Loading C16/Plus4 games in MESS

[SpudsMcToole]

Can this be done? For some VICE is absolutely terrible at emulating both machines, despite doing a great job on their more advanced counterpart the C64. So I tried AdvMESS, which supposedly has really good emulation of the system. It boots the OS up fine but then none of the standard loading instructions appear to work.

LOAD"*",8,1 returns a "DEVICE NOT PRESENT" error, and the best I can get out of anything else is "PRESS PLAY ON TAPE" for games that aren't tape files (eg PRG and D64).

The docs here: http://www.whtech.com/ftp/emulators/mess/old/Complete MESS Geneve emulation/mess/sysinfo/c16.htm

are absolute cobblers. F8 doesn't autoload anything, it just fiddles with the frameskip settings, whether you're on Full or Partial keyboard emulation.

[SpudsMcToole]

Self-answering: the problem with D64 files turned out to be a dodgy disk. So what you need to do to play C16/Plus 4 games in MESS is add the following lines to EMULATORS.CFG:

advmessc16prg = "/opt/retropie/emulators/advmame/bin/advmess c16 -log -cfg /opt/retropie/configs/c16/advmess.rc -quickload %ROM%"
advmessc16disk = "/opt/retropie/emulators/advmame/bin/advmess c16 -log -cfg /opt/retropie/configs/c16/advmess.rc -floppydisk %ROM%"
advmessplus4prg = "/opt/retropie/emulators/advmame/bin/advmess plus4 -log -cfg /opt/retropie/configs/c16/advmess.rc -quickload %ROM%"
advmessplus4disk = "/opt/retropie/emulators/advmame/bin/advmess plus4 -log -cfg /opt/retropie/configs/c16/advmess.rc -floppydisk %ROM%"

Then when you boot, choose the version you want from the RUNCOMMAND menu, eg if it's a C16 PRG file choose "advmessc16prg".

Once a PRG file is loaded, just type RUN. (I find if you do it too soon you have to do it twice, so wait a couple of seconds.)

If it's a D64 file, type LOAD"",8,1, then RUN when it's done.

AdvMESS runs the games much faster and smoother than VICE, but its compatibility is quite poor, so horses for courses.