Amiga (Review & Questions)

[voljega]

@gibs well I don't know if you published a new version recently but two years ago (!) one of Lemmings game in WHDL wasn't launching for instance because of two slave files

(Yes this is a very detailed and precise bug report :D)

[gibs]

@voljega

Yes there have been several updates since.
So, somebody is going to package the 6000 whdload games for ES ?

I don't think the Amiga configuration is set correctly, you should contact somebody from the Amiga community to improve that.

[voljega]

@gibs there is absolutely nothing to package I have some 2000 whdl games in my es, you just need to uncompress them and create an uae for it which can be empty and massively generated through script

I know the config isn't perfect but it works fine, I also already have a few correction to do

[gibs]

@voljega

Oh this is that easy !
Well you are 100% right then.
I thought I had to create a mini environment to boot a slave for each games.

I confim, this is working fine, I would have found this info 5 days ago

Congratulation !

[voljega]

@gibs also you can do some custom tweaking per game basis if needed : https://github.com/recalbox/recalbox-os/wiki/Amiga-on-Recalbox-(EN)

[rsn8887]

@voljega: Nice job getting this to work.

I am pretty sure some of the whdload .lha files often have amiga filenames that can only be uncompressed correctly in an Amiga filesystem.

So, ideally, I think the emulator should take the .lha file as a launch argument and automatically uncompress into a .hdf file to ensure filenames are all correct. No need for .uae file then. It could be read automatically for custom config if it exists, but that's it. This was already solved by FS-UAE.

I also think that a virtual keyboard, analog stick mouse control and gamepad control of the menu are necessary for this to become usable in a typical Pi setting in front of the TV.

I don't think many users have a keyboard and mouse connected to their Pi. It seems the spirit of recalbox is very much to have everything controllable with a gamepad. I for sure don't have a keyboard and mouse connected, that's really the last thing I want when I am in front of my TV.

BTW: Shameless plug, but for anyone who has a cfw VitaTV, UAE4All2 is also a nice alternative for Amiga emulation on the TV. It already has a virtual keyboard, analog joystick mouse, custom control configs for four controllers, etc. etc.

[voljega]

@rsn8887 said in Amiga (Review & Questions):

I am pretty sure some of the whdload .lha files often have amiga filenames that can only be uncompressed correctly in an Amiga filesystem.

'Uncompression of filenames' hmmm ok this doesn't mean anything.... I have tested more then three thousand of WHDLoad games and filenames are not an issue at all, I don't know where you get this idea

So, ideally, I think the emulator should take the .lha file as a launch argument and automatically uncompress into a .hdf file to ensure filenames are all correct.

This doesn't mean anything again, hdf is a specific format, when you uncompress a whload game lha file you hget a folder and a .info file, not a hdf file

No need for .uae file then. It could be read automatically for custom config if it exists, but that's it. This was already solved by FS-UAE.

No it couldn't it's not as easy.
I saw the fs-uae solution for WHDLoad, I may adapt it in the future but then again it's not as simple as you say and what you propose is only a small part of what's needed

I also think that a virtual keyboard, analog stick mouse control and gamepad control of the menu are necessary for this to become usable in a typical Pi setting in front of the TV.

Cool, then the amiberry emulator team is waiting for you commit to help them make amiberry a usable emulator

@rsn8887 said in Amiga (Review & Questions):

I for sure don't have a keyboard and mouse connected, that's really the last thing I want when I am in front of my TV.

Yeah that's so horrible, I'm really sorry you could have to endure this horror ...
Anyway it's okay to have the most possible controls on the keypad, but amiga is a computer you can do what you want, keyboard and mouse will be mandatory for games using it, if only for a question of sensitivity
Virtual keyboard are really a little help to type a few characters sometimes, but that's about it

[gibs]

@voljega

Ok, I did a quick tutorial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzCGgu6DqVk

[voljega]

@gibs thank you

For ADF, disk changing might no be so awfull still, because if the disk are correctly named (containing in their name Disk 1, Disk 2, Disk 3, etc....) the recalbox solution automatically put 4 of them in the 4 floppy readers.
But it's true there is also a lot of games which only wants the floppy to be changed in first floppy reader only

Since you know a lot about Amiga obviously, do you think I should add the 800% reading speed hack of floppy by default in next version ?
I didn't because of fear for compatibility but if it is a baseless fear and if just a few games fails to boot becuase of that, I might do it.

