Amiga Emulation / FS-UAE: A Comprehensive Tutorial + Launchbox Integration

[Zombeaver]

Sorry, not sure what to tell you there. It's working normally for me via Big Box.

This is what it looks like in FS-UAE.

And in Big Box:

[Kagan]

Doublechecked and everything is selected like in your pictures @Zombeaver. I am going to try it on a second system and see if it gives me the same problems.

Another thing I noticed is that it almost seems like it loads another controller-profile when launching through Big Box - to activate the ingame FS-UAE menu for instance, I suddenly need to push both the "View" and "Menu" button, instead of just the "Menu"-button. Is this part of another FS-UAE standard controller setup? And if so, I wonder what makes my config load that?

[InfinityFox]

Zombeaver your tutorial is awesome and although I started to follow it I never completed adding the Amiga system. I’ve scanned through this post and I see the emulator author has made some changes to the emulator with your tutorial in mind. I just wanted to check what has changed and wha things are irrelevant in the tutorial video.

I’m pretty sure I remember seeing that the launcher bit is not needed now. I also see that some support has been added for PRELOAD. So I wondered if the PRELOAD command is added automatically from scanning the dB?

Could you briefly tell me what’s changed so I don’t waste time on things that have been superseded by the emulator updates

Thanks.  ?

[Zombeaver]

The tutorial is still correct, the only thing really relevant that's changed is that you don't need the custom launcher anymore - you still need two separate emulator entries because they use different checkboxes, but both of them are directed to the normal Launcher.exe. The rest of the process is unchanged.

Export -> Import process:

Obviously you can do this in bulk, it doesn't make any difference how many you do at once, but I just pick out one new game to add as an example.

[InfinityFox]

Thanks for the reply’ do you suggest using the latest development build? Also do we need to make those edits to the ini or xml file to make saves more reliable with whd files

[Zombeaver]

Either way on the version - I'm using the dev build but the latest stable will work as well.

For WHDLoad savestates you'll want to add the following into the advanced section in FS-UAE:

unsafe_save_states = 1

relative_temp_feature = 1

[InfinityFox]

Thanks a lot for the help!

[InfinityFox]

Hi  Zombeaver

 

I'm just working through your tutorial and wondered if there is a way to find out which imported games don't have configs. I can only see that going one by one through my miriad of games is the only way.

 

I wonder how the database has changed since you did your guide? Could it be that the games all have configs now?

 

 

 

[Zombeaver]

You'd just have to go through them by hand/eye.

While there are more configs now than there were at the time, the likelihood that there are configs for all the games is slim to none. Most, yes. All? No.

[InfinityFox]

 

I figured that might be the case!!

Thanks for the reply

Edited December 18, 2018 by InfinityFox

[boon]

I did some lists a while ago with some sort of "no intro" "clean" approach. I decided to update them today (christmas is comming ;). whdloadnonuuid.txt is a list of files which you have to make configs for at the moment.

whdloadexcluded.txt is a list of whdload games i have excluded. Such as NTSC, demo, foreign conversions. If "better version" exists such as AGA i excluded the non AGA version and so on.

For the completionist: 

adfuuid.txt is a list of adf games, with configs, that haven't been whdloaded yet.  And adfnonuuid.txt is a list of the adf games that don't have configs and isn't whdloaded yet.

[boon]

I tried thinking around this whole launch problem again. Talking only about whdload games, which is almost all you "need", this could almost be as easy loading roms with other emulators.

As i see it, it could be managed by extracting "rom" file first and then launch the slave file, since all extra info is gone from folder name and the slave .info file almost always has the right config. Also, this way you always (if no renaming is done) get to keep your save games. I don't know if its possible to point launcher to a folder and launch a game?

Turns out FSUAE doesn't support .lha files except when used for scanning info http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=1139481 but even if converting all to .zip, there had to be a way to filter out the version numbers to keep the saves.

One problem i see is that you need to purge old or different versions. Which needs to be done manually.

Another tiny problem i see is that like two games have/had files in them which couldn't be extracted in windows, i don't know if that's the case anymore though.

If you then add some algorithm that use A1200 configuration when folder- or filename contains AGA and CD32 when there is CD32 etc. You are pretty much set to just import all whdload files as easy as roms.

As it seems the configs from openretro.org seems to be lagging behind the updates so we might have more and more games without configs eventually.

