Command line parameters, rezipping, savestates?

I'm pretty new to these forums, WinUAE and Amiga emulation in general, so I apologize if I'm missing something obvious. (I did some forum searches, but came up empty on these issues.)

I'm running WinUAE 1.5.2, mostly through GameBase Amiga v1.6. While the database side of GB Amiga is excellent, I'm not entirely happy with the user interface of the underlying GameBase program (and judging from the existence of the MAGE project, I'm not alone ). As a fun exercise, I'm looking at creating a simple(r) Python/PyQT frontend for my specific needs.

While doing the necessary research for it, I've done some googling and forum searching on WinUAE command line parameters. They seem to be intentionally obscure and relatively undocumented. I've found that -f, -0/1/2/3[path\to\disk image] and -s diskimage[0-XX]=[path\to\file] work fine, but -cfgparam, which I thought could be extremely useful in some cases, doesn't.

I may be doing something wrong, but for example, -cfgparam nr_floppies=3 or chipset=aga don't do anything: when WinUAE's UI loads, just one floppy drive is enabled and the chipset is still OCS. The code to parse -cfgparam seems to be in the source code, and it's mentioned by Toni Wilen in an old forum post right here. Is the functionality gone in the current version?

Another thing is rezipping. What, if any, is the recommended method to go about this for games that save high scores? I do recall Belgarath saying in a forum post that GameBase's unzip/rezip functionality shouldn't be used with WinUAE, since it already has zip support. Is the data currently written to the .adf by WinUAE or just forgotten?

For my own frontend, I'm thinking of implementing a system that unzips the game from the GameBase collection into a temporary directory, runs that, checks if any modifications were made, and then rezips it into some defined "overlay" directory outside GBA to avoid overwriting the originals. When the game is run again, it checks for the existence of this modified disk from the overlay directory and runs that instead of the GBA original, unless told to do otherwise. (If I'm feeling adventurous, I'll just save the differences between the original disk and the modified disk to save space, and construct the complete modified copy at runtime, but that's going to have to wait until v2.0 ) Is any of this feasible, and do I have to make some special modifications to the WinUAE settings to facilitate this?

This post is getting long, but one last thing: is there a method of defining a default savestate in a .uae config file or a command line parameter? GB Amiga tries to do this, apparently, with a game-specific savestate=[filename] config option, but it doesn't seem to carry over to WinUAE: using the Save State function in the UI Misc section asks for a file name instead of defaulting to the one in the config file.

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by lifeless

I may be doing something wrong, but for example, -cfgparam nr_floppies=3 or chipset=aga don't do anything: when WinUAE's UI loads, just one floppy drive is enabled and the chipset is still OCS. The code to parse -cfgparam seems to be in the source code, and it's mentioned by Toni Wilen in an old forum post right here. Is the functionality gone in the current version?

nr_floppies is old backwards compatibility option only (from time when there was only single floppy drive type) Use floppyXtype=<type>

-cfgparam chipset=aga works fine

Another thing is rezipping. What, if any, is the recommended method to go about this for games that save high scores? I do recall Belgarath saying in a forum post that GameBase's unzip/rezip functionality shouldn't be used with WinUAE, since it already has zip support. Is the data currently written to the .adf by WinUAE or just forgotten?

WinUAE never modifies zips. "Write-enabled" zip = "save image" file in saveimages-directory. (contains only modified tracks, non-modifed tracks come from original adf)

This post is getting long, but one last thing: is there a method of defining a default savestate in a .uae config file or a command line parameter? GB Amiga tries to do this, apparently, with a game-specific savestate=[filename] config option, but it doesn't seem to carry over to WinUAE: using the Save State function in the UI Misc section asks for a file name instead of defaulting to the one in the config file.

It is only used for automatic loading of statefile. Why should it be possible to override GUI option?

(Non-WinUAE specific questions skipped, they are not my problem )

[andreas]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

nr_floppies is old backwards compatibility option only (from time when there was only single floppy drive type) Use floppyXtype=<type>

Come to think of it, what about triggering some information for the user on the use of old options on the command line e. g. "-OPTION is obsolete, please use ...".
This is actually something that you could like, because it is not GUI-related for a change

Why should it be possible to override GUI option?

