Is FS-UAE still actively developed and is net play possible?

[Rinusch]

Hi all,

I can use a bit of help please.
I'm using launcher version 3.1.68 and core version 3.1.66.
I want to use the net play option to be able to play games against my friend over the internet, but not within the launcher as it reads this is 'rather young'.
I'm having trouble finding the required python package required for running the server. I can't find it anywhere, it's not on the download page as it says in the documentation.

Also, while I'm at it: is FS-UAE still being developed or not? It appears no one has heard from the developer for a long while. The 4.x version is still not official as far as I can tell, nor whether there are any concrete plans/timelines for any new official version? Please correct me if I'm wrong (I hope I'm wrong!)..

Regards!

[giantclam]

The fs-uae github page hasn't been updated since mid 2022. The fs-uae-launcher package has been dropped from debian (not maintained). Last year I migrated to amiberry, which is actively developed. I have had no regrets =)

Not sure if internet play works though ; LAN play does work (of a sorts, depends on title)

[DisasterIncarna]

last time i looked, 1 of the fsuae-launcher issues (when compiling yourself at least) seems to be related to newer qt5 package causing issues somewhere. i think i installed the flatpak version and that works ok.

[giantclam]

Yep... qt5 & py-qt5 stuffs are the main issues ~ no longer care, 'apparently' unmaintained programs I really don't have time for (amiberry's easier to drive anyhow =)

[DisasterIncarna]

well its not like it needs major or rapid updates, it works well without any issues that affect me at least, and like i said the flatpak version works perfectly fine, launcher and all. there would ofc need to be something reportedly wrong with it to warrant rapid active development, again, not sure what bugs/issues it has but it works perfectly fine for me, even 3.1.66, only tried the 4x once and went back to 3x as thats what i use daily and it kinda just works on my kubuntu based pc and rpi400.

[jman]

Originally Posted by DisasterIncarna

well its not like it needs major or rapid updates, it works well without any issues

Yes, FS-UAE development has stopped years ago and - yes - stable version (3.x) works good enough, so I agree the project is not "dead". Though I am afraid it will slowly fade into oblivion and rot if someone won't pick up the maintenaince.

Besides, there are papercuts and bugs that it would be nice to see fixed/improved: update the WinUAE core, the documentation website is in dire need of a refresh.

I wish the maintainer of FS-UAE had developed a strategy to build a community and hand the project to someone else. Currently the bus factor of FS-UAE is 1 so without Frode the project won't bulge. I'm not implying that working on a FOSS project for free is a duty. On the contrary.

WinUAE is (AFAICS) another project with bus factor = 1, a one-man-band heroically led by a single talented person.

IMO these projects need to make an effort and build a community of maintainers to ensure their future. We all know XKCD 2347.

[copse]

I agree it is a pity when projects falter. But I think the community is now the project. If there really is someone who wants something done with it, then they could step forward and do something about it. This might be arranging funding for work to be done, or learning how to do that work themselves. Outside of that, or a dev with a heavy vested interest and time to spare (very unlikely) I don't see it going anywhere.

[Memory Station]

I've gotten netplay to work on FS-UAE v3.1.66. This is what works for me:

1. Choose a server that clients can connect to. You could rent a cheap Linux VPS, or run it locally and forward a port at the router, whatever works.

2. Get the fs-uae-launcher for your platform. The version which worked for me currently is fs-uae-launcher v3.1.66.

3. Run the server from the command line like so:

fs-uae-launcher --server --port=1200 --password=SOMEPASSWORD

. Set your port and password as you like. You may need to specify the path to fs-uae-launcher executable, and it may help to set up a script or shortcut to automatically launch it.

4. On each of the clients, set up a config file called perhaps Netplay.fs-uae. It must set the following settings:

netplay_server

,

netplay_port

,

netplay_tag

, and

netplay_password

. These are configured to match your server, except netplay_tag, which is a three letter initials of the player so you can tell each other apart, e.g. if someone connects or disconnects.

5. Launch the server, then launch each client, either via the launcher or via command-line or shortcut, e.g.

fs-uae Netplay.fs-uae

.

Note that you must have identical Amiga configurations, ADF files, and Kickstart ROMs on both systems or it will go out of sync. Hard disk files also cause the netplay to go out of sync, so you should use ADFs.

[slaapliedje]

Has anyone heard from Frode? WinUAE and FS-UAE are both opensource, and there have been many maintainers and then dead projects over the years. What would be nice is to have a group do a full port of WinUAE so it can go back to being just UAE and work on Linux/Mac/Windows. Hatari manages this, though seems to have different bugs/issues that behave differently depending on the platform...

[wiisoldier]

It is a shame about FS-UAE. It was my first insight into using Amiga on my Raspberry Pi 4. In it's last stable version 3.1.68 (or 66) it worked great for me. There were issues with JIT on the RPI but for most applications / games it worked just fine. However, I agree with giantclam, Amiberry (which works on arm and x86) is a better solution atm. It is strongly developed and improved on a daily basis. (I know Toni also develops WIN-UAE very actively.)
What we may be forgetting here, is that many emulators (layers) are developed by individuals in their own time for no financial gain. So we have to respect when they take time away from the project. Maybe Frode will come back to it, and I do hope so. However, if anyone else would like to offer some time to the project, they should contact Frode directly, rather than suggesting "someone else should take it on / over".

