C64 VICE and Epyx Fastload

spud11

I've got VICE (non-libretro) working well with JiffyDOS. This kernal speeds up the loading times of C64 game disks no end and seems to have few incompatibilities.

However, I wanted to experiment and see whether I could get Epyx Fastload and JiffyDOS to work together to load games even faster. So far, I'm struggling to autoload/autostart a cartridge immediately on booting up VICE. I did see a reference from Buzz in a thread about 2 years ago saying that he successfully "autostarts" a fastload cartridge of some sort when he loads up VICE but there weren't any details as to how to go about this.

My emulators.cfg is as follows:

vice-x64 = "/opt/retropie/emulators/vice/bin/vice.sh x64 %ROM%"
default = "vice-x64"

My sdl-vicerc is as follows:

[C64]
MenuKey=293
MenuKeyUp=119
MenuKeyDown=115
MenuKeyLeft=97
MenuKeyRight=100
MenuKeySelect=102
MenuKeyCancel=101
SoundDeviceName="alsa"
SoundBufferSize=100
AspectRatio="1.000000"
SDLCustomWidth=1920
SDLCustomHeight=1200
SDLWindowWidth=384
SDLWindowHeight=272
VirtualDevices=1
KernalName="/opt/retropie/configs/c64/JiffyDOS/JiffyDOS_C64.bin"
KernalRev=-1
VICIIVideoCache=0
VICIIDoubleScan=0
VICIIFullscreen=1
VICIISDLFullscreenMode=1
VICIIFilter=2
SidEngine=0
SidModel=1
KeySet1North=119
KeySet1East=100
KeySet1South=115
KeySet1West=97
KeySet1Fire=102
KeySet2North=121
KeySet2East=106
KeySet2South=104
KeySet2West=103
KeySet2Fire=107
JoyDevice1=3
JoyDevice2=2
Mouse=1
Drive8Type=1541
DosName1540="/opt/retropie/configs/c64/JiffyDOS/JiffyDOS_1541.bin"
DosName1541="/opt/retropie/configs/c64/JiffyDOS/JiffyDOS_C1541.bin"
DosName1541ii="/opt/retropie/configs/c64/JiffyDOS/JiffyDOS_1541-II.bin"
DosName1570="/opt/retropie/configs/c64/JiffyDOS/JiffyDOS_1571_repl310654.bin"
DosName1571="/opt/retropie/configs/c64/JiffyDOS/JiffyDOS_1571D.bin"
DosName1581="/opt/retropie/configs/c64/JiffyDOS/JiffyDOS_1581.bin"
ETHERNETCARTBase=56832
Acia1Base=56832

The above works perfectly with JiffyDOS. However, is there something I can add either to the commandline of emulators.cfg or to the sdl-vicerc file that will also autostart Epyx Fastload? I've got the cartridge in the /opt/retropie/configs/c64/ folder under the name Fastload.crt.

Thanks for any help or thoughts.

stoney66

@spud11 What you don't like waiting 30-45 seconds for disk loading every time you are attacked by random monsters?

I'd like to know as well on using Epyx, I still have my original cartridge! Just wish I had my action replay :(

spud11

@stoney66 Ha! Yep, I've become spoilt and I like instant gratification!