Parameters

History

Action Replay MK3 was a shot at a complete freezer pack that allowed multi file tape games to be backed up along with the game and title picture to disk. Since for this to work out a little more than just freezing the computer state is required Datel teamed up with Dosoft (or acquired them, who knows?). With MK3 the Parameters and NOVA TRANSFER came to the ROM which we're looking into here. Before the MK3 there was no multi file loader support.

Parameters allow the owner of an original (tape, but in theory would also work for some disk titles) game to create a backup running off disk by loading a parameter into the freezer. By that the original loader is usually removed and replaced by standard routines working off the disk drive. Due to the freeze often happening after some loading screen or intro was shown the "Graphics Disk" contained demo maker alike programs to preserve such things as well. Also the "SceneStealer" extension stems from this idea of supplying a full package apparently.

Since Action Replay ROMs only offer the NOVA TRANSFER and would fail on anything else the Enhancement Disk comes with MULTIMENU 1.1 which has further descriptions for some Parameters as well as means of handling other tape loaders. It also contains the actual Parameter files required for patching the frozen program to disk routines.

When a major rewrite of the ROM happened with the "Pro" series (AR 4.2+) a few Parameters were re-worked but it seems most kept working and the system was slowly extended (for a complete list check Parameters List).

Datel never released intructions (as far as we know) on how to create own parameters or how to patch a game using the plain NOVALOAD to work without the Action Replay Turbolinker. Let us see if we can remedy this situation at Parameter Creation.

Usage

WE ARE MISSING especially english scans for Action Replay V5 (V6) Enhancement Disk Manuals!
Quoting from the scan "Action_Replay_MK3_english_manual_supplement_(Enhancement_Disk_v2.0)" as found in Action_Replay_all_rr.c64.org_2021-03.rar

    ACTION REPLAY MK III ENHANCEMENT DISK - V2.0
    --------------------------------------------
 This disk contrains a collection of parameters and file copy routines for transfer of non-standard multistage tape programs to disk.
Multistage programs are those which load extra parts as the program progresses. Until recently, these nearly always used the NOVALOAD system, and a system is built into ACTION REPLAY MK III to handle the majority of such programs - see manual for details. Most newer programs use individual loading systems, each of which must be handled in its own specail way.
Transfer of multistage programs is a two part process:

1. ADDING THE PARAMETER

• usage guide

• Parameters List as supplied with the several Enhancement Disks