FS-UAE preview for Raspberry Pi 4

[FrodeSolheim]

FS-UAE now runs quite well on Raspberry Pi 4, especially if you overclock it to 2.0 GHz. Of course, how much raw power you need depend on what you emulate. Amiga 500 cycle-exact emulation can be quite demanding.

Download: FS-UAE_4.0.57-master_Linux_ARMv8.tar.xz

Please remember that this is an in-development version 4 of FS-UAE, not yet ready with all features (see https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=106562). Also, I haven't done any builds of FS-UAE Launcher yet (it runs fine on the Pi 4 though).

Recommended setup

• Overclock your Raspberry Pi 4 to 2.0 Ghz.
• Use a cooling solution which allows you to run at full speed over time.
• Make sure the CPU is running at full speed always, and not on demand.
• Run FS-UAE from the console for best performance.
• Connect to an HDMI display capable of 1920x1080@50Hz for smooth scrolling.

Notes

• The background (bezel) is disabled by default to improve performance.
• 16-bit color is used by defaut to improve performance.
• Some "color bleed" can be seen at the edges of the emulated screen. Currently left this way to improve performance (will be fixed).

Overclocking to 2 Ghz

By overclocking your Pi to 2.0 Ghz, you can run most Amiga 500 (and 68000) software in cycle exact mode without slowdown. You can of course use the Pi with a lower clock speed if it runs fast enough for you.

Make sure the Raspberry Pi 4 is sufficiently cool

If the Raspberry Pi 4 gets too hot, it will automatically throttle down the
system and this will kill performance. There are tools you can use to monitor the temperature and see if your RPI4 is being throttled.

The Raspberry Pi 400 can in my experience run at 2 Ghz constantly without overheating. And even better; the cooling is passive, so there is no fan noise!

Set performance CPU governor

If the CPU is allowed to throttle up on demand only, the timing of FS-UAE can be affected (threads not responding quickly enough after going to sleep). So I recommend switching to the `performance` CPU governor while running FS-UAE.

sudo apt install cpufrequtils
sudo cpufreq-set -g performance

You can then confirm with

cpufreq-info

that your Raspberry Pi runs at 2 Ghz. This is not a permanent setting, a reboot will clear it. So remember to re-apply the setting before running FS-UAE after a reboot.

This is mostly important if you want stable frame rates (and especially for vsync).

X11 vs console (KMSDRM)

Run FS-UAE from the console for best performance. When running under X11, tearing can be observed even when using v-sync, and there are also stuttering (missed v-blanks) occurring quite often with X11 (about every second?).

UPDATE 2021-10.21: The situation seems much better with updated Raspberry Pi OS. Tearing seems to be gone? However, there is still some occasional stuttering compared to running from console.

Note about v-sync and smooth scrolling

By default, the Raspberry Pi version tries to switch to 1920x1080@50Hz when running from the console (using the KMSDRM SDL2 backend). It will also automatically enable vsync in this case. This will be configurable later, of course.

[FrodeSolheim]

I've also built plugins for the Raspberry Pi 4:

CAPSImg_5.1.2_Linux_ARMv8.tar.xz

QEMU-UAE_3.8.6_Linux_ARMv8.tar.xz (Haven't tested this one - and possibly pointless, performance-wise)

[DisasterIncarna]

compiled fs-uae a while back for my Pi400 (inc launcher), runs pretty good, 1 question about the pi4/pi400 tho, i recall other uae ports as well as winuae ofc, can use programs like winlaunch (native code stuff?) to launch programs on the host system, i never really found much info on this regarding FS-UAE, can it use the likes of WinLaunch?

Only ask as this would be very handy exactly for Pi solutions to create a bootable usb that kicks up straight into FS-UAE, being able to launch chrome/vlc would be a godsend for those systems to make the emulated amiga more able to do normal day to day things.

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by DisasterIncarna

Only ask as this would be very handy exactly for Pi solutions to create a bootable usb that kicks up straight into FS-UAE, being able to launch chrome/vlc would be a godsend for those systems.

Not out of the box, not it is not difficult to do. Also, it is actually possible to do without changes to FS-UAE, since FS-UAE supports loading host plugins with native code which can be called into from the Amiga ("uaenative.library" - not actually used to my knowledge, but still...)

It gets more "difficult" when starting to ask questions like:
- Should it do more than just launch programs?
- Minimize itself, remove fullscreen status?
- Does anyway expect it to be able to access files from within the Amiga - i.e. should you be able to launch vlc from the Amiga with the path to a video file from within the Amiga? This could be somewhat trivial if using a directory hard drive at least.

People have been asking about this from time to time, but no-one has come with a detailed proposal on how such integration should work in practice, so I haven't bothered with it.

