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

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!

George Spiggott

I preferred to use 4.x even with the minor glitching due to the improved full screen handling with KMS. Sadly last time I tried to update I found the script I was using no longer works.

Stuffu

Any update on amiberry 4? I know it wasn’t working as expected before but a lot of fixes has been done since and quite recently 4.1.6 was released.

Will there be a binary in current state?

nemo93

@all the new Amiberry is there (v5)! There will be an effort to get it integrated into Retropie. I can only test on Pi4 therefore any feedback from other Pi's versions will be appreciated.

EDIT: I've slightly edited the OP to add the step-by-step guide to upgrade to v5 for those of you who can't wait to get it added to Retropie!

moonston333

hi all

ive just went back to playing whdload amiga games on my pi3 and PC
im just wondering how do i bypass the protection screen on games.

its just some games i tried they load up and then get to a screen where they ask me to enter a code or word from the manual of the game.

anyone have this same issue thanks in advance

nemo93

@moonston333 can you please mention the games you got this issue with? In some (most?) packages the protection has been removed and entering any characters followed by enter should just work. Other example is Another World where you can simply select any drawings 3 times and you'll get to the main screen.

nemo93

Testing of the new 5.x version is looking good. Thus far I haven't found a single issue. Overall the emulation is really great (at least on my Pi4 with current Retropie 4.8 - 32-bit Buster with fake KMS).

I'm using that post to thank Buzz and cmitu big time for the huge effort to update the script allowing Amiberry 5.x to be updated/compiled without troubles on Retropie. Thank you!

Some fixes have been pushed to master branch recently and should be ported to 5.1 tag in the coming hours. This 5.1 tag has to be the one used by Retropie's install script to get the best experience.

Couple of comments for the record:

update from 3.3 is seamless. Remember to move your kickstart roms to the Retropie $BIOS/amiga new folder
display settings (width/height/autoheight) can still be fetched from the external XML...
...or from amiberry.conf (global settings). If you already have an existing .uae this one will take precedence.
CPU/Chipset and few other settings are still fetched from XML
there's a new "auto-crop" feature which resizes the screen to the best values automatically. (works best on SDL2)
CHD support. Therefore if you have CD32 images that format will help to save some space and keep things tidy
8Mb of Fast RAM (Z2) is now set by default
run games from a real floppy drive connected to a Greaseweazle board

Hereafter the settings to be set in amiberry.conf. Those are definitely recommended if you're new to Amiga and/or don't want to spend time on the configuration. If you're an advanced user and got .uae config files don't worry these will still take precedence. Amiberry will check for settings in that order: .uae > whdload_db.xml > amiberry.conf

default_horizontal_centering=yes
default_vertical_centering=yes
default_auto_crop=yes
default_width=720
default_height=568
default_whd_writecache=yes
allow_display_settings_from_xml=yes

I'll keep on updating that thread. Feel free to post any feedback.

vretro

Thanks for all the efforts to bring Amiberry 5.1 to Retropie (Available now in a binary update)

yserra

Thank you so much to all the team.

During my first tests, I could check that:

so far, all ADF work as expected (automatic selection of A500/A1200 configuration when running non-AGA/AGA games from ES)
WHDload games now let you select training options with a real mouse when they start (you don't have anymore to create a separate configuration with port0=mouse for each WHDload game). I experimented some rare screen flashing with Chaos Engine 2 (Retroarch booting screen appears during a fraction of a second)
booting on real floppy disks from a Greaseweazle board now work! Actually, "Normal" mode seems to be the best option, since "Fast", "Turbo", or "accurate" modes don't show any observable acceleration nor reliability. By the way, I experimented some failure with track loading demos like the famous State of the Art (this one works perfectly from an .adf).

My configuration: Raspberry Pi 4B, with 4GB RAM, external USB hard drive, USB mouse, 2x USB "PS3" gamepads, original Amiga 1000 keyboard connected to USB through an Arduino Leonardo board, and the latest RetroPie on May 4th, 2022.