[Guide] Getting EmulationStation to work with FS-UAE

youxia

I thought Amiberry solution is presently the best one regarding Amiga?

silver

@youxia said in Guide: Getting EmulationStation to work with FS-UAE:

I thought Amiberry solution is presently the best one regarding Amiga?

I've never tried it. If it works better for you, then great.

Clyde

@silver Thanks for this thread. Although I'm not currently planning to play Amiga games on my Retropie-based arcade cabinet, I'm using fs-uae on my Laptop and my PC running Kubuntu Linux.

@youxia I don't know Amiberry, but fs-uae has two outstanding features: the OpenRetro database for metadata, multiple disk mounting etc., and fs-uae's own graphical frontend fs-uae-arcade:

All of the metadata seen in the video, e.g. the boxart, screenshots etc., is scraped by fs-uae-arcade on the fly from OpenRetro while browsing if there's an internet connection. edit: Once scraped, it is stored locally for further use.

I don't know if the frontend works in Retropie, though, and @silver's guide doesn't use it either, but runs fs-uae from Emulation Station.

youxia

@silver I'm simply curious, there's no need to get prissy about it.
I suppose my fault is that I forget sometimes that people use Retropie/ES on platforms other than RPi.

@Clyde I see, though as I mentioned ^^ I'm looking from the RPi perspective. Amiberry is probably a recommended Amiga solution here, since it's constantly updated and oriented towards Raspberry and WHDLoad packs. These already solve the multi-disk and config problems.

Clyde

@youxia said in Guide: Getting EmulationStation to work with FS-UAE:

@Clyde I see, though as I mentioned ^^ I'm looking from the RPi perspective. Amiberry is probably a recommended Amiga solution here, since it's constantly updated and oriented towards Raspberry and WHDLoad packs. These already solve the multi-disk and config problems.

I see, too. It's always interesting how the same problems can be solved by different approaches. Thanks for the information.

silver

@clyde said in Guide: Getting EmulationStation to work with FS-UAE:

@silver Thanks for this thread. Although I'm not currently planning to play Amiga games on my Retropie-based arcade cabinet, I'm using fs-uae on my Laptop and my PC running Kubuntu Linux.

Not to worry :) Funnily enough, I'm using FS-UAE on an old laptop with Linux Mint and the RetroPie scripts.

I don't know if the frontend works in Retropie, though, and @silver's guide doesn't use it either, but runs fs-uae from Emulation Station.

The fs-uae frontend is pretty good.

However, to be honest, the main reason I wrote the scripts was because all my other games were being launched from EmulationStation and I wanted to keep the consistent user interface with the Amiga ones.

I don't pretend that FS-UAE will be the best for everyone (especially if you're running on a Raspberry Pi) but, for those that are running it and want a nice integration with EmulationStation, I thought it might be useful.

Clyde

@silver said in Guide: Getting EmulationStation to work with FS-UAE:

However, to be honest, the main reason I wrote the scripts was because all my other games were being launched from EmulationStation and I wanted to keep the consistent user interface with the Amiga ones.

That's what I thought. That said, do you happen to know if the frontend of fs-uae works on the Raspbian-based Retropie? Just curious, but (yet?) not curious enough to try it out myself without practical reason. 😇

I don't pretend that FS-UAE will be the best for everyone (especially if you're running on a Raspberry Pi) but, for those that are running it and want a nice integration with EmulationStation, I thought it might be useful.

"Best" is relative anyway. In most cases, it's synonym to "best for", and next to nothing is best for everyone. Well, maybe apart from air, but only if you limit "everyone" to air-breathers. But I digress. 😊

silver

@clyde said in Guide: Getting EmulationStation to work with FS-UAE:

That's what I thought. That said, do you happen to know if the frontend of fs-uae works on the Raspbian-based Retropie? Just curious, but (yet?) not curious enough to try it out myself without practical reason. 😇

No idea I'm afraid, sorry!

silver

Thanks everyone for your feedback. Changes I've made:

I've added a reference that this isn't the best solution for people using a Raspberry Pi.
I've trimmed down the code and inserted it into the post - so that you don't have to download it from another site
I've added references for modifying both the global and the local es_systems.cfg file
I've corrected some typos and spelling mistakes in the instructions
Although I've hardcoded the paths into the script, given that these are the default FS-UAE and EmulationStation paths, it should make it even easier to use

Enjoy.

Clyde

@silver Where can one find the updated script? Your opening post still shows as last edited seven days ago.

@silver said in [Guide] Getting EmulationStation to work with FS-UAE:

Although I've hardcoded the paths into the script, given that these are the default FS-UAE and EmulationStation paths, it should make it even easier to use

Since you defined them at the top of the script, I don't see a problem with that either.

silver

@clyde said in [Guide] Getting EmulationStation to work with FS-UAE:

@silver Where can one find the updated script? Your opening post still shows as last edited seven days ago.

Odd, I only just updated it now! I think that might be something to do with the forum software?

@silver said in [Guide] Getting EmulationStation to work with FS-UAE:

Although I've hardcoded the paths into the script, given that these are the default FS-UAE and EmulationStation paths, it should make it even easier to use

Since you defined them at the top of the script, I don't see a problem with that either.

I was hoping that, so good to know :) I still think the installation instructions are overly complicated as I think the majority of people will just have one account running EmulationStation with the default locations. In which case it should just be "save these files, copy to /usr/local/bin/, set permissions and you're done".