One would need to write a host plugin for this, as well as an m68k program using this plugin. I can help with this if there is a good and though-trough use-case for it.

[DisasterIncarna]

just need simple "launch abc/xyz" basically just WinLaunch (to launch most standalone programs like a browser/whatever the amiga lacks bigtime, and a browser is exactly the main thing, i believe this is what amikit uses for its rabbithole feature), its instructions (for winuae) is...

Installation
============
- Copy winlaunch to c: on the Amiga side (or somewhere in your path).
- Copy winlaunch.alib into a drawer named 'winuae_dll' (create it if it does 
  not exist) in your WinUAE folder on the Windows side (eg,
  c:\winuae\winuae_dll).

can that same dll file be seen/used by FS-UAE as well to get it working?

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by DisasterIncarna

can that same dll file be seen/used by FS-UAE as well to get it working?

No, the original native interface in WinUAE is very win32/WinUAE-specific. The replacement uaenative interface should work in both FS-UAE and WinUAE, so someone can create a "launch" program which works in both. You'd need to compile the host "dll" separately for all desired architectures (Windows_x86-64, Linux_x86-64, Linux_ARMv8, etc).

[DisasterIncarna]

ah ok, cheers for the info.

[Dic_Ray]

It's so cool to see this great emulator on the Raspi. Hopefully I can test it this evening.

What about the Arcade mode? Would be a pleasure to play my games from the couch and choose it from the cover flow view.

[DisasterIncarna]

I tried the Portable Mode option, out of interest, where do saved screenshots now appear? doesnt seem to be in the old position on my desktop.

[jbl007]

Originally Posted by FrodeSolheim

[*] The background (bezel) is disabled by default to improve performance.

No, its not. Posting this from the pi now, it's running right next to the browser window.
Edit: to clarify... Running the binary you linked in this thread on rasberrry pi os 32bit.
The Manjaro compiled I testet some weeks ago did in fact disable the backgroud/leds as far as I remember.

From another Thread:

Please consider testing performance of FS-UAE 4 on the Pi 4 instead of FS-UAE 3

That's what I did. Freshly compiled from git master in Manjaro AARCH64.

I haven't tested a lot of stuff, but it seems to run A500 cycle exact well enough at least at 2 Ghz. If you have some examples of extra demanding games or demos to try out

Basically all demos with roto-zoom or plasma effects for example https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=61182
FPS drop down to 38 in CE mode.

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by Dic_Ray

What about the Arcade mode? Would be a pleasure to play my games from the couch and choose it from the cover flow view.

Not yet at least. FS-UAE runs best from the console, and I don't think running Arcade there and launching FS-UAE will work nicely together (I assume the Arcade would have to be able to let "go of the display" before running FS-UAE, but I am not sure). I will be looking into this in the future.

Originally Posted by DisasterIncarna

I tried the Portable Mode option, out of interest, where do saved screenshots now appear? doesnt seem to be in the old position on my desktop.

Most likely, I haven't implemented screenshots for FS-UAE 4 yet (don't actually recall).

Originally Posted by jbl007

No, its not. Posting this from the pi now, it's running right next to the browser window.

Well, there is single-colored background and lets, but not the gradient rendered on other platforms

Originally Posted by jbl007

Basically all demos with roto-zoom or plasma effects for example https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=61182
FPS drop down to 38 in CE mode.

Thanks for the example! Yes.. it ran very nicely with stable v-vsync but unfortunately not during the plasma effect, and also at some point during the credits when there was a zoom effect. Maybe it can be optimized further, not sure. But still quite happy with the performance .)

(P.S: Running with the performance overlay Alt+O is a very nice way to visualize the performance. Much better than the crappy overlay in FS-UAE 3 )

[jbl007]

Originally Posted by FrodeSolheim

Well, there is single-colored background and lets, but not the gradient rendered on other platforms

Ah! That background...

Now I got the launcher up and running. It's a bit fiddly to set it up but it works well.
If someone is interested I could maybe write a script to to install the launcher+fs-uae

[Solskogen]

JIT is not available, right?

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by Solskogen

JIT is not available, right?

Right!

[Muadebe]

Excellent, will have to give this a try later.

[URS Retro]

Works well. I overclocked up to 2.1. Used A500 1.3 and loaded up Lemmings, Wings, EotB, and a few others and all worked fine.

TD Bauer
URS Retro

[URS Retro]

Still having issues with the CAPSImg file ad running IPF images.

I am showing the CAPSImg and the QEMU-UAE are coming up as detected in settings under the Program tab, but when I try to run IPF images the emulator tells me the needed files are not loaded.

I placed both files in the Program folder, should they be in the Sytem folder?