Complete Guide for Commodore Amiga in HyperSpin and HL3

[rfancella]

Hello All!

This is my next installment for the amazing Commodore Amiga! (Fond memories)

Scope:

This guide is to help the community to setup a Commodore Amiga wheel in HyperSpin using:

HyperSpin v1.3.2.0

HyperLaunch v3.0.1.0

HyperLaunchHQ v1.0.12.0

WinUAE v2.6.1.0 - Dowload page: http://www.winuae.net/frames/download.html

WinUAE Loader v1.78 - Download page: http://headsoft.com.au/index.php?category=winuaeloader

Introduction:

The company (Amiga Corproation):

Taken from the WiKi page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_Corporation

Amiga Corporation was a United States computer company formed in the early 1980s as Hi-Toro. It is most famous for having developed the Amiga computer, code named Lorraine.

In the early 1980s Jay Miner, along with other Atari staffers, had become fed up with management and decamped. In September 1982, they set up another chip-set project under a new company in Santa Clara, California, called Hi-Toro (which meant "high bull" to them, later renamed to Amiga), where they could have some creative freedom. There, they started to create a new 68000-based games console, codenamed Lorraine, that could be upgraded to a full-fledged computer. The initial start-up financing of Amiga Corporation was provided by three dentists in Florida, who later regained their investment once Commodore bought the company.

The computer Amiga:

Taken from the WiKi page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga

The Amiga was a family of personal computers sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities. The Amiga provided a significant upgrade from 8-bit computers, such as the Commodore 64, and the platform quickly grew in popularity among computer enthusiasts. The best selling model, the Amiga 500, was introduced in 1987 and became the leading home computer of the late 1980s and early 1990s in much of Western Europe. In North America success was more modest. The Amiga went on to sell approximately six million units. Second generation Amiga systems (the A1200 and the A4000) were released in 1992. However, poor marketing and failure to repeat the technological advances of the first systems meant that the Amiga quickly lost its market share to competing platforms, such as the fourth generation game consoles, Apple Macintosh and IBM PC compatibles. The name Amiga was chosen because it is the Spanish word for (female) friend, and alphabetically it appears before Apple in lists of computer makers. Originally it was a project with Atari called Lorraine, so therefore the female was used instead of the male and general version Amigo.

Ok, let's get started:

Download both WinUAE and WinUAE Loader from the links above.

Extract them both in seperate folders in your emulators directory. For this example I will use the following directory structure:

H:\HyperSpin\Emulators\WinUAE\winuae.exe - WinUAE emulator
H:\HyperSpin\Emulators\WinUAE\rom - Amiga boot and OS roms
H:\HyperSpin\Emulators\WinUAELoader\WinUAELoader.exe - WinUAE Loader executable
H:\HyperSpin\Emulators\WinUAELoader\WHD\S - Optional place to put your WHDLoad.key registration file (if you own WHDLoad):  [url]http://whdload.de/[/url]
H:\HyperSpin\Emulators\WinUAELoader\WHD\Devs\Kickstarts - Place your Amiga Kickstart roms here.
H:\Roms\Commodore Amiga - Where I placed my WHDLoad instillations of the games in zip format.

Once the two archives are extracted. Put your boot and OS roms in the H:\HyperSpin\Emulators\WinUAE\rom directory. You will have to create this directory.

These files can be extracted from you Amiga or through purchasing Amiga Forever (please support developers) here: http://www.amigaforever.com/

If you have purchased WHDLoad (always support developers!) they would have sent you a WHDLoad.key file. Place it an your modified (if you care to) WHDLoad.prefs file in the H:\HyperSpin\Emulators\WinUAELoader\WHD\S directory (this is the startup directory for the Amiga):

Navigate to H:\HyperSpin\Emulators\WinUAELoader\WHD\Devs\Kickstarts and copy all your Amiga Kickstart roms there:

That's it for the prep work. On to setting up the emulator and launcher.