Would be good to know your thoughts?

silver

Blow it, I've updated the instructions based on those assumptions :)

I think anyone who has changed the defaults will know what to change to get it working.

Clyde

@silver Forget what I wrote, I just mistook the creation date for the editing date. The latter shows when you hover the mouse pointer over the little edited sign behind the creation date.

Your instructions are already well structured, I think, and some things can't be shortened much more without becoming unintelligible.

One thing I noticed that won't concern many common users in my opinion is the system-wide placement you describe. I usually advise less experienced users to put scripts into ~/bin for global access, because most of them only have one user account. Experienced users don't require that information anyway.

silver

Added a bunch of updates just to make things clearer, plus added some commentary to the code so people understand what it's actually doing.

werpu

Thanks for the guide it was really helpful to move my collection over to fs-uae, there are several small issues
a) The db already must exist, so fire up fs-uae-launcher first and import/scan your games
b) There is a small bug in the regexp file=echo $name | sed -e 's/[^a-z0-9\._\-&]/ /gi' | tr -s ' ' the & should be escaped aka \&
c) Third on localized machines, Documents will become something else, aka on german machines Documents now is Dokumente, they localized the paths after user home. Not sure if there is a generic way to query them.
I just wanted to drop the info.

noise

@silver said in [Guide] Getting EmulationStation to work with FS-UAE:

@youxia said in Guide: Getting EmulationStation to work with FS-UAE:

I thought Amiberry solution is presently the best one regarding Amiga?

I've never tried it. If it works better for you, then great.

that's right but Amiberry is only ARM, not possible at this time with x64.

the guide is fine, except running with my adf files.. (i need to do it manually) thanks for it. (y)

silver

@noise said in [Guide] Getting EmulationStation to work with FS-UAE:

the guide is fine, except running with my adf files.. (i need to do it manually)

Glad to hear you found the guide helpful!

Regarding the issue you have with ADF files, can you explain a little more?

If I can solve your problem by improving the script then I'm more than happy to do so.

noise

@silver
if that does not too much circumstances to you, with pleasure

i try to start a fs-uae file, but no work it starts only the launcher itself.
(here i give all other right, Amiberry is much better with starting from uae files)

it is not posible to start a fs-uae file like this, only with uuids ?
open internal with fs-uae starts the game

[fs-uae]
accelerator_memory = 262144
bsdsocket_library = 0
chip_memory = 8192
cpu = 68000
floppy_drive_0 = GAME.ADF
floppy_drive_speed = 0
floppy_drive_volume_empty = 5
graphics_memory = 262144
network_card = a2065
slow_memory = 1536
sound_card = toccata

also have a few lha files that not working with fs-uae, however on rasperry with amiberry worked fine.

Edit: the only way i got to start a adf from emulationstation are with a .sh script with the command

fs-uae --floppy-drive-0=GAME.ADF --fullscreen

but this needs to replace the runcommand to default.
is there a simple terminal command to run a .lha file ?
i try:

fs-uae --amiga_model=A1200 --accelerator_memory=262144 --bsdsocket_library=0 --fast_memory=8192 --floppy_drive_speed=0 --floppy_drive_volume=3 --floppy_drive_volume_empty=0 graphics_memory=262144 --slow_memory=1536 --fullscreen --fullscreen=1 --fullscreen_mode=desktop --hard_drive_0=game.lha --x_whdload_args=game.slave PRELOAD

but no success

the fs-uae config file from launcher start the game with:

[fs-uae]
accelerator_memory = 262144
amiga_model = A1200/3.0
bsdsocket_library = 0
chip_memory = 8192
cpu = 68000
fast_memory = 8192
floppy_drive_speed = 0
floppy_drive_volume_empty = 5
graphics_memory = 262144
hard_drive_0 = game.lha
network_card = a2065
platform = amiga
slow_memory = 1536
sound_card = toccata
x_whdload_args = game.Slave PRELOAD

silver

@noise Sorry, I'm probably not going to be much help. lha is an Amiga archive format and it's not something I've seen used before to compress disk images for running via emulation.

My instructions will stop EmulationStation from displaying any Amiga games which don't end in fs-uae and then cause runcommand to launch my script which itself launches fs-uae-launcher with the correct UUID.

If you need to run a different command line for certain image formats, then you'll need to modify the create-fs-uae-uuids script to examine the database for the correct filetype and then write out a custom script as the name of the game.

In the coming weeks I'll have a play and see if I can recreate the issue you're having. Sorry I can't be much more help.

silver

Following on from this, a couple of people have asked me if it's possible to separate out the Amiga, CD32 and CDTV games.

It is possible and you only need to make a simple one line change in create-fs-uae-uuids.

Look for the following line:

sqlite3 "$database" "select name,year,uuid from 'game' where have=4" | while read line ;

If you want only Amiga games change it to:

sqlite3 "$database" "select name,year,uuid from 'game' where have=4 and platform='Amiga'" | while read line ;

If you want only CD32 games change it to:

sqlite3 "$database" "select name,year,uuid from 'game' where have=4 and platform='CD32'" | while read line ;

And if you want only CDTV games change it to:

sqlite3 "$database" "select name,year,uuid from 'game' where have=4 and platform='CDTV'" | while read line ;

Save the file, re-run and enjoy.

If you're feeling particularly adventurous, then you could always update the SQL to include the platform, save that as a variable and then write out the UUIDs to a different location depending on the platform - but I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader :)