Trying to build the ultimate Commodore/Amiga machine

Jiryn

I'm trying to build the ultimate Commodore/Amiga machine.

I have the Pi 4 8GB with the official USB C Power Adapter, and 2 8bit do controllers.
My current RetroPie Build is from a year back since I've not used my PI in a while.

Anyways, where should I state with the Amiga/Commodore build?
I tried just dumping Commodore roms a while ago, but none seems to work, same with DOS games, so I was confused if I even set the system up right.

As for the Amiga, which is better?
AmiBerry or PiMiga?

What should I use for later Amigas, and things like CD32/CDTV

Also, is the Pi 400 better than a straight Pi 4?
It seems to be slightly faster, but I read over on Amiberry it needs to be overclocked to 2ghz to make Amiga 500 emulation "Cycle perfect"

Thank you!

sirhenrythe5th

@Jiryn just brainstorming :D ->

i also use 2 8Bit-DO Controllers and love them. As far as you are building an "Amiga Machine" i personally would use my USB-Competition-Pros to be more authentic ;)
Amiberry should be the emulator of your choice, as it has the great option of using WHD-Loads ("*.lha"-files). No disc-changing and faster loading times as these are HDD-installs of the games.
Plus: all the games are launchable from ES, ideal for an AMIGA-Jukebox.
A Raspberry Pi4 will do!!! Even with just 1GB, no need for 8GB to run Amiga, or anything else concerning retropie.
No idea if "cycle perfect" emulation is important. I just want to play games and therefore i dont need an overclocked system to do this with Amiga/Amiberry. Even my Pi3B+ did this job very well.

Jiryn

@sirhenrythe5th
I honestly don't even know what Cycle Perfect Emulation even means.
As for the controllers, really whatever works.

I was going to buy the A500 Mini Amiga and Mini Commodore, but this just seemed more efficient since I've had my PI sitting around forever.
(I stopped using it save for GBA/GB and other hand held games since I got the Analog SNES/GEN etc)

I already have the 8gb model which is why I listed it.

sirhenrythe5th

@Jiryn said in Trying to build the ultimate Commodore/Amiga machine:

@sirhenrythe5th
As for the controllers, really whatever works.

Of course! I was just thinking about being as much authentic as possible when we are talking about an "Amiga Machine" :D
Did you have an Amiga back in the days? I had an A2000 and a lot of friends had the A500. There were no pads at all...we all had Quickshots first and after that...Competition Pros. Dozens of. It is THE Amiga-Joystick imo. ;D But of course you can use any input device of your choice.

I already have the 8gb model which is why I listed it.

i understood that. i just wanted to say that even a Pi3B+ with 1GB would have done the job. You were even talking about overclocking. Not necessary imo. For an Amiga-Machine based on the Pi you will need neither a lot of (OC-)CPU-Power, nor GBs of RAM.

Jiryn

@sirhenrythe5th
BIOS Question
Do they need the exact name?

For instance according to https://github.com/BlitterStudio/amiberry/wiki/Using-Amiberry-WHDBooter-with-RetroPie-(Step-2)

I need
Kickstart v1.2 rev 33.180 (1986)(Commodore)(A500-A1000-A2000).rom

the one I have is
[BIOS] Kickstart (USA, Europe) (v1.2 Rev 33.180) (A500, A2000).rom

All the BIOS files I found have a similar naming scheme.

sirhenrythe5th

@Jiryn i just had a look.
I dont have my Pi around here, but i have a Backup of all important files and folders on my smartphone ;D

I have 15 Kickstart-Roms in my /BIOS-Folder, but they are named a bit different (so i guess the name is not that important, it might depend on the hash(?))

In example my most used Kickstart 1.3 (i dont have 1.2 :/) is called:

"Kickstart-v1.3-rev34.5-1987-Commodore-A500-A1000-A2000-CDTV"

George Spiggott

I was so disappointed that the mini amiga's controller is not Bluetooth. The only game I had trouble running at full speed on my Pi4 was Alien Breed 3D 2. Kickstarts have a version number (vX.X) and a revision (revXX.XXX), if both are correct and the file is not corrupted you're good to go.

Jiryn

@George-Spiggott
I was just worried that since the name is slightly different, the emulator would not find it.

Jiryn

@George-Spiggott @sirhenrythe5th
Also, I am curious how it handles CDTV and Amiga 1200 and 500+ games.

jamrom2

@George-Spiggott how do you like the Amiga unit compared to running the same games on the Pi4. I have the C64 Maxi and I find the games run nearly identical to my Pi3 setup.

