[Amiga] Amiberry + WHDLoad = Holy Grail - Amiberry's official thread

Danorak1981

Thanks for posting this-the whole WHD Load is a little intimidating, and loading times for Amiga games can sometimes be a little off putting so i'll skip to a console game instead-but this looks really easy to follow and will speed loading times up drastically.

Thanks for the post, much appreciated!

nemo93

You welcome :) Please don't let yourself intimidated. Really the installation is a no-brainer especially if you found the site I was mentioning in my initial post. At the very end, it's as simple as copying a directory in the right place and here you go.

In addition to the faster loading times and ease of install let me add that it's also the best way to find working games/demos/apps right away. Before that I was spending days trying to find the proper version for a game and the associated disks. No need for that here. WHDLoad packages are versioned so just get the last version (or any version in fact) and you are sure the program is going to run for sure.

Enjoy and if you need assistance raise your hand!

msheehan79

Thanks for the post!

Has anyone been able to get this working with .zip files instead of the uncompressed games?
Just trying to save a little disk space but the WHDloader script doesn't seem to find the slave file when I try zipped versions of the games.

maxbeanz

With the current emulation status of Amiberry/UAE4Arm, a lot of WHDLoad games run too fast or crash because they need 'Cycle Accuracy' which hasn't been implemented yet. That pack that @nemo93 mentioned, a lot of the games aren't even the latest version. Very outdated. There's a guy called ransom1122 that has made a far superior pack that has constant fix updates and also has HDF files (so all games are 1 file each instead of thousands of files littered all over the SD card). You can find him on the English Amiga Board. But really we need to wait for Amiberry to get 'Cycle Accuracy' or use ADF floppy versions of the games as these work at the correct intended speed.

AndersHP

So, is UAE4ARM still the way to go, with these speed issues?
I still haven't touched Amiga emulation yet, because it seems like such a hassle - but would love to get into it!

maxbeanz

A lot of the incorrect speed issues are when using WHDLoad games. ADF games play at the correct speed. TomB, the current maintainer of UAE4Arm has been releasing a few new Beta versions for the Pandora handheld with lots of new features and said a new Stable version will be soon. We then have to wait for Midwan or Chips to port it to the Raspberry Pi.

AndersHP

What about controller config - I couldn't really find anything about this.. Is it easy to map keys to use an iPac, just like the retroarch.cfg files?

maxbeanz

@andershp Unfortunately, custom controls are still not possible yet and the porters of the Raspberry Pi version haven't made any progress in several months :-(

(On a side note, the Android version works great!)

AndersHP

So.. keyboard is necessary, or?

EctoOne

@andershp depends on the games. you can map some keys to your pad with xboxdrv, but setting up different mappings for each game requires some work.

AndersHP

I'd really love a retroarch based Amiga emulator.

ballboff

@nemo93 said in [Amiga] Amiberry + WHDLoad = Holy Grail:

button_for_menu=9
button_for_quit=11

Hi, where can I find a full list of what these numbers are? I need to re-set up my controls for buttons 0 and 9 on the keyboard and i, and w and things like that. My machine uses a keyboard encoder so I'm having trouble getting amiberry to recognise my fire buttons...

nemo93

@ballboff : you could use the utility "jstest" on the command line to find out your button ID number. Just log to your Retropie via SSH and type in jstest /dev/<your joypad>.

@AndersHP : I'd love to see one in Retroarch too! For the time being, keyboard/mouse is only necessary for a small set of games which rely intensively on these devices (ie. Populous 1 & 2, Worms, LucasArts games, etc). No need to have these to have fun with Speedball2 or any Bitmap Bros amazing games for instance though.

@maxbeanz & all: I do slightly disagree with you on one thing. Games run at normal speed with this method. At least I didn't notice anything that would make the games completely unplayable. To be on the safe side there's a parameter you must enforce in the .uae files. It is this one => gfx_framerate=0. Just make sure it's there with a 0-value and you should be good to go. Of course it will be perfect when 'Cycle Accuracy' you mentioned will be implemented within Amiberry.

@maxbeanz: the link I'm refering to definitely contain outdated packages however my goal was not to direct users to a site with the latest packages available. First it's against rules of this forum as @EctoOne pointed out. Second people could find these without my help :) I was just willing to share this WHDLoad discovery with the community and give the people a few hints about it. After that people, like I did, could find the latest/newest packages (tip: find the latest updates on WHDLoad for your game then... Google is still your friend). With the WHDLoad method to update a game is as simple as deleting old files from a game directory and copying over the new ones and you're sure it's going to work.

I've tested with nearly 130+ games and I have no troubles except the ones listed -mostly AGA- in this Github report. By the way, Midwan is still around and looking after the Amiberry project (yay!). Look at the comment in the aforementioned report.

Amiberry (UAE4ARM based) and WHDLoad truly are your best friends if you want to emulate Amiga on a Pi in the easiest way possible. Really. Just give it a try and if you have any issue, post them here.

maxbeanz

@nemo93 The gfx_framerate=0 command you're referring to just turns off Frameskip. You should never have frameskip on in the first place as it halves the framerate to 25fps. Not sure why anyone would have this set on as default, thats just sillyness. There are lots of WHDLoad games that run too fast. I haven't used them for a while now as nearly all ADF versions play at the correct speed, and the games I like to play don't take long to load with floppy speed 400 (which is safe for all games). For example, one game that I remember was Barbarian The Ultimate Warrior, try playing that in WHDLoad !