Starting WinUAE and the Launcher:

You will need to run WinUAE and WinUAE Launcher and set your paths. I'm not 100% sure that all these steps are mandatory, but they worked for me.

Navigate to H:\HyperSpin\Emulators\WinUAE and run the emulator. It will come up to the Quickstart menu.

Click on Paths in the upper left of the screen:

Below all the path settings is a dropdown, change it to "WinUAE default (EXE directory)" and hit the "Reset to defaults" button. That should set all the above paths to your WinUAE directory:

Hit the "Rescan ROMs" button and it should find the boot and OS roms:

Click the "OK" button and then click the "Quit" button at the bottom left.

Now, navigate to H:\HyperSpin\Emulators\WinUAELoader and run the executable there.

The first time you run it, you will need to set your paths.

Click on the "Paths" tab on the top.

Set your WinUAE Exe location and WHDLoad folder:

Then click on the "Config" tab and set your ROM Folder to the location of your boot and OS roms:

Hit the "Generate UAE Files" button.

Click the "Input" tab and (as per the module notes) click the "Force WHDLoad Close" checkbox on and change the "Close Timeout" to "0" Secs. Make sure your "Global Exit Key:" is "27". You can also, at this time, go ahead and setup your Input Mappings appropriatley:

Click the "Settings" tab on the top.

check all the check boxes in the Display Options" section (as per the module notes) and change the dropdown from "Windowed" to "Fullscreen":

You can also set any other settings in the other tabs that apply. I had to make no other changes for mine to work. Close out WinUAE Loader.

Now to test.

Testing the Loader and emu:

Because I did not get all the pre-required files for WinUAE Loader to run on it's own, I tested by command line to make sure everything is working and configured correctly.

I opened a command line on my PC by clicking Start --> Run

Enter cmd and hit OK. This will open a black "DOS Box" and type:

H:\HyperSpin\Emulators\WinUAELoader\WinUAELoader.exe -mode whdload -game "H:\Roms\Commodore Amiga\1000Miglia_v1.1b.zip"

This should launch the game 1000 Miglia through WinUAE using WinUAE Loader. Exit the game with the "Esc" key and on to setting up HyperSpin and HyperLaunchHQ.

Setup your wheel in HyperHQ:

Navigate to H:\HyperSpin and launch HyperHQ to setup your new Commodore Amiga wheel. Be sure and name it "Commodore Amiga" so HLHQ will find it and everything will be green (super green).

Click the Main Menu Wizard tab and add your system. Once the wheel is created, click Wheel Settings and choose Commodore Amiga in the dropdown.

Set your "Rom Path:" and "Extensions:" as shown below:

Next you can optionaly set your Wheel Filters in the Navigation/Themes tab:

Also, set your path to your Amiga preview videos in the Video tab.

Close out HyperHQ and open up HyperLaunchHQ.

Setup the system in HLHQ:

Navigate to H:\HyperSpin\HyperLaunch\HyperLaunchHQ and start HLHQ.

Make sure GLOBAL is selected on the top left.

Click the Emulators tab on top and scroll through the list to find WinUAE Loader. Double click and set your path to WinUAE Loader:

Now, click on Commodore Amiga on the left hand side.

Click on the Settings tab on top and in the Main Settings sub-tab, set 7z - Enabled to false:

Click on the Emulators tab on the top.

Hit the green plus next to Rom Paths and set the path to your Amiga roms.

Select your Default Emulator as WinUAE Loader [Global]:

Click on the Games tab on top and click the "Audit All the games for this sytem" button (round blue play button). If your database xml matches your roms, the games you have should show up green (super green). To test, select one of the games and try to launch it through HLHQ.

If the game launches and exits correctly, you are done.

Bring up HyperSpin and test your new wheel.

That should do it!

