I want are working fine. However, every time I try to change my monitor to 256 colors manually, the OS crashes. When I try to run a game that automatically changes it, it runs poorly and sometimes the whole thing crashes.

Lastly, I've been having trouble lately with Spectre VR. I got it almost working a few tries ago, but now every time I put it in my MacHD, the next time I start it up, it says the startup disk can't be found (floppy icon with blinking question mark). Maybe this isn't correlated to Spectre, but I just really want to play and I have no idea what I've done wrong.

Help?
I'm a huge noob, and I don't know too much technical jargon, so please go easy on me.

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2009, October 24 - 11:09pm

#2

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bertyboy

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Joined: 2009 Jun 14

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Please tell me that when you're changing to 256 colours, you're doing from within the Basilisk emulator, probably using the Control Strip in System 7.5.3. You should leave your Mac / PC running in millions of colours (or whatever it is set to).

With Spectre VR, just exactly how do you "put it in my HD" ?

Do you mean that you open the disk image, used for booting System 7.5.3, in your native OS (ie. Mac OS X or Windows) and add Spectre VR to it ?

You could help yourswlf immensely by letting us all know:
Which version of Basilisk II are you using ?
what is your host computer ?
which OS does it use ?

and, In the Basilisk II preferences -
which ROM file do you use with System 7.5.3 ?
How much RAM is allocated to the virtual mac ?
Which CPU do you emulate ?
Is the FPU option selected ?
which Mac model s emulated ?
what screen size is emulated ?

And in System 7.5.3 -
How much RAM is allocated to Spectre VR ?

2009, October 24 - 11:29pm

(Reply to #2) #3

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jazzmoth

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Joined: 2009 Oct 24

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Thanks for your patience. I'm trying to teach myself all this stuff, and it's slow going. My answers are interleaved.

Please tell me that when you're changing to 256 colours, you're doing from within the Basilisk emulator, probably using the Control Strip in System 7.5.3.
--Yes. Under the Apple menu, I think. The equivalent to current Mac's System Prefs.

You should leave your Mac / PC running in millions of colours (or whatever it is set to).
--Well, yes, of course.

With Spectre VR, just exactly how do you "put it in my HD" ?
Do you mean that you open the disk image, used for booting System 7.5.3, in your native OS (ie. Mac OS X or Windows) and add Spectre VR to it ?
--Yes.

You could help yourswlf immensely by letting us all know:
Which version of Basilisk II are you using ?
--1.0, one of the ones linked to from the Guides page (http://macscene.net/wiki/index.php/Basilisk_II_Setup_Guide)

what is your host computer ?
which OS does it use ?
--MacBook running Mac OS X 10.5.8

and, In the Basilisk II preferences -
which ROM file do you use with System 7.5.3 ?
--again, the one linked to from the guide pages, I think a Quadra?

How much RAM is allocated to the virtual mac ?
--64MB

Which CPU do you emulate ?
--68040

Is the FPU option selected ?
--No

which Mac model s emulated ?
--Quadra 900

what screen size is emulated ?
--not sure, maybe 513x384?

And in System 7.5.3 -
How much RAM is allocated to Spectre VR ?
--I have no idea how to check this.

2009, October 25 - 7:29am

(Reply to #3) #4

IIGS_User's picture

IIGS_User

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Joined: 2009 Apr 8

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With Spectre VR, just exactly how do you "put it in my HD" ?
Do you mean that you open the disk image, used for booting System 7.5.3, in your native OS (ie. Mac OS X or Windows) and add Spectre VR to it ?
--Yes.

No, please. Just add the game disk image to the emulator's drives list as usual.

How much RAM is allocated to Spectre VR ?
--I have no idea how to check this.

Mark the game executive file, then select "Information" from the "File" menu, to get this information.
It's located in the lower right corner of the info window.

2009, October 25 - 8:18am

#5

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bertyboy

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Joined: 2009 Jun 14

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Just a hunch,

but change the Mac emulated to the IIci (even with the Quadra ROM). I use the Quadra 900 setting, but only because I have a Quadra 700 ROM, only because I used to have a Quadra 700.
You can also up the screen resulation if you want - might be advisable to do so, Spectre VR came from a time of the Mac II and LC series and COLOUR, so no compact Mac would have been quick enough to run it. Try 640x480 and 800x600. I'm sure I used to play it on my IIci with 13" monitor.

Like IIGS_User has suggested, mounting a System 7.5.3 boot disk image under one of the later Ma OS's can stuff up the disk image. Happened to me a few times when I was extending my range of emulated systems.
I'd be able to create disk image files in OSX and initialise them. But as soon as I tried to use them in Basilisk II it'd see them as unreadable, but at least I could reformat them from with System 7.5.3. If I ever mounted the drive in OSX again - to add software, it'd be fine. But as soon as I went back to System 7.5.3 it'd see it as unreadable again.
Very, very, very strangely enough, for me, this only seemed to affect boot disk images. So I have a 500MB and a 2GB drive image for storing all the software. These get mounted in each of the Mac OS's I emulate. Provided by three 100MB disk image files, with System6.0.8, System 7.5.3 and OS8.1. These boot disk images never ever get mounted in OSX.
Keeping the OS boot images separate (and smaller) means I can include them in nightly backups, so if I accidentaly hose one of them (like I did frequently setting them up) I can just restore it and carry on.
Just a note on backups, I don't keep unlimited iterations of them, 7 copies - one for each day of the week, and another 3 copies - one for each 1st of month for the last 3 months. EMC Retrospect is backup software of my choice - don't know if Time Machine can do something similar for you.