Aphex

I tried to give the Amiberry + WHDLoad combo a shot and managed to get my hands on some auto-install scrips that allows you to automatically create .uae config file of each of your games, with folders for standard games, AGA, CD32, etc.. It does work nice for some games, but also fails for some others. I've found a romset with its specific .uae config file set but like @maxbeanz pointed out, it might be an outdated pack. Still i feel very enthusiast about it since it does provide a fast "1-click to play" solution right from the ES menu, with a ready-to-scrape list.

Now i just have to find that better pack :)

Whenever the best solution has been found (or the best middle-ground, i mean), a step-by-step tutorial video might be VERY helpful for non-expert users like my sorry-self.

maxbeanz

@aphex said in [Amiga] Amiberry + WHDLoad = Holy Grail:

Still i feel very enthusiast about it since it does provide a fast "1-click to play" solution

Did you know that you can start ADF games from the ES menu with 1-click ? Multi disk games are a bit hit or miss though. I like using ADF's as that was the original back in the day. Hardly anyone had HardDrives and WHDLoad wasn't even invented, and nearly all ADF games have a trainer cheat menu ! There are tons of games that I had about 25 years ago that I never even got past the second level (but never bothered cheating at the time because I had better things to do) !

At the end of the day the Amiga is a computer so you should really use/need a keyboard. CD32 games would be best for a Joypad only experience but currently custom controls on Amiberry don't work and it's only hacked to use a PS3 controller. 'RecalBox' has a fully working CD32 addon with working controls.

Aphex

@maxbeanz I meant "1-click to play" as a quick way to launch a game without having to bother setting up the amiga emulator for each games, not as in a keyboard-less setup :) I just thought having a .uae config file to automatically set up the emulator with best/optimized settings to be quite a plus.

I did try games in .adf format but i couldn't manage any of them to work. Now it was my first attempt at Amiga on Retropie back then and i think i my kickroms weren't in the right folders or something else i missed, i don't know. All i had was either black screens or that floppy loading screen.

nemo93

@Aphex please find below some example files that I do use as templates for all my games. Here we go...

to be used for any WHDLoad package/game that uses OCS/ECS and joystick as controller (eg. Battle Squadron, Speedball2 and many other games)
=> uae file
for any WHDLoad package/game that uses AGA and joystick as controller (eg. Chaos Engine 1&2, Alien Breed2, etc.)
=> uae file
for any WHDLoad package/game that uses OCS/ECS and mouse as controller (eg. Syndicate, MegaloMania, Cannon Fodder 1 & 2, etc.)
=> uae file

Just make sure to set the proper paths in those files to match your actual setup.

For the sake of accuracy below the parameters and value to set in the uae files depending on the chipset and controller type you want to emulate. The following settings are the most compatible I've found.

Those settings should work for most games either ECS or AGA:

; Display / Screen Setup
gfx_framerate=0
gfx_width=640
gfx_height=256
gfx_width_windowed=320
gfx_height_windowed=240
gfx_width_fullscreen=640
gfx_height_fullscreen=480
gfx_lores=false
gfx_resolution=hires
gfx_correct_aspect=False
ntsc=False

; CPU options
cpu_type=68020
cpu_speed=real
finegrain_cpu_speed=1024
;cpu_model=<<cpumodel>>
cpu_compatible=False
cpu_24bit_addressing=True
cachesize=0
cpu_cycle_exact=True

; Memory 
a1000ram=false
chipmem_size=4
bogomem_size=0
fastmem_size=4
z3mem_size=0
z3mem_start=0x1000000

; Chipset 
chipset=aga
chipset_refreshrate=0.000000
collision_level=playfields
fast_copper=False
immediate_blits=False

rtg_nocustom=true
rtg_modes=0x502
gfxcard_size=0
gfxcard_type=ZorroIII

; Misc
bsdsocket_emu=False
show_leds=false
kbd_led_num=-1
kbd_led_scr=-1
kbd_led_cap=-1

; Sound
sound_output=exact
sound_channels=stereo
sound_stereo_separation=3
sound_stereo_mixing_delay=0
sound_frequency=44100
sound_interpol=none
sound_filter=off
sound_filter_type=standard
sound_volume_cd=20
sound_auto=yes
synchronize_clock=yes

@maxbeanz: you're absolutely right regarding Barbarian (Palace version... what a game!!). I've added it to my bug report on Github. To be honest, it's the first game running at too high speed to be playable that I've been able to see. As I wrote earlier I've tested something like 130+ games, all running fine. If you have other good cases please let me know or feel free to add them to Github as Midwan is closely watching for it.

ballboff

@nemo93 Hey thanks for your advice. However, I couldn't get this to work as when I loaded up jstest every button I pressed came up with a letter as it thinks I have a keyboard attached. So my buttons are 7, 9, z and 1, and then h, 0, x and 5. 1 and 5 are start and select, 7,9 and z are a, b and c.

Aphex

@nemo93 Wow, thanks for that! I'm gonna try those config files this week and let you know!