[TUTORIAL] Painless Amiga emulation using Amiberry

[VictimRLSH]

OK, only RELATIVELY painless. There are a lot of steps to getting the games set up, paricularly if you want the games to run just using the controller without a mouse and keyboard. This tutorial also only covers games that use .adf disk images, not hard disk files.

Amiga emulation only SEEMS daunting because there are different emulators and many different options for each. The vast majority of Amiga games were designed to run on an Amiga 500 with 512k ram expansion. Original Chip Set, no hard drive, and Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3 BIOS version. In fact, a great many games will complain if you run them on something newer. As an Amiga 1200 owner, getting the old stuff to run on my machine was a real pain due to the AGA chipset. I never could get rid of the A500 because there were games I could only run on that.

It is much easier to get games to run on Amiberry than the various versions of UAE, and Amiberry's defualt 'UAE' Amiga 500 configuration will meet most of your needs.
LIke Linapple and VICE, cleaning up your disk images before trying to play the games will go a long way towards preventing confusion, so I'll repeat the cleanup steps here.

Step 1: Clean up your Amiga roms folder. If you have already moved eight zillion rom files in here just so you can see something like 3000+ games available from the system select carousel in Emulation Station, you will have to clean things up a bit. Swapping disks for multi-disk games will turn into a nightmare if you have to scroll around thousands of files, especially if you are only using a controller to navigate the list. Create another folder on an external drive or elsewhere on your SD card to store Amiga disk images you won't be using anytime soon. Be sure not to delete the +START AMIBERRY script from the Amiga folder, because THAT will be the launching point for ALL your Amiga games, not the Amiga game list on Emulation Station.

Step 2: Download a blank disk image. Google search for Blank Workbench 1.3 disk. Unzip this so you have a .adf file with the blank disk image. You will be using this a LOT. Amiberry can make blank disks and HDD images, but this will be much easier. Don't try and get a more advanced Workbench version, it is just a blank disk to store files on. 1.3 will do.

NOTE: Very often, Amiga files are not in .zip format, but rather .lzh or .lha. Download the archiver from http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/lha.htm. to unpack these from Windows. There is an Amiga native version at http://aminet.net/util/arc/LhArcAmiga102.run from the Aminet (a free and LEGAL Amiga download site) to unpack ones that may be lurking on Amiga disk images.

Step 3: Create a separate folder in the Amiga roms folder for each game you want to play. This will also reduce clutter, especially from multi-disk games. Unzip your .adf images before putting them in the folder.

Step 4: After you put the unzipped .adf images in the game folders, you need to simplify your file names, otherwise they will be cut off and you might not be able to tell which disk you need to swap in. "Spizzy The Spazoid III - Expedition to the Depths of Spazville (disk 1 of 2) (OUTER SPAZVILLE) [Cracked by Crimson Swirls of Congealing Gore].adf" can be renamed to Spizzy3 (OUTER SPAZVILLE).adf. That way when the game asks to insert the OUTER SPAZVILLE disk, it won't look like all the rest because the ridiculously long file name got cut off. This is another reason to have each game in its own folder. The filename can simply be OUTER SPAZVILLE.adf if it is already in a folder identifying the game.

Step 5: If the game requires a separate disk to store game data or requires creation of a 'scenario' or 'character' disk, put a copy of the blank Workbench disk in the game's folder for this purpose. You can rename it accordingly if you want.

Step 6: You will need to create a working config file for each Amiga game you want to run, but you won't be doing this from Emulation Station, you'll be doing it from Amiberry. You will need a mouse and keyboard. You should have also put your Kickstart BIOS ROMS in the BIOS folder on Retropie. Amiberry stores ALL the pertinent information to run the game in one place, including controller mapping. There is a high probability you can get most games to run using just a controller once you get them configured with a mouse and keyboard. Select +START AMIBERRY from your game list on Emulation Station.

When Amiberry starts up, left click on the second option, Paths from the list on the left. Confirm you have the correct paths set up. These should be the defaults.
System ROMS: /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/
Configuration files: /opt/retropie/emulators/amiberry/conf/
Controller files: /opt/retropie/emulators/amiberry/controllers/
RetroArch configuration file (retroarch.cfg): /opt/retropie/emulators/amiberry/conf/retroarch.cfg

Go to the Roms option and select the Kickstart BIOS image you put in the BIOS folder.

