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

nemo93

hello all!

@alchemist what game(s) are you trying to enable trainer(s) for please? Also what is the filename of the package you're trying to run? The very latest Amiberry releases (3.2+) will direct you to a Workbench page right after you launch a LHA package for you to select a trainer. This is true only if the package does have trainer enabled. If true then you could pick an item to enable depending on what's available. If you don't see that trainers page then it's likely you don't have latest Amiberry or package doesn't have any trainer available.

@Simrose here you for OnEscapee: https://pastebin.com/6ywGmRzw

@silentheaven83 if you got a feeling that a game is running faster than it should let's have a closer look then :) It occurs to me for the Body Blows serie. This might be due to the default settings applied by Amiberry and picked from the whdload_db.xml file. Yet let's first ensure you have at least the 3 marked Kickstarts in your Retropie BIOS directory as indicated on that page. Second can you please confirm the exact packages names you're using for Kick Off and SF2 please? If you are aware of other similar issue for other games please let me know.

alchemist

@nemo93 Yes, I'm sorry for incomplete question.

Amiberry 3.3 (2020-09-17) ; Game is R-Type, package: RType_v1.4.1_0940.lha [http://www.whdload.de/games/RType.html] .
By documentation it looks like this:

TRAINER TOOLTYPES:
Custom1=1 for unlimited lives
Custom2=1 for invulnerability

From other games I know that Workbench question for enabling trainers, but here it's different ....

Thank you all ...

nemo93

hi @alchemist no worries at all. Thanks for sharing more details. Indeed that game doesn't have any trainers (or "custom") detected by the script in charge of generating the whdload_db.xml file. I'll have a deeper look but I'm afraid there won't be any quick fix anytime soon. Meanwhile I've found that in case it helps => http://www.lemonamiga.com/games/cheats.php?id=918

alchemist

@nemo93 Hi, in meantime I found this solution:

In Amiberry Configuration GUI select: Configurations > Save
It creates new UAE file at: [config_root]/amiga/amiberry/conf (in my case: RType_v1.4.1_0940.uae)
edit RType_v1.4.1_0940.uae file and find line: "whdload_custom1" set it to 1 (by default set as whdload_custom1=0 ; bottom of file)
try it in game, should works :)

Reference of Custom configration - Amiberry Wiki: https://github.com/midwan/amiberry/wiki/WHDLoad-Auto-booting

nemo93

Awesome findings @alchemist! I have to apologize this turn as I completely forgot about this new behavior from Amiberry. Indeed it was possible to edit directly a temporary file to add/modify any "custom" config. Since 3.3 it's possible (and more elegant) to edit a config file instead. Exactly as you explained! Thanks for that and for reading the doc ;-) Glad to see it working!

EDIT: I've added a line about that into the 1st post. Thanks again.

che_don_john

Hi all, I'm running v4.5.13 on a Pi 3B+, and having some input lag on Amiberry.

Read through a few threads on input lag but none that I could find concern Amiberry, hence the new post.

It occurs with all games, and I've tried two different TVs of different sizes (both set to Game Mode). Amiberry has a Frameskip option but this just made it jittery.

Is there a 'run ahead' tweak I'm missing with this emulator? Or, any other suggestions? Thanks.

muldjord

@che_don_john There is no run-ahead in Amiberry. I don't know if there are other tweaks that might help though (maybe some frame buffering levels can be changed). Amiberry is based on WinUAE, so you might get some answers by searching on that. Stuff like this. Even though that thread is old, it's about stuff concerning input polling.

nemo93

hi @che_don_john! I'll have more questions for you :) Are you able to quantify the input lag please? How many seconds delay? Or is it more a "feeling" that you have? If you have some examples with some games (don't forget to report the names of the packages used) that would be great. Also do you have similar behavior on other emulator(s)?

I'd advise you to update Retropie to the latest version (4.7) and do the same with Amiberry (3.3) - update from source. Perhaps that would help.

To have your TV sets to rely on game mode is good.

Dwarfboysim

Have just updated to a Pi4. Downloaded the official RETROPIE Pi 4 image and loaded to an SDCARD

From my Pi3 I backed up the following:

bios Share
configs Share
roms Share

I have copied all these back onto the PI 4 and have everything 99% right with the exception of the Amiga and AMIBERRY. When I select any game from the list in emulation station and launch it (games stored as .lha files). I get a blank screen for a few seconds, then I get the grey to white then the classic amiga hand appears holding the disk for V1.3. Its like the path to the game has been lost.

