Heya!
This is an AMIGA emulation helper guide in 4 steps that you can follow if you wanna be able to play amiga games on your computer or just need some help on the subject. Though there are no AMIGA roms hosted on this site, I thought maybe some of the members here could benefit from a helpful thread on the subject. Maybe it could even help some users here find a new side to emulation and new classic games to play.
At the bottom of this guide, I've made up (!) a FAQ list of questions that I've at least imagined people could ask when trying out their emulator.
Index :
- What is an AMIGA / AMIGA Emulator?
Step 1 - Getting an AMIGA Emulator
Step 2 - Getting the kickstart rom(s)
Step 3 - Downloading Games!
Step 4 - Configuring UAE & playing your games!
Final Words
What is an AMIGA / AMIGA Emulator?
Amiga is a line of computers manufactured by Amiga Incorporated. They were mostly used as "advanced game consoles" and were popular from the 80s up until the earlier 90s, especially in Europe. Games were then distributed on amiga floppies. The Monkey Island 2 game a friend had used 12 of them! Quite a lot of popular game titles were made for the computers, sometimes along with distributions for other systems as well. A few examples of popular titles are Monkey Island 1 & 2, Defenders of the Crown, James Pond 2 : Robocod, Superfrog & It came from the Desert.
An AMIGA emulator is, of course, a program that has the potential to emulate the different systems making us able to run the old AMIGA games and programs. However, since AMIGA is a line of computers and not a single system, it's a bit trickier than emulating a console like a Super Nintendo since they had variations in chipset, etc.
Step 1 - Getting an AMIGA Emulator
UAE (Unix Amiga Emulator) is a free emulator that emulates several Amiga systems and though it won't work everytime, it will more often than not. It seems to be the most popular and compatible Amiga emulator anyone's been able to make and distribute so far. Though it was originally made to run on unix, it's been ported to other systems such as Linux and Microsoft Windows. I'm assuming readers of this guide make use of this program.
- http://www.winuae.net - This is the official homepage for the Windows version. Contains information & program files.
http://www.freiburg.linux.de/~uae - This is the official homepage for the original version.
You should download the UAE version you need from any of those two sites. There is also another, much easier to use, AMIGA emulator out called Fellow. While UAE has the highest compatibility and emulates more systems than the Fellow emulator, there is a slight chance you may run into circumstances where Fellow will more easily emulate a game that you're having trouble with in UAE. Therefore, it might be beneficial if you get both.
- http://fellow.sourceforge.net - The developer website. The download links do not work as I'm writing this.
ADDED : "Amiga Inside" - Thanks to wizburf for sharing this. Someone has taken the liberty of fitting the UAE program in a bundle with all the kickstart roms you're gonna need. They call it "Amiga Inside". As far as I know, this is not an active project and I haven't been able to locate the files on any sites, but you might wanna look around on fileshare.
The version I got a hold of had UAE version 1.0.0 (not the latest, that is) and if you're wondering why you might wanna get this is because it gives you the kickstart roms and that lets you skip the next step in this guide. If you don't want to or the link doesn't work etc, go to the next step.
Step 2 - Getting the kickstart rom(s)
PS! If you managed to download and install the "Amiga Inside" bundle mentioned at the bottom of step 1, you already have these kickstart roms.
So you got the program and think you're ready to play some games, but it's not that simple! In order to work it's magic, your emulator will need a kickstart rom file ( often called "kick.rom" ). It is a rom file that contains the basic AMIGA OS and since it's copyrighted by Amiga Inc, it does not come with the program. On top of that, there are several versions of the file for the different systems so in order to play the games you get your hands on, chances are you'll want the different versions for maximum compatibility.
Where to start? Distributing the files is illegal so finding them on sites is hard, but they are included in the "Amiga Inside" bundle mentioned at the bottom of step 3, so try that out first. As an alternative, if you have a p2p fileshare program like f.ex eMule, try searching for "kickstart" or "kickstart rom" and chances are you'll find a .zip or .rar archive containing all the kickstart roms you'll need. If you have a torrent program like bitcomet f.ex, then try searching torrent sites for working torrents. I doubt it'll be as easy, but ..