[malko]

Before speculating, anyone knows if Frode has made an official announcement about a break with FS-UAE maintenance ?

[Memory Station]

According to his profile he was last seen on EAB in September 2023, but he's still an active subscriber. He was last active on GitHub in August 2022.

[giantclam]

Originally Posted by DisasterIncarna

well its not like it needs major or rapid updates, it works well without any issues that affect me at least, and like i said the flatpak version works perfectly fine, launcher and all. there would ofc need to be something reportedly wrong with it to warrant rapid active development, again, not sure what bugs/issues it has but it works perfectly fine for me, even 3.1.66, only tried the 4x once and went back to 3x as thats what i use daily and it kinda just works on my kubuntu based pc and rpi400.

If you can get away with/be happy with fs-uae being based upon the winuae v3.x code base (and this is likely quite a number of ppl), then it doesn't matter ~ if you're like myself however and have several favorite (primarily) AGA demos/titles which have been a blitter nightmare in *uae emulation (and were only fixed with the winuae v5.x code base), then on a linux host OS you don't have many choices...

*install and use Amiberry natively
*install/run amiga-forever/winuae in WINE
*install retroarch natively to use the P-UAE emulator engine (pretty sure it's based against later winuae source than fs-uae) ...or retropi if you're on that hardware platform.

Winuae has always led the way, I think primarily because windows has a much larger userbase. and Toni is so dedicated =) Fortunately, it is open source, which allows all of the improvements made in winuae's development, to find their way into other *uae based emulators, as their creators see fit...ie; amiberry being a good example, wherein it has always (by design) not implemented various winuae features, yet provide good overall coverage of the thousands of Amiga titles out there.

This forum, is more or less one of a few 'defacto' support portals for winuae. It is what it is...and it's not the only support path by any means. Same used to be true for fs-uae as it were, but for whatever reason, it's development has stalled, and open source software development tends to be a 'forwardly moving target'...that is saying, newer releases of any library/software code on which your project relies upon, necessitates that you always maintain your project's code to 'keep up' with any API or coding changes made.

The fact flatpaks work, is an indicator the software in question is highly reliant on specific releases/versions of software on which it relies. There's nothing wrong with that, but eventually... https://github.com/FrodeSolheim/fs-uae/issues/331 ....which echos what I mentioned above, the blitter horrowshow =)

@malko ~ not that I'm aware of, although he did say fs-uae 3.x would always be based upon the winuae v3.x core, and it would be fs-uae 4.x that would merge in the newer winuae v4.x core ...but keep in mind, shortly after that time winuae v5.0 was released, so perhaps that usurped the fs-uae v4.x notion...who knows, but, that's a good example of the ramifications when it comes to considering a 'maintenance break' ...the rest of the software world moves forward regardless, and the longer one is away, the bigger the 'ToDo' list becomes...it can become very big & complicated in very short time.

If like @DisasterIncarna you've ever tried to compile fs-uae-launcher from source (later 3.1.xx & 4.0.xx branches), you feel the consequences of a 'maintenance break' in no uncertain terms...the process doesn't coddle the weak.. and the cause of all the pain is mostly fs-uae-launcher no longer being up-to-date with the current QT5 & friends offerings, as released with most all current linux distros.

Like I say though. not deriding fs-uae & friends as such, indeed for many years it was my emulator of choice on the debian/linux desktop... back in the days when it was available in those debian releases' deb-pkg repo ...but now, if I want to revisit those Amiga titles that require a 'newer' *uae core engine to emulate properly, you pretty much only have amiberry or the P-UAE core engine, wrt Amiga emulation under native linux host OS environments..

@wiisoldier ...you might recall our previous discussion about having a dedicated amiberry support thread in EAB? Only a few weeks ago, some user had tripped over a sneaky bug, and they admitted they'd only 'just found out' that amiberry runs on x86-64. Also runs on x86-64/M1/M2 Macs as well (and I think the M3), using homebrew/xcode. Hardly anyone knows, amiberry flies well under the radar... stealth mode <grin>

[zodiac]

The biggest issue with FS- UAE is that only Frode could update the database, so new WHDLoad versions aren’t incorporated into the launcher.

[giantclam]

Originally Posted by zodiac

The biggest issue with FS- UAE is that only Frode could update the database, so new WHDLoad versions aren’t incorporated into the launcher.

One of the benefits of amiberry ~ it comes with it's own XML database for running whdload packs (the XML is maintained by HoraceAndTheSpider), and so you don't need any online connectivity for it to work. (you only need to internet if you wish to update the XML =)

[jman]

Originally Posted by zodiac

The biggest issue with FS- UAE is that only Frode could update the database, so new WHDLoad versions aren’t incorporated into the launcher.

And by extension, I would add that there is no way to fork effectively the project:
- Pull requests and tickets on GitHub are ignored
- Documentation is not accessible by the community. When I first started learning how to use FS-UAE I would have loved to be able to submit patches to the docs
- Other features of FS-USE rely on server-side code that is not accessible by anyone and (AFAIK) not published anywhere
- Building FS-UAE from scratch is no joke because of lack of documentation.

This is what I meant in my previous comment with "come up with a strategy to increase the bus factor".

Again: I am not implying that the FS-UAE maintainer owes anything to the community and I am thankful for their work. But it is a fact that a project left faltering will eventually surrender to bit rot, which is a bit of a pity.

I will try Amiberry, though. There are also native builds for x86_64