I run lr-puae2021 on my Pi3 and for the most part it will run every Amiga game, aside fromt the more complex ones, with some stuttering here and there.

Bonanza Bros gives me a lot of issues.

I like Amiberry because it's more dedicated, but even with the .lha setup I still had issues with controllers and some games just wouldn't run good. Plus I really like using shaders as it makes the games look more authentic.

Btw... Love your avatar. "TheBlack Rabbit of Inle". Very nice.

"Do you know me?"
"Yes...yes..my Lord, I do."

George Spiggott

@Jiryn I don't think Amiberry requires specific filenames for Kickstarts. The only problem you may have with CD32/CDTV is that some games took their sound directly from the CD. If you want the full experience for these games would will need to find CD images rather than WHDload files. There's very little difference between emulation for A500 and A1200 games. Were there any A500+ specific games? I don't recall any when I had my A500+ back in the day.

@jamrom2 I don't own an A500 mini, I would just like to own a Bluetooth CD32 pad, thus my disappointment. I'm not really into the hardware side much. I love that these old systems can now be recreated on credit card sized hardware.

I seem to recall that the CD32 version of Seek and Destroy ran a little slowly on my Pi3B+ and as I mentioned earlier it's difficult to get Alien Breed 3D 2 to run smoothly on a Pi4. On they Pi I was firmly attached to Amiberry but I don't have a Pi at the moment so I use the PUAE core on my Windows PC. Glad you like my Avatar.

If anyone has a Pi Zero 2 I'd be interested to hear how well Amiga games run on it.

jamrom2

@George-Spiggott using the lr- versions you can dumb down the system core a little, sometimes that helps with games that seem like they're slow, but actually the core is running too fast. I think Amiberry had that as well. It's not a cut and dry emulator on either side. Because it's emulating many versions of 1 name brand, and ever expanding versions of that product, you have to tweak it for different games. I had an A500 back in the day and I remember there were games I couldn't play because I didn't have the memory spex. The first time I ever came across that on a computer coming from using a C64. Then of course with PCs it was status quo.

Jiryn

@George-Spiggott I have the images, which is why I was curious and where do I put them.

jamrom2

@Jiryn

all properly named kickstart roms go in /home/BIOS

The game roms go in either /home/roms/Amiga or .../CD32

Jiryn

@sirhenrythe5th @jamrom2
Mine is named
"[BIOS] Kickstart (USA, Europe) (v1.3 Rev 34.005) (A500, A2000).rom"

So will I need to rename them?
I have 33 different KickStarts, do I drop them all in?

nemo93

@Jiryn I can only speak for Amiberry. Since version 5.x the KickStart roms must be stored at this location:

/home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/amiga

With recent Amiberry versions the KickStart rom name doesn't matter as only the hash is being checked. Therefore I did rename my 3 KickStart roms as follows:

kick13.rom
kick20.rom
kick31.rom

I'm only relying on those 3 files as listed there (the ones with the little checkmark) with my roughly 800 games testbed on a stock RPi4. This without issues. Games are a mix of (mostly) Amiga 500/1200 as well as some Amiga CD and CD32. Amiberry for the RPi does come with an autoconfiguration file for majority of games which makes it almost console-like experience. Drop the KickStart roms in /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/amiga, drop the games *.lha in /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/amiga and you're all set.

I have to admit I never tried any libretro UAE core but I'm sure this works great too as per @jamrom2. Plus you have all the fancy stuff included with RetroArch.

Irrespective of the emulator you chose the most important is that it's really easy now for any users to enjoy the good old memories of Amiga on RPi!

Hope this helps.

George Spiggott

@jamrom2 I use LR-PUAE on my PC and haven't had any problems.

jamrom2

@George-Spiggott who lot more horsepower under that hood than a Pi3b+. Lol.

Mopar big block to a Hyundai 4 cylinder. LOL.

jamrom2

@nemo93

Thanks for this Nemo. Seem as some of the cores get updated the BIOS files are moving into named folders.

George Spiggott

@jamrom2 I had very few issues with having enough power on my Pi3B+. I think the A500 version of Seek & Destroy will run at full speed (and take up much less room), I'm not sure about Alien Breed 3D2. I think Jim Power was a little slow as well. We're talking about a handful of games out of hundreds that run slowly.