Troubleshooting:

Member kyoken reported when some games are launched, the run too fast to be playable:

http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/forum/showthread.php?30367-Complete-Guide-for-Commodore-Amiga-in-HyperSpin-and-RL&p=288773&viewfull=1#post288773

His fix applied information from another thread:

(extracted from here http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/forum/showthread.php?28637-Winuae-games-run-fast, thanks to Marcoqwerty) I don´t know why but, whdload overwrite any winuae config, edit :\Hyperspin\Emulators\WinUAELoader\Data\whdload.xml with notepad and replace cpu_cycle_exact=false to cpu_cycle_exact=true and and that´s it

So, navigate to H:\HyperSpin\Emulators\WinUAELoader\Data:

Open the file whdload.xml in NotePad or your favorite text editor and do a "Global Search & Replace", in NotePad it's Edit --> Replace. In the Find What: field, put in:

cpu_cycle_exact=false

In the Replace with: field, put in:

cpu_cycle_exact=true

And hit the Replace All button.

This should find and replace 2652 occurances of the string. Save the file and test.

Thank you all for taking the time to read through this guide.

Any comments or corrections will be greatly appreciated!

Thank you,

Ron Fancella

[brolly]

I still don't get why people are using WinUAELoader, completely unneeded besides will limit the amount of games you can play.

[horseyhorsey]

I still don't get why people are using WinUAELoader, completely unneeded besides will limit the amount of games you can play.

How can we be limited with the multiple emus games.ini? Impossible

[brolly]

Why using multiple emus when you can simply use WinUAE and run all the games you need? adf,whd,hdf,etc.

Each time a new slave is done you need to manually add it to the WinUAELoader xml file otherwise it won't be supported, and this is just one example of the problems of going the WinUAELoader route.

[horseyhorsey]

That's true mate, but its boiling down to lazyness, myself included. I did enough work on fixing whd.xml before to not want to touch it again.

Any games that I'd missed from whd, I added to a adf xml to keep seperate. It's such a small amount of adf that I wanted, so yeah, really I should pull the finger out and get it swapped over & merged into UAE & FS-UAE. You make sense.

With that said and about this tutorial , most people don't seem to struggle with the loader, unlike they can do with the normal Win-UAE config. But still , the new HL module probably does all that "hard" work for you.

[rfancella]

Not even a quarter done and already comments?

I plan on making another guide for just WinUAE alone. This was just the first route I took when I setup the Amiga wheel on my cab. As with any guide I write, or anything having to do with emulation, this is just one out of "Billions" of ways to do it.

Thanks,

Ron

[brolly]

Actually you got comments when you weren't even started posting the actual tutorial part lol

Anyway thanks for taking the time to write this guide, but I still don't see the point on using a loader on a module, that's the whole point of a module to be a loader

You can use the WinUAE module and get rid of all the issues you'll get along the road with the loader. Yeah you might need to change some settings in WinUAE horsey, but this gives you a lot more configuration power and it's actually easier than needing to edit the WinUAELoader XML manually every time a WHDLoad game is updated (filename changes) or you add a new game.

But hey if people are happy with using the loader then use it by all means.

[sic]

Nice guide, should help alot of Amiga fans to get up and running ?

[gigapig]

When I first setup Amiga with winuaeloader the winuae module wasn't available was it? The loader was an easy setup option.

I will give the other module a go.

Ron, my only pearl of wisdom is, remember to off 7z in HLHQ as the loader does the extracting.

Thanks for taking the time out to do another great guide.

[rfancella]

Ron, my only pearl of wisdom is, remember to off 7z in HLHQ as the loader does the extracting

Gig,

Good catch! I already had 7z Enabled set to false.

Thanks,

Ron

[potts43]

Great tutorial...I'm interested in all you do they are very helpful.

Look forward to the non loader route as it's a system I'm going to try soon

[rfancella]

Thank you Potts!

Speaking of Amiga, does anyone have any other Main Menu wheel art for the Amiga? The one I am currently using has all black letters for "Amiga" and doesn't show on a black background.

Thanks,

Ron

[gigapig]

Speaking of Amiga, does anyone have any other Main Menu wheel art for the Amiga? The one I am currently using has all black letters for "Amiga" and doesn't show on a black background.