If I press F12 and select one of the tweaked configs I have done for an LHA game. EG: Batman and load that then restart the game starts

Any help would be appreicated. I am assuming its a config file somewhere

Thanks
Dwarfboysim

yserra

Hi @Dwarfboysim, I had exactly the same issue when I migrated a few days ago from my Raspberry Pi 3B+ to a new Raspberry Pi 4B with a new Retropie 4.6 image but restoring all my bios / roms / configs folders from my previous configuration. Everything worked as expected, except Amiberry with WHDLoad games (.lha).
Well...
I deleted the /opt/retropie/configs/amiga folder (press F4 while in EmulationStation then type : sudo rm -R /opt/retropie/configs/amiga )
I reinstalled Amiberry from binary
And... the problem is gone!
WHLoad games are working again.

Apparently, they changed the command line arguments in the last Amiberry release. Maybe, it was the cause.

Dwarfboysim

@yserra thanks for the tip thats restored WHDLoad to working order. I have just tried GAUNTLET II and the part of AMIBERRY that does the parallel port joystick emulator doesnt appear to be working. Joysticks 1 and 2 work fine but the joysticks assigned to ports 3 and 4 in Amiberry via the Parallel interface will not respond in the game.

Any ideas?

nemo93

hi @dwarfboysim! I will recommend you first to update Amiberry from source (from Retropie Setup) to ensure you run the latest code which comes with many fixes and improvements. Also ensure to update the XML file if you can and to have the recommended Kickstart in your BIOS folder.

About your specific issue I have to say I never tried to play with parallel ports ;-( Therefore I can only point you to the doc here and here in the hope it will help. If after ensuring you have updated Amiberry + check your KS roms and still facing issue you'll have to open a ticket on Amiberry's Github directly.

Dwarfboysim

@nemo93 I have raised an issue on the GitHub

luckyluca

Does Amiberry use fuzzy logic or would I need to rename the .lha files to match the xml filenames exactly?

Also if matching the name exactly, does sha1 need to match as well or is it ignored?

Thanks!

nemo93

@luckyluca hi. The .lha filenames must match xml. Same goes with sha1. This is because some lha versions do require some specific parameters the newer versions do not (or vice-versa).

That's it only if you want automatic settings to be applied. If you don't mind (or don't care) it's fine renaming the lha the way you want (not recommended though!).

luckyluca

@nemo93

thanks, it makes sense and that's what I was afraid of.

In the end I wrote a pairing tool that compares all my files' sha1 against the xml, and renamed the roms accordingly when found.

One more question, I have a set which says amiga1200 and another that says just amiga, containing similar if not the same games.
Are there games that are compiled specifically for the 1200? (not too familiar with amiga?

🙏

muldjord

@luckyluca It's probably AGA games (the graphics standard in A1200). Amiga games are, for the most part, compatible across units such as A500, A600 and A1200. But the games that require AGA requires an A1200 or other Amiga system with that chipset.

ibonihs

I set up a new RetroPie on a Pi 3B+ (v. 4.7.1), and downloaded the latest Amiberry (4.1.4). I then downloaded a set of my childhood's favorite games from the RetroPlay LHA set. To my surprise they boot very nicely from Retropie's GUI, you can set their meta data etc.

But - In my experience, UAE4ARM had almost perfect Amiga emulation on the Pi, but a lot of the games I tried on Amiberry had serious issues. Flashback had weird glitchy cinematics, Aladdin (AGA) was really slow throughout etc. (I tried to get the "latest" versions from RetroPlay)

Also, as default, my screen launches as a weird off-center off-screen zoomed letterbox in all games - how do I change this? Or force full screen on everything? Also, I'd like to swap my fire buttons on the Xbox 360 controller - as default it seems to be "B" instead of "A" which is more natural.

This is weird since isn't Amiberry just a version of UAE4ARM? What do I need to do to make it run better?

nemo93

@ibonihs hello! I take it you haven't relied on Retropie Setup to get latest Amiberry binary. This is not supported way at this time given there are still some outstanding issues with Amiberry 4.x especially on pi3.
=> Please rely on Retropie Setup to get a supported version (3.3).

Amiberry's core is based off WinUAE meaning the emulation (accuracy + performance) is great. To the point that I never consider using any other "core" on pi3/pi4. As I recall on pi3 some copperlist-intensive games could run a bit slow (eg. Jim Power comes to mind). However on a pi4 I do have fullspeed perfect emulation on the ~500 games I've been tested it with. I have no issue with Flashback nor with any other games mentioned.

The "lha packages" (also known as WHD packages) are the definite way to go for the Amiga emulation. It really simplifies the process and keeps everything tidy. The only requirement indeed is to ensure to get the latest version for such packages as they're being updated on a regular basis. Older packages might run flawless but no guarantee though not recommended.

Your screen issue is due to 4.x as it doesn't properly get some values from a specific conf file.
=> Reverting to 3.3 will fix that.

matp

Hi,

is it possible to set specific key settings in whdload_db to overide the ones set in amiberry with default uae? If so, would it be possible for someone to post an example of what this looks like please?

thank you!