When you get the files, put them someplace practical .. Like UAE's own folder or maybe a subdirectory from there called "kickstart roms".
Step 3 - Downloading Games!
Since the old AMIGA games were distributed on Amiga floppies, games often come in several .adf files (Amiga Disk Format, actually disk dumps, not roms). Just how many can vary from game to game, so it can be a good idea to give each game it's own folder.
Some sites that host AMIGA games and resources are :
http://amiga.emucamp.com - AMI Sector One - Fairly straightforward, has some roms.
http://www.server2-amiga-island.de - Amiga Island - german site, but easy to figure out and some nice content.
http://www.amigames.de - Amiga Games - German, messy site, seemingly hosts a lot of games.
http://borrowedtime.emuunlim.com - Borrowed Time - Strictly legal site, it seems .. has very few games as a result.
http://www.amigapower.tk - Amiga Power - Not very descriptive, but has plenty of games for download.
http://www.back2roots.org - Back 2 the roots - Hard to navigate through, seems to contain a lot of game compilation disks.
http://uaefiles.cjb.net - The UAE Files Archive - Big archive of links to where games can be found, but does not seem to host files.
http://www.cinemaware.com - Cinemaware - Made games like "It came from the desert" and "Defenders of the Crown".
http://www.factor5.com - Factor 5 - Not many titles, but they made BCkid, wich is a lot of fun.
Step 4 - Configuring UAE & playing your games!
Now, start up the emulator. When the program has opened, click "paths" from the menu on the left hand. Make sure that the path to the ROMS folder is pointing to where you keep your kickstart roms, then press the "rescan roms" button at the bottom. Also make sure the other paths are right.
Time to try it out! Click "quickstart" from the menu on the left. At the top, you can see what model and chipset the program will try to emulate. If the game does not load properly, try switching to another model and try again. Most often, you can make an unworking rom work by fiddling around with these settings.
At the bottom, you'll see two boxes for mounting .adf files. Typically, you'll mount game file nr.1 in the first and nr.2 in the second if there is one. Sometimes the second box "won't work" with certain games and it'll ask that you insert the next disk. If so, press F12 to bring up the program screen and just mount the next disk in the first box. When you've located the files, press the "OK" button at the bottom of the screen. If you've already loaded one game and wanna load another, locate the right file(s) and press "reset" on the bottom left.
( If you have an old version of UAE and don't wanna get the new one, then this archive might help you if you have problems getting your games running -> http://home.online.no/~tematek/acons.zip
It is a .zip archive that I am generously hosting and it contains configuration files for UAE. Unzip these files to your emulators configuration subfolder (ex. c:\games\emulators\Amiga\WinUAE\configurations). Theres a chance you might have a couple of these files already, I just zipped what I had. If your old version does not already have it's own configurations, you can choose to load any of these in the program. There's a slight chance they might do better than the configs in the latest version as well in some circumstances, but it's very doubtful. )
Frequently Asked Questions :
- When I try to load a game, I get a dialogue box saying that a kickstart rom is missing. Why?
Either you don't have a kickstart rom file or you've misplaced it. If you don't have one, then follow the instructions in step 2 until you have one. If you do have one, make sure it's in the place you want it to be (f.ex the program directory) and make sure that the ROM path under "paths" in the program config is pointing to the directory containing it.
- When I try to load a game, nothing happens, I get software failure, graphic glitches, etc.
If you're having trouble with a game, try and switch around the model settings under the "Quickstart" options in the program. There are also some chip settings there that you can play around with. Usually, it's possible to make something work if you have the patience for it.
- I'm emulating, but how do I get back to the program options?
Press F12.
- what keys am I supposed to use?
Under the program options on the left hand (press F12 if the program is emulating), click "Game & I/O ports". Joystick will by default be the port 1 option with 2, 4, 6 & 8 on the numeric keypad as directional keys and 0 and 5 as fire. All the keyboard layouts have short descriptions telling you what the "joystick keys" wil be.
Final Words :
I hope someone will find this helpful. As usual, write a post or send me a PM with any questions you might have and I will try and answer it to the best of my abilities. Feedback and corrections are also always welcome. I hope you'll have fun playing AMIGA games!
Thanks to Wizburf for the hot Amiga Inside tip.