You will be setting up a separate configuration file for each game. Click on Configurations from the list on the left. When you do, you should see that Amiberry has preloaded the 'uaeconfig' file. On the right hand side of the screen you'll see uaeconfig in the Name: field under the list of configurations. Change the Name field to the name of the game your are creating a configuration for, and a Description if you want. Click on the SAVE button below that to let Amiberry know you're working on a new configuration file, there is no 'NEW' option here, you'll always be starting off from the default uaeconfig

Instead of entering disk image info from the Floppy Drives menu, we'll be using the Quickstart option instead. Quickstart is where you will be making all your disk swaps later on as well to cut down on the confusion. Click on the Quickstart option from the list on the left. The default config should be Amiga model: A500 Config: 1.3 ROM, OCS, 512k Chip + 512KB Slow (most common). If you really are trying to run an ECS or AGA game, this is where you'll be making the change, not the CPU/FPU or Chipset, These options have their uses but usually wind up complicating (and breaking) things. You CAN go to the Floppy Drives menu and try upping the floppy emulation speed to 800% for quicker disk access. It is also good to check in the ROM menu and make sure it is pointing to your Kickstart image. If not, use the file selector on the ROM screen to load it in.

You might want to consider unchecking the DF1: option and just running with a single drive even for multi-disk games. Amiberry sets its Save State by the disk name in DF0: , it does NOT use your configuration file.

Click on the Select file button to the right of the Eject button and select the folder and first (or only) disk image for your game. Clicking on '..' in the file list will go up a level in the folders. Once you are sure you have the correct boot disk, hit the Set configuration button.

You should be ready to test your basic configuration. Go back to the Configurations screen, verify your game's name is still in the Name: field, then hit Save. Hit the Reset button at the very bottom to test your game. If you are a minute or so into a loading screen, something may be wrong. Hitting F12 to get back into Amiberry will work IF the emulator hasn't crashed. If it DID crash, you'll have to reboot your Pi. :( If F12 gets you back into Amiberry, it is simply taking a long time to boot, you can hit the Resume button at the bottom to continue the boot process. Most crack intros can be passed using the left mouse button or space. Make sure you can at least get to the actual game. If you increased your floppy emulation speed you might want to back it down to 100% to see if that helps your game boot.

Once you are at the game's start screen, hit F12 to get back into Amiberry and select Savestates. Click on savestate Number 0 at the top, then click the Save State button. This essentially saves a 'turbo start' for your game.

If you always intend to use a mouse and keyboard, you can stop now and go on to configure the next game. If you do stop here, don't forget to go back to the Configurations screen, confirm your game is in the Name: field, and save your configuration.

Hitting the Restart button at the bottom doesn't restart the game your are emulating, it reloads Amiberry just like you quit and then restarted Amiberry. If you are going on to configure a new game, you can just use this function instead of restarting.

If you want to be able to play your games with just a controller, in Amiberry the D-pad will move you around the screen and the B button will act as the left mouse button for selecting things, so you will be able to load a Configuration and go down to Reset to start your game without a mouse or keyboard. However, once you get into your game, the controller is going to do nothing without configuration.

Avoid changing anything on the Input screen, this has the potential to seriously jack up your controls. YES, it is possible to select your game controller as a mouse, BUT all other functionality of your controller will be lost. There is a better way...

Select Custom Controls. Under Input Device: it should indicate the current control active in RetroArch, followed by a list of the buttons on your controller available to be remapped. You will notice the button you use as a RetroArch hotkey has been grayed out and is not available. Note the lack of options for your analog sticks, you're probably thinking it would be a great idea to map a stick to the mouse. There IS a way to do this from here, but indirectly. To do this, use the Dpad Up, Down, Left, and Right and map each one to Mouse 1 Up, Mouse 1 Down, etc. Mouse 1 left click and Joystick 1 fire are the same thing, I like to map these to the A button (listed as South on the controller config screen). Mouse 1 right click and Joystick 1 fire 2 are mapped to the B button (shown as East). You will need a way to go back to the Amiberry GUI. I use the Select button on the controller, and map it to Enter GUI. This leaves the rest of your controller buttons available to be mapped to other keys.