Well, it's not that bad idea actually ... e. g. you have a custom configuration for A500, and have 1 or 2 games which need 1 MB chip RAM instead of the standard 512K. This way you would not need to have configuration presets to cover each and every special case.
I do like that idea

WinUAE never modifies zips.

Gladly Or TOSEC would now have twice as many unnecessary alt versions

-cfgparam chipset=aga works fine

Not by itself, it seems. I tried it in a lot of ways and variations. But just a moment ago I found that if I run it together with -f [configfile.uae], THEN it works. Using winuae -cfgparam chipset=aga alone did nothing. This is on a new installation, so if it does work for you, there's something different about our configurations.

WinUAE never modifies zips. "Write-enabled" zip = "save image" file in saveimages-directory. (contains only modified tracks, non-modifed tracks come from original adf)

OK, well this is exactly what I was looking for. And it seems that WinUAE checks for the existence of the save image when I eject and re-insert the zip into the disk drive. Very cool. Out of technical curiosity, why is the save image so much larger (2 megs) than the original 880kB ADF?

(As an aside: man, I spent a good while searching where in the configs WinUAE stores the "write protected" state of an unzipped ADF disk in the drive until realizing that it simply sets the Read-only flag of the ADF file itself. Live and learn...)

It is only used for automatic loading of statefile. Why should it be possible to override GUI option?

Because it's a very handy convenience feature. I'm thinking of a frontend scenario: a default name for a savestate file is stored along with other emulator-specific metadata about the game. This is then relayed to WinUAE through a config option (this is how GameBase currently does game-specific settings).

Once in WinUAE, the config option would determine the name of the file that gets saved in the savestate folder once the user presses Shift+End+numpadkey instead of default.uss, default_1.uss etc. No need to bring up the GUI and manually save the state into a differently named file.

This way, the quick key savestate from Xenon 2 won't be overwritten by the quick key savestate of another game, like The Lost Vikings; instead, the savestate folder would contain xenon_2.uss, the_lost_vikings.uss, maybe the_lost_vikings_1.uss (or _2, _3 etc.) if more than one state is saved. Then, when playing Xenon or TLV again later on, the restore state quick keys would be "smart", and get mapped to loading the state files for that particular game only.

Personally, I think this would be really cool. And since it would be optional, adding this feature shouldn't break any existing savestate workflows of people who may rely on there only being the ten global default quick key savestates. I hope you'll consider it.

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by lifeless

Not by itself, it seems. I tried it in a lot of ways and variations. But just a moment ago I found that if I run it together with -f [configfile.uae], THEN it works. Using winuae -cfgparam chipset=aga alone did nothing. This is on a new installation, so if it does work for you, there's something different about our configurations.

Quickstart enabled? Missing default.uae? Quickstart won't work without configuration file in command line. (quickstart can't be used as a base config because it can't be changed from command line or configuration)

OK, well this is exactly what I was looking for. And it seems that WinUAE checks for the existence of the save image when I eject and re-insert the zip into the disk drive. Very cool. Out of technical curiosity, why is the save image so much larger (2 megs) than the original 880kB ADF?

It is raw format adf ("extended adf or "custom adf"), supports non-standard save formats. You can replace it with standard adf if you know the game is using standard format.

Once in WinUAE, the config option would determine the name of the file that gets saved in the savestate folder once the user presses Shift+End+numpadkey instead of default.uss, default_1.uss etc. No need to bring up the GUI and manually save the state into a differently named file.

That can be done. (I thought you wanted forced path or directory via Save state-button.)

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Quickstart enabled? Missing default.uae? Quickstart won't work without configuration file in command line.

Yep, no default.uae. It wasn't included in the 1.5.2 zip distribution so I don't have it. I'd better create one.

That can be done. (I thought you wanted forced path or directory via Save state-button.)

Not "forced" per se, more like "defaulted". But that was before I found out that the quick keys existed by grepping through the changelogs Absolutely no need to do anything to that button in this case.

