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

[somakarma]

Great tutorial. Almost up and running, apart from many WHDLoad files that don't populate in the main window. When I try to create a config, I cannot see any zip files in the Choose Hard  Drive option/window, so can't get stated. Any ideas how to reveal the zips?

[Zombeaver]

29 minutes ago, somakarma said:

Great tutorial. Almost up and running, apart from many WHDLoad files that don't populate in the main window. When I try to create a config, I cannot see any zip files in the Choose Hard  Drive option/window, so can't get stated. Any ideas how to reveal the zips?

You just need to navigate to them. Use the custom default config, go to the hard drive tab, click the add button and then select the zip you want. I show this in the video.

If the folder that it defaults to when you click the add button isn't the right one, just use the up (parent directory) button until you get to wherever they are.

[somakarma]

Thanks for the swift reply. I literally have no zip folders to select in that FS window though (it shows as empty), although in actual fact there are 2,648 in there.  'Files of type' is set to All Files. (Though this All Files is greyed out and unselectable)

Edited March 30, 2018 by somakarma

[somakarma]

Ah I pressed the folder icon (as thought zips are folders) but now clicking the FILE icon reveals then all!

 

[somakarma]

And another hurdle... I also seem to have picked the ONLY game - Settlers - that does not populate the WHDLoaad Argument... and does not recognise any of my attempts... anyone have any luck here?

[Zombeaver]

You're not really providing much useful information here.

1) Send a screenshot of the contents of the .zip you're trying to use.

2) Send a screenshot of the hard drive tab for the config.

[somakarma]

Well, I've overcome my original oversight (i've now created the config using the WHDLoad Settlers file). Then i overcame the next hurdle (i resinstalled the zip, as the .slave from the previous one had been moved elsewhere in my noobishness). So the game Settler now runs using FS. 

However, I'm now stuck again -- I have exported all the FS WHDs into the temp folder from Launcher.sqlite, using Exporter. But I cannot see the file that I config'd (Settlers) as one of those folders (though there is still the config folder in FS) -- should this appear upon the export, or is it somewhere in there, or have i missed something? - its the same situation as you do in 26:07 with Cyber Assault; does the Cyber Ass file appear to transfer into the UUID folder (and then LaunchBox), or is it just a hidden config file?

[Zombeaver]

2 hours ago, somakarma said:

should this appear upon the export, or is it somewhere in there, or have i missed something?

This is covered in the video. They're separate.

[somakarma]

Solved, thank you -- up and running! Yep its all in the video, next time I'm trying to figure it out at 2am I'll just go to bed.

[flatuswalrus]

I get a message upon launching a game that capsimg is not installed. I downloaded capsimg.dll and placed it in a folder I created in the FS-UAE directory called Plugins. I also tried placing it in the main FS-UAE but I still get the message. Would you happen to know anything about this issue?

[Zombeaver]

1 hour ago, Dane said:

I get a message upon launching a game that capsimg is not installed. I downloaded capsimg.dll and placed it in a folder I created in the FS-UAE directory called Plugins. I also tried placing it in the main FS-UAE but I still get the message. Would you happen to know anything about this issue?

Nope, never heard of it. What game?

[boon]

2 hours ago, Dane said:

I get a message upon launching a game that capsimg is not installed. I downloaded capsimg.dll and placed it in a folder I created in the FS-UAE directory called Plugins. I also tried placing it in the main FS-UAE but I still get the message. Would you happen to know anything about this issue?

I think i got that message a long time ago as well, along with other obscure messages. I think you should just try to reinstall FS-UAE. I think i might have gotten it while transitioning to a portable version. I'm currently running the x64 portable development version without problems.

[Zombeaver]

That's what I use as well - the x64 portable dev build. It's not the absolute newest one, but it's pretty recent.

[flatuswalrus]

21 hours ago, boon said:

I think i got that message a long time ago as well, along with other obscure messages. I think you should just try to reinstall FS-UAE. I think i might have gotten it while transitioning to a portable version. I'm currently running the x64 portable development version without problems.

I was using the portable version myself. I got rid of it and got the installed version. The FS-UAE folder in Documents saved and transferred all my settings across and it worked after that. Thank you for the suggestion. Now I will have to get the controls working and it'll be all set. I will work on the controls tonight.

[vanziger]

On 5/7/2017 at 7:47 AM, Zombeaver said:

You shouldn't have to do any of that. As I said in the video, you have to tell it to use folder names when you go through the import wizard, not the filenames.

