Manually load LHA possible ?

[ghost]

Is it only possible to use LHA files from EmulationStation ? I would like to load some demos in LHA format. There's no option in Amiberry to load an Archive (like WinUAE). I tried adding a Hardrive but when looking in the filelist none of the LHA's show up.

Also, how would we change the settings for LHA Games like the Vertical Resolution and Offset, I see a lot of them are incorrect. This is a lot more trickier than using the UAE Config Maker. With that you can manually change the settings for each game. Do we have to wait for this Online Database ?

[midwan]

@ZappaUtopia You can load archives in Amiberry (just like in WinUAE), but they must be archives of disk formats the emulator can understand (e.g. ADFs or HDFs). The WHDLoad Booter feature can use .LHA files which it extracts and uses a special booter environment to start-up, and this will only work for WHDLoad games / demos of course.

In fact, you can use other types of archives for those WHDLoad packages (e.g. ZIP), but the scripts from RetroPie are designed to only pass ".lha" files with that parameter.

[midwan]

Correction: You can also load archives that represent a directory, and they will be treated as virtual hard drives, like in WinUAE.

[ghost]

So its not possible to load LHA files from within Amiberry (GUI) ? I thought Horace said you could.

So to load demos in LHA files I have to put them in the same directory as the LHA games and run them from Emulation Station ? How would you change the settings for the demos (model, cpu speed etc.) ?

[midwan]

@ZappaUtopia If the LHA files contain WHDLoad installations, regardless if they are games or demos, then YES, they will work. :)

For RetroPie (which I will assume you're using), you can either just place them in the same folder, or even create subfolders (which is what I did) to better organize stuff. For example, my dir structure looks like this:

~/RetroPie/roms/amiga/ |_Games |_A |_B |_C |_Demos |_A |_B |_C

and I have titles under each respective folder (A, B, C, etc).

RetroPie scans them and will show them in this structure as well, which makes things easier to navigate also.

The settings for WHDLoad titles come from the database, but you can always override them locally. You can either modify the host_prefs file for some settings you'd like to have persistent, or override them on-the-fly for a title by just hitting F12 (or whatever key you have assigned to open the GUI) and changing them in the emulator's GUI. In the later case, they won't be saved to disk, of course.

When we go live with the online database approach, things will get easier as we can them modify settings there and everyone will get the benefits immediately.

Hope that helps!

[ghost]

Sorry for all the questions, so where would the settings come from when I load a LHA Demo ? Is it that XML file ? I had a quick look through it but didnt see anything about demos, and it looks like it detects the games by filename. I see some of them are older versions so this means if I use the latest LHA the special settings will not be applied because its looking for an obsolete version ?

I think I'll have to stick with the UAE config maker as its easier to manually change the settings like resolution and offset :) (a lot need changing) .

[midwan]

@ZappaUtopia The settings would come from that XML file, so if there are none found for the title, you won't have any special settings.

There's nothing stopping you from using the UAE config approach as well, of course. This was just a new feature for convenience. ;)

[ghost]

Sorry, one last question. So because lha demos are not in the Xml file, what settings will it run them with ? (Model, resolution etc.) And this will be the same settings for all of them.

[HoraceAndTheSpider]

if it says 'AGA' in the filename it will run an A1200/020 setup with (i think) 8 meg fast ram.

Otherwise it will run an ECS/020 setup with 7mhz CPU speed and 4 meg fast ram.

There is no reason we cannot include the Demo LHA files in the online database - i will speak to @osvaldolove about this.

I see some of them are older versions so this means if I use the latest LHA the special settings will not be applied because its looking for an obsolete version

The files listed are approx 6 weeks(?) old, so not many updates missing. This will be updated on the release of new LHA packs, and designed to inherit settings from the 'parent' game (i.e. older versions)

I think I'll have to stick with the UAE config maker as its easier to manually change the settings like resolution and offset

I have already discontinued developmend of the UAE COnfig Maker though because everything it does will be covered by this feature in the future.

So its not possible to load LHA files from within Amiberry (GUI) ? I thought Horace said you could.

Command line only support atm, not the GUI, although this would not be too hard to add - something i think that would be essential if we were supporting say a PS-Vita build of Amiberry. I can certainly look at it in the future.

[ghost]

So we will have to wait for a database update (Github ?) before we can use the latest versions ? Also, some games change names. For instance, recently Captain Dynamo has now been renamed to Dynamo.

When you say the the UAE Config Maker has been ceased, it will still be supported/work with Amiberry ? It's easy to change the settings that have the wrong offset etc. I don't know if people will be able to change the xml file, we can only report and wait for you to change it ?

When I first heard about this feature I thought that you could also set a config in the Amiberry GUI and then mount an LHA file as a Hardrive and then Amiberry would do the rest. This would be good for the Demos side of things as nearly all will run with the same config.

[HoraceAndTheSpider]

So we will have to wait for a database update

Yes, but an XML download button will be added to the Amiberry GUI

Also, some games change names.

Renaming wont matter because we will move to checksum checking, but even so, both file-names would/could have a DB entry, so even with name checking they would both be supported.

When you say the the UAE Config Maker has been ceased, it will still be supported

No, it will not be supported. It will still work because all it does is create .uae files, but as amiberry evolves i will not be making changes to it, as it simply isnt needed. These new Amiberry features achieve everything the UAE Config Maker does, but better.

It's easy to change the settings that have the wrong offset etc. I don't know if people will be able to change the xml file, we can only report and wait for you to change it ?

You are free to change the XML file as you like, but should keep in mind it will be overwritten when a new one is produced fromt the DB. The DB will have a publically available front-end for user contributions. You can already make 'end user' changes, save the .uae file anyway, and this will be loaded (instead of XML settings) on next load of the LHA file.

I thought that you could also set a config in the Amiberry GUI

There is nothing to stop you making your own .uae file template, and simply adding the Demo LHA in the second HD parameters.

Perhaps we will add the default setting for Demos in the database to a higher general setting (e.g. all AGA, 040, 8 meg) if that is desirable.