Thanks,

Ron

What Colour do you want?

[rfancella]

Yea, I like the all red one. Thanks Gig!

(Way to hijack my own thread)

Ron

[nogarth]

Nice tutorial there mate

Sent from my GT-N7105 using Tapatalk

[kyoken]

Nice!, but Winuae go too fast for me through whdloader,(AMD 6800k), and i have to change cpu_cycle_exact=true to all games in WHDload.xml then it works 100% thanks!

[rfancella]

Nice!, but Winuae go too fast for me through whdloader,(AMD 6800k), and i have to change cpu_cycle_exact=true to all games in WHDload.xml then it works 100% thanks!

Kyoken,

Thanks so much for the input. I'll put it in the guide.

Thanks,

Ron

[rfancella]

Nice!, but Winuae go too fast for me through whdloader,(AMD 6800k), and i have to change cpu_cycle_exact=true to all games in WHDload.xml then it works 100% thanks!

Where did you find that setting? Did you edit an ini file directly? If so, which file and where is that file located?

Thanks,

Ron

[Shauku]

I´m not sure, why anyone need the loader. I just create *.uae files with alle disks loaded and key-/hardware settings i need. So i just have to doubleclick the uae files for a gamelaunch.

All works fine, until i download the newest HS & HL version. Now i get this error message every time:

Could not locate a section called [winuae.exe] in your Global Emulators.ini or Amiga\Emulators.ini

Now i´m confused.

C:\HyperSpin\HyperLaunch\Settings\Global Emulators.ini:

[WinUAE]
Emu_Path=..\..\WinUAE\winuae.exe
Rom_Extension=7z|zip|adf|info|uae
Module=WinUAE.ahk
HyperPause_Save_State_Keys=
HyperPause_Load_State_Keys=

C:\HyperSpin\HyperLaunch\Settings\Amiga\Emulators.ini:

[Roms]
Emu_Path=C:\WinUAE\winuae.exe
rompath=C:\WinUAE\Configurations\
Default_Emulator=winuae.exe
Rom_Path=..\..\WinUAE\Configurations

[WinUAE]
Emu_Path=..\..\WinUAE\winuae.exe
Rom_Extension=7z|zip|adf|info|uae
Module=WinUAE.ahk
HyperPause_Save_State_Keys=
HyperPause_Load_State_Keys=

Yes, you are right... the Path is C:\WinUAE\winuae.exe . Any idea, why i get an error?!

[rfancella]

Is this using WinUAELoader for the EMU or WinUAE??

Thanks,

Ron

[kyoken]

(extracted from here http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/forum/showthread.php?28637-Winuae-games-run-fast, thanks to Marcoqwerty) I don´t know why but, whdload overwrite any winuae config, edit :\Hyperspin\Emulators\WinUAELoader\Data\whdload.xml with notepad and replace cpu_cycle_exact=false to cpu_cycle_exact=true and and that´s it

Where did you find that setting? Did you edit an ini file directly? If so, which file and where is that file located?

Thanks,

Ron

[rfancella]

Sweet! Thanks Kyoken!

Ron

[rfancella]

(extracted from here http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/forum/showthread.php?28637-Winuae-games-run-fast, thanks to Marcoqwerty) I don´t know why but, whdload overwrite any winuae config, edit :\Hyperspin\Emulators\WinUAELoader\Data\whdload.xml with notepad and replace cpu_cycle_exact=false to cpu_cycle_exact=true and and that´s it

Kyoken,

Thanks again for your help. Couple more questions, if you don't mind.

What game ran fast? All of them?

Did you do a Global Search And Replace for that value?

I have tried a couple differnet games and they all run fine on my desktop PC.

Thanks,

Ron

[kyoken]

oldest games, like barbarian, amazing spiderman, captain america & spiderman in dr dooms revenge run very very fast (unplayable)(a500 games)

[BoOgieman]

Great work on the tutorial, very useful!

I know from my own experience that this is quite a trip to get it up and running...