[Zombeaver]

Thanks for the lists. Not actually a huge number there, so that's not too bad. It should be noted, however, that saying those are the only ones that need to have configs created assumes that the ones that are in the database are actually correct, and while that is true for the vast majority of them, it's not always the case - as I demonstrated in a couple cases in the tutorial video.

.lha files work just fine in FS-UAE, I have quite a few. Retroplay's WHDLoad set (they're on EAB, just google "EAB Retroplay WHDLoad") is the most up-to-date set out there and those are all in .lha format. FS-UAE can read compression one layer deep. .lha files are their own compressed format. You can have a .zip that has a game folder/info file or you can have a .lha file - you cannot have an .lha in a .zip (compression within compression). I'm not sure what you're talking about as far as "always keeping your save games". My save games work just fine.

The "whole launch problem" really isn't a big deal - it literally takes about two minutes (as demonstrated in the video above) to import to FS-UAE -> export UUIDs -> import UUIDs, and you can do that with thousands of games at a time if you so choose. It takes even less time (as long as it takes you to press Ctrl+A and then drag files into LB) for configs since you're literally just dumping them all in. If that's too much work for people I don't know what to tell them.

The vast majority of the actual time spent working on FS-UAE is in the initial setup. Once that's done, everything after that is simple and quick.

[InfinityFox]

On 12/5/2018 at 6:50 PM, Zombeaver said:

Either way on the version - I'm using the dev build but the latest stable will work as well.

For WHDLoad savestates you'll want to add the following into the advanced section in FS-UAE:

unsafe_save_states = 1

relative_temp_feature = 1

Merry Christmas Zombeaver!!

I had a few questions if you would be kind enough to answer them.

So from your video you mention that you don't or didn't at the time use save states, instead just use in game saves. If I add the lines you gave me earlier

relative_temp_feature = 1
unsafe_save_states = 1

This enables save states corect?

Do I also get the option to use ingame saves as well?

I ask because years ago with these systems you would bring up the save game menu and save your position if memory serves. Now I'm just getting to the point in your video where you are talking about quiting the emulator properly using f10. If you don't use this method then you use your progress.

So, how does saving work in game, it sound very much like what happens when you save a game state.

Other than that I know I sound like a broken record but thank you for the Awesome tutorial

Also I'm probably beeing a bit dumb here but setting up FS-UAE and FS-UAE UUID as emulator entries for the same platform will create an issue with setting up the default emulator am I correct in assuming that I'll need to run two instances of the emulator to get this working? Although I still think there will be a conflict. I'm sure it simple but I've had little sleep and its not coming to me ??

Edited December 25, 2018 by InfinityFox

[Zombeaver]

You save in-game however the game allows you to save the game. It's like asking "How do you save in PC games?" I'm not sure what sort of answer you're expecting. Some games give you the option to save your progress. Some don't. They are not save states any more than they are when you step into a [insert shiny thing] in a SNES game and save your game.

It's not an "issue" to have two Amiga emulator entries any more than it is to have standalone SNES9x and Retroarch for SNES games. You can set one as default (if you want, you don't actually need to) and then choose whichever one you need while importing depending on whether you're importing UUIDs or configs. Importing UUIDs? Choose the UUID one in the import wizard. Importing configs? Choose the one that doesn't say UUIDs. It's not any more complicated than that.

If by two "instances" you mean two completely separate copies of FS-UAE on your computer, then no you don't. If you mean separate emulator entries, then yes you do. They're both directed at the same file, but use different checkboxes.

[InfinityFox]

Thank you for all the help!! I'm pleased to say everything is up and running and I couldn't be happier.

 

 

[Zombeaver]

Glad to hear it! Happy to help.

[toptrumps]

thanks for the guide,  I think i have set everything up but when i start the game (adf) in launchbox it doesnt use the game config from the list.  So I get an error saying you need amiga 1200 to play this game (chaos engine aga for example).  But when im in fs-uae and click on the game in the list it runs fine.  What did I miss?  I believe the vid says all you have to do for adf games is add fs-uae to launchbox and point to the emu and it should work

 

Edited January 5, 2019 by toptrumps

[Zombeaver]

Using build-in configs for any format - WHDLoad, adf, or otherwise - needs to be directed to the UUID. That's how it knows which game and which config to use. The same instructions I show for FS-UAE UUID games apply.

[toptrumps]

Thanks. I misread/watched the directions. I thought the uuid was just for whdload and there is a note on screen saying that isn’t needed with the new version of fs-uae. But I now see that must have been referring to something else. Thanks for the reply