Anyway, if what I last suggested indeed does appear in a future version, that's excellent! Especially if by "that can be done" you also mean the "smart" quick loading functionality (you didn't explicitly quote that bit of my last message, so it's ambiguous), I'll be overjoyed

Thanks, and keep up the good work. I'll see what I can do with that PyQT frontend...

[nobody]

Could someone give a hint what is the command line to mount disk xxxx.adf to df1?? Talking about WinUAE 4+.

[DamienD]

Your config is called "Default.uae" hey, judging from this thread: How to edit default quickstart configuration?

Try these:


Disk into DF0:

C:\<WinUAE path>\WinUAE.exe -f "Default.uae" -0 ".\<directory>\<filename>.adf" -cfgparam use_gui=no

Disk into DF1:

C:\<WinUAE path>\WinUAE.exe -f "Default.uae" -1 ".\<directory>\<filename>.adf" -cfgparam use_gui=no

Disks into DF0: & DF1:

C:\<WinUAE path>\WinUAE.exe -f "Default.uae" -0 ".\<directory>\<filename>.adf" -1 ".\<directory>\<filename>.adf" -cfgparam use_gui=no

[nobody]

Great
example;

-1 "D:\emulators\WinUAE\disks\Another world\Another world_2.adf"

did the trick, thanks a lot.

PS i don't have to write config name, it picks default.uae by itself.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by nobody

PS i don't have to write config name, it picks default.uae by itself.

Cool, but if you saved as the following it's useful for different models i.e:

• Quickstart A500 as "A500.uae"
• Quickstart A1200 as "A1200.uae"
• etc.

[nobody]

There is an option in every game to pick A1200 as hardware configuration if you want to.

Also this list is helpful which games DON'T support df1 (probably not complete)

http://eab.abime.net/attachment.php?...1&d=1496691355

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by nobody

Also this list is helpful which games DON'T support df1 (probably not complete)

http://eab.abime.net/attachment.php?...1&d=1496691355

I could probably add to this when I get some time free

[rotacak]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

-cfgparam chipset=aga works fine

Is this intentional? Can't use "-portable" together with "-cfgparam":

WORKS: winuae.exe -f Ugh.uae -cfgparam use_gui=no
WORKS: winuae.exe -config Ugh.uae
WORKS: winuae.exe -portable -f Ugh.uae
WORKS: winuae.exe -portable -config Ugh.uae

NOT WORKS: winuae.exe -config Ugh.uae -cfgparam use_gui=no
NOT WORKS: winuae.exe -portable -f Ugh.uae -cfgparam use_gui=no
NOT WORKS: winuae.exe -portable -config Ugh.uae -cfgparam use_gui=no

[DamienD]

Why do you need to use "-portable" with this?

Setting the config i.e. "-f Ugh.uae", "-cfgparam" and using "use_gui=no" will start the game automatically using the configuration file which should contain all that's needed.

Also, if you usually use "Portable mode" in WinUAE, then there will already be a "winuae.ini" file in the <WinUAE dir> anyway, which I guess would still be used for general settings.

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by rotacak

Is this intentional? Can't use "-portable" together with "-cfgparam":

Does it work if -portable is last parameter? (It was accidentally marked as taking one parameter when it should be zero)

[rotacak]

Originally Posted by DamienD

Why do you need to use "-portable" with this?

Setting the config i.e. "-f Ugh.uae", "-cfgparam" and using "use_gui=no" will start the game automatically using the configuration file which should contain all that's needed.

Also, if you usually use "Portable mode" in WinUAE, then there will already be a "winuae.ini" file in the <WinUAE dir> anyway, which I guess would still be used for general settings.

Thank you for that info. I want to use -portable because do not want to load anything from somewhere in a Windows registry or elsewhere.

Toni Wilen: Yes, it works at the last place. Thanks.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by rotacak

Thank you for that info. I want to use -portable because do not want to load anything from somewhere in a Windows registry or elsewhere..

Understood.

...but as mentioned, you would have a "winuae.ini" file located in the <WinUAE dir> if you'd already ticked "Portable mode" from under "Paths"; so no need to write this parameter in the command line