[RustyMG]

Sorry to jump in on this conversation / thread, but it touches on an issue I have been puzzling over.
As Recalbox now supports the Amiga, I intend to add the games to my setup, but I can't decide if I should just use my ADF collection, or go down the WHDLoad route.
Literally 99% of the games come on 4 disks or less and are named "disk 1 of x" etc, so I can't see there being an issue with those kinds of files, and I've read that quite a few WHDLoad games run far too fast, so basically my question is, ADF or WHDLoad - what's best?
Many thanks!

[voljega]

@rustymg as mentioned in documentation WHDLoad is the way to go !

• some WHDLoad games are broken on Amiberry but they work hard to correct bugs (see their Issues page on github restricted to compatibility issues : https://github.com/midwan/amiberry/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3Acompatibility)
• use amiga1200 by default, if some games are too fast, try amiga600 it will usually correct the problem
• a lot of games don't exist in WHDL version anyway, for those one you can try ADF, multi disks is handled natively when possible (some games only wants the changed floppy to be in first folder, for the others nothing to do except press button)

From my personal statistics, I have some 2000 amiga games on my recalbox :

• 1400 of them on amiga1200, all in WHDL except twenty or forty in ADF
• 650 of them in amiga600, all in ADF, except aproximatively 10 in WHDL
• I would say that out of the complete WHDL collection you can find, most of the games work, the percentage something like for every 30 games, 29 working and 1 not working (which you can then try in ADF)

[gibs]

@voljega said in Amiga (Review & Questions):

f f

I have seen some games not booting at more than 200%.
I think you should keep the emulator the more compatible possible and as you said, whdload is the way to go. cheers

[gibs]

@voljega

Is the script to generate .uae is already inside the distribution ? or somewhere ?

Thx

[voljega]

@gibs in you can wait a few hours, I will package it and put it on the wiki page

[voljega]

@gibs wiki page updated : https://github.com/recalbox/recalbox-os/wiki/Amiga-on-Recalbox-(EN)

tell me if it works for you

[RustyMG]

@voljega Hi!
God I feel like an idiot asking this, as the guide seems idiot proof, however........
I followed the wiki guide.
Got a hold of the 2 bios files.
Got the MD5 checker tool and confirmed bios files are correct for loading whdload files.
Put them in share\bios.
Unarchived a few aga whdload zips into the amiga1200 rom folder, deleting the associated .info file that was named the same as the folder.
Used the blank template .uae file and renamed it to the same as the whdload game folder.
Tried loading the game - nothing.
Screen goes black for a few seconds then drops back into the menu.

I mean, unless Im missing something obvious, any suggestions?

I have left the contents of each game folder alone, as from the documentation I believe you only delete the .info file with the same name as the game folder.

Oh, the archive I have has the following file structure for reference:
The actual game folder, then inside each game folder there is a folder called "data", then files called
[gamename].info,
[gamename].Slave
Readme
Readme.info

As a side issue, it looks as if the Recalbox Manager hasnt been updated to allow you to check the MD5 checksum of the Sharp and Amiga bios files? They are not listed?

[voljega]

@rustymg Well first of all you need 3 bios files, not two ? then you need to rename them as needed, lower case included.

do a support archive after trying to launch a game if it's still not working

[RustyMG]

@voljega hi, thank you for the quick response
I noticed 3 bios files listed but I'm just testing just now so have no intention of loading A500 or A600 adf files, so I simply didn't add that bios file.

The files are correctly named and in lower case.

I'm only trying A1200 / AGA games just now.

So, what I'm doing is correct?

I don't need to also delete the [gamename].info file inside the game folder?

Very puzzling......

[voljega]

@rustymg no don't need too, just send the support archive it should be easy to debug if you have black screen + going back to menu

[gibs]

@voljega

Ok it's working, I did a howto in video :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FWL0sLdcLw