Getting started with FS-UAE / FS-UAE Launcher

[z9k9]

I've just recommended FS-UAE to someone who wants to play games, but on revisiting the website I'm dismayed that a nice 'quickstart' document for the FS-UAE Launcher (showing how to point the launcher to one's existing system ROMs and game files, connect to the OpenRetro database and download configs) is far, far away from the initial download. I only found this document after a concerted effort to pull away from the tangle of non-Launcher docs at fs-uae.net, turn my attention to openretro.org and dig some way down into the documentation section there, which I would never have known to do as a beginner. And even though that document discouragingly claims to be out-of-date, I dunno it still looks about 90% accurate to me.

It's absolutely right that the documentation on fs-uae.net primarily concerns the nuts-and-bolts configuration of the core emulator but since the easily accessible download there does include the Launcher, and since setting up and using the Launcher is potentially quite a comfortable experience even without reading that lower-level documentation, it's a shame that a link to the Launcher setup document isn't more readily signposted. In fact, I'm now going to set mine up from scratch again from a download of the current stable FS-UAE, FS-UAE Launcher & FS-UAE Arcade all-in-one installer (version 2.8.3) - and update the wording of that page, in the hope that my friend, or any other newcomers to FS-UAE will stumble across it, here.

(Feel free to post corrections or even copy this back to the website in whole or part, if any of you have access to it.)


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Getting started with FS-UAE Launcher

FS-UAE Launcher works great with the OpenRetro Game Database. When you enable the game database feature in FS-UAE Launcher, the following nice things will happen:

- FS-UAE Launcher downloads game information from the online database.
- Game entries appear automatically in your FS-UAE Launcher, provided you have recognized game files on your system.
- You'll automatically get nice screenshots and covers in FS-UAE Launcher.
- The games are correctly set up in advance, and you can just click "Start" to start the games without fiddling with Amiga configuration.

No games are stored / distributed via the database. You need to have recognized floppy images, CD-ROM images and/or WHDLoad installations on your system to use the database in a meaningful way.

This page will guide you through enabling the database.

Step 1 - Install FS-UAE and FS-UAE Launcher

Download and install the most recent version of FS-UAE for your system from https://fs-uae.net/download.

FS-UAE is available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD and OpenBSD

Step 2 - Scan your system for Amiga Kickstart ROMs and recognized game media

In this step, the FS-UAE Launcher will scan your Amiga files (ADF disk images, etc) so that it may later find matching configurations in the online database that are suitable for running them. If you have any original Kickstart ROM files, this is a good time to direct the Launcher to those too (without these, the emulator will run with a replacement Kickstart ROM from the AROS project, which may be less compatible than an original Kickstart ROM in some cases).

Start FS-UAE Launcher, and open "Update File Database", like this:



The following dialog should then appear:



You must then ensure your .adf, .rom files (etc) are somewhere within one of the listed folders. You can of course add additional folders to the list of folders to scan. Note: FS-UAE will also find .adf files inside .zip archives.

Click on the scan button to perform a scan of the listed folders (including subfolders).

Step 3 - Log FS-UAE Launcher into the openretro.org database

Select "Log In / Register", as follows:



If this is your first time logging in you must click "Create an account now" and register for a new account at the website. Once you have a registered e-mail and password, enter them in the boxes provided and click "Log In". (In the future, you'll likely be able to use the database without having an account, but a user registration is required during the beta.)



Step 4 - Refresh the game database

At this point the Launcher will automatically download a current copy of the online database that contains premade configurations for running a wide range of Amiga software. When this is done, the Launcher will populate its game list with the titles of the games that it found on your system that it could recognizably match with information from the online database.



(At a later date, you can refresh your copy of the online database to take advantage of added games and fixed configurations by selecting the menu option "Update Game Database".)

Step 5 - Enjoy

Have fun with the system! and please do report any problems


Contributing to the Database

For the initial version, users can contribute changes from the web interface at https://openretro.org. For more information about how the configurations work, and how to correct games which are not set up correctly, see online database editing. I have also created some guidelines for contributing images. If you are interested, please see how to contribute for more information on how you can help make the database better

Troubleshooting

It is possible some game variants are not configured correctly (yet). If you encounter a problem, please either try to fix it (and submit a fix on oagd.net), or report the problem in a comment (you need to log in to the web interface with your username and password first).

If a game does not appear as expected, this may be due to one or more disk files being modified. The database will only recognized unmodified ADF files.

Another reason a game may not appear is that you have a set of ADF files which are not in the database. TOSEC for example has often several different version of each disks, and not *all combinations* of disks for a multi-disk game will appear in the database.

If everything else fails, please feel free to join the live channel and ask your question there. We'll try to help you as good as we can

[CCRider]

Excellente guide, congrats!

It's just a pity that the development of FS-UAE is apparently stalled. Not to say the worse.