I only import one version per game but I think auto consolidation should allow you to do multiple and it should auto-merge them. I haven't tried doing an auto consolidate though - they way I always did it was exporting all of them into a temp folder, and then picking and choosing the versions that I wanted to import into LB, moving those to a permanent folder and then importing them and tell it to use folder names.

I tried what you described: 'use folder names' for the import setting. But nothing happens in LB: titles still are those of the file names, game titles aren't recognized by the LB database and artwork etc isn't imported.

I've decompressed the games from zip. Each game is in its own folder, and all the games are in one folder. FS-UAE is linked to the one folder, so is LB when it comes to importing ROMs. The emulator itself is located on my main drive, and the games are located on an external one.

Note: currently my FS-UAE database isn't showing artwork, however games are identified in the FS-UAE launch database and I can play them from there. I can also start the playable games from LB.

At this stage, I still have to do the whole renaming / artwork import manually. Thoughts?

[vanziger]

4 hours ago, vanziger said:

I tried what you described: 'use folder names' for the import setting. But nothing happens in LB: titles still are those of the file names, game titles aren't recognized by the LB database and artwork etc isn't imported.

I've decompressed the games from zip. Each game is in its own folder, and all the games are in one folder. FS-UAE is linked to the one folder, so is LB when it comes to importing ROMs. The emulator itself is located on my main drive, and the games are located on an external one.

Note: currently my FS-UAE database isn't showing artwork, however games are identified in the FS-UAE launch database and I can play them from there. I can also start the playable games from LB.

At this stage, I still have to do the whole renaming / artwork import manually. Thoughts?

Found the solution by myself...

It wasn't clear the launcher still needed to be used. Once that was understood, I used as instructed.

Then I had a problem with the actual mapping of fs-uae uuid to actuals roms: even fs 2.8.3, in my experience, I still had to touch the .config file and remap accordingly (the standard setting was mapped to temp folders that didn't exist).

[Zombeaver]

15 hours ago, vanziger said:

Found the solution by myself...

It wasn't clear the launcher still needed to be used. Once that was understood, I used as instructed.

No it isn't. Not if you're referring to the custom one. That was created to patch a bug that no longer exists, nothing more. As long as you've done everything correctly, you just point LB to the official Launcher .exe, use the right checkboxes, etc. You do still need separate emulator entries for custom configs and built-in ones, however. They require different check boxes in the emulator settings in LB.

The custom launcher is not required for anything at this point though.

I don't know why you decompressed anything. It's specifically designed to read them in zip format. The only thing that you would want to unzip would be if you had .lha files that were in zips. .lha is another form of compression (one that's specifically used for Amiga games) and FS-UAE can read compression one layer deep (so it can't read an .lha in a .zip). If you open up a zip and see a .info file and a folder named after the game, you should *not* be decompressing those and should import those .zips as-is.

I don't know what you mean RE the remapping of UUIDs. You don't need to do anything with them other than what's shown in the video. That process hasn't changed.

To be honest, based on the issues you're describing, you've done something wrong. I don't know what you've done wrong because I don't know what you have or haven't done. My suggestion would be to watch the import demonstration video I posted a while back (might have been a different thread or somewhere earlier in this one, it's been a while). This just shows the process without any description:

Obviously this doesn't cover setting up FS or LB themselves, but it's showing the import -> export -> import process between FS and LB.

 

[DJQuad]

Great tutorial! I got stuck on the scanning though - it's not detecting any games after a lengthy scan. I have both the TOSEC and WHDLoad sets -

[Zombeaver]

It's probably a compression issue. FS-UAE can read within compression one level deep, and it's only going to recognize a single game per zip/lha/whatever. You can't have everything in one zip. For WHDLoad, if you open a zip and see a folder and a .info with the game title, those are fine as-is. .lha files are a compressed format in and of themselves, so you cannot have an .lha in a .zip.

Beyond that you just have to have an OAGD (think it's OpenRetro now) account and be logged into it in FS-UAE.

[Kagan]

First and foremost @Zombeaver: absolutely fantastic guide, thank you!

I have followed it from start to end and (almost) everything is working perfectly – I did just encounter one small problem that I hope someone in here can help with though:

Everything works perfectly when launched either directly from FS-UAE or Launchbox, but as soon as I start up Big Box and launch an Amiga-game, FS-UAE forgets the controller (as shown in the picture). I cant seem to remap or anything.

When I quit everything and retest, everything again works fine directly from FS-UAE and Launchbox. I should also mention that F10 to Quit (as pr the AutoHotkey-script) still works in Big Box, so the controller is being registered in some instance.

Has anyone experienced the same problem?

Edited September 12, 2018 by Kagan