But wait, there's more!!! On the controller config screen you'll notice there is an option to configure the controller for your RetroArch HotKey. Under Function Key, click on HotKey and the screen will change to show the configurations available for your designated RetroArch HotKey. The HotKey itself will be grayed out just like on the first controller config screen, as well as Start, which is mapped to Quit, and North (Y button) which is mapped to the RetroArch menu. The rest are available for you to custom configure to your own game functions. If you want to use your D-pad for joystick functions and rarely need the mouse, you can HotKey the D-pad as the mouse.
Note changes to controller configuration take effect immediately, so you can use the Resume button to get back to your game, and F12 (or Select if you mapped that to Enter GUI already) to return to Custom Controls configuration to further tune your controls.
Don't forget to go to Configurations and Save your configuration after setting up your controller.

HOW TO PLAY YOUR GAMES

From Emulation Station use your controller and select the +START AMIBERRY script. I put that in my Favorites. Using the D-pad on your controller, push down until you get to Configurations, then push the D-pad right until your game is highlighted on Configurations. Use the B button to boot up your game. If you did a save state on your game's startup screen, once the loading starts, you can hit F12 or the controller key you have mapped to Enter GUI (I use Select). Go to Savestates and load save state 0 to bypass the wait for booting. Navigating the Amiberry screens using just the controller will take a bit of practice before it becomes intuitive.

When your game needs a disk swap, hit F12 or your Enter GUI controller button, go to Quickstart, and select the next disk for DF0: from the list. Go to the buttons on the bottom and select Resume. THIS is when you are going to be VERY glad you gave each game its own folder and simplified your disk image filenames!

Once you have done your homework and properly prepared your disk images and controller, THEN Amiga game emulation becomes painless.

A note on save states: The 4 save state slots are associated with the DISK IMAGE NAME currently loaded, not your configuration file. If you are playing a multi-disk game and save state on disk 2 of 4 for example, it will ONLY be available when you have that disk image as the one currently loaded into DF0: Multi-disk RPG games such as Ultima 5 and 6 have this issue. If you have saved state on the Dungeon disk, that save state will not be available if you have the Towne disk in the drive. There IS a workaround though. You can go to Quickstart, swap to the disk you want to load a state from, then load the save state. There is no need to Resume the emulation until you are done loading the save state. Since you were playing with that particular disk when you saved the state, that is the disk it will need after you load the save state.

[MadRikXIV]

The only really painless way is the WHD Load method, it saves so much hassle.

I remember originale mulation and having to alter so many settings to get Sensi Soccer running way back on my PC.

Look at WHDLoad, it's the only way, it's so good it even works on my old 1200 with USB floppy drive, as very few of my disks worked anymore.

[VictimRLSH]

@madrikxiv I've thought about adding USB ports to my 1200, I still fire it up sometimes. It's floppy drive is a bit dodgy too. My external HD floppy drive never worked right to begin with.

[MadRikXIV]

@victimrlsh said in [TUTORIAL] Painless Amiga emulation using Amiberry:

@madrikxiv I've thought about adding USB ports to my 1200, I still fire it up sometimes. It's floppy drive is a bit dodgy too. My external HD floppy drive never worked right to begin with.

Putting a Gotek USB case was really easy to set up, trickiest bit was making a small hole for the LED screen.

Shortly after I installed a 4gb Compact Flash 'Hard Drive' which with WHD Load, even paid for WHDLoad back then, downside on the 1200 was you need some decent memory on the old beast.

I did think, back when I got the 1200, if someone said 'One day, you will have 4gig not 20mb in here' I would of asked...What's a gig, and no one could afford that kinda storage space!

[VictimRLSH]

@madrikxiv I dropped a whole paycheck on a used Blizzard 68060 card and a 128mb memory stick, so that wasn't an issue. That card is still alive and kicking despite other problems my 1200 has had. Without USB, I had to transfer files using a hard drive, or burn them on a CDRW disk. I'd love to plug my 4tb USB drive into the 1200 and see what happens. LOL...