Detect A500 Mini environment

[KONEY]

Hi guys!


I'm wondering if any trick exists to detect when code is being run on A500 Mini...?


Thanks

[Twiggy]

Hi,

I wonder whether this solution would work?

https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=66606

[KONEY]

This would detect a UAE environment but not specifically an Amiga Mini one?

[mrv2k]

I just tested detectuae on my a500 mini and it worked fine. The a500 mini uses Amiberry 3.3 which is based on UAE so accepts commands like uae-configuration etc...

[KONEY]

but it's not specific to A500 mini, correct?

[paraj]

Why do you want to detect the a500 mini exactly? Unless they provide an official way of detection you're bound to get false negatives/positives now or in the future. If you want to check if e.g. a 3 button controller is available (or whatever) check for that directly.

If it's just for yourself then you could probably measure the execution time of a specific set of instructions and see if that's in some predefined time range (in addition to checking if you're running emulated).

[KONEY]

For the same reasons one would want to detect UAE: to make some code run better or not at all.

Checking for timings could be one way but it's a bit too generic as a solution. I was asking if something similar to the UAE check but specific for mini was already available.

I'm not sure what "just for yourself" is supposed to mean. I'm also confused about the official way of detection, is checking for uaehf.device official?

[DisasterIncarna]

the mini is just a pi3 variant running an emulator anyways so detecting UAE is kinda the right way to go about it.

[KONEY]

OK, kinda right but not specific. I mean, you can tell it's not real hardware only, not if it's a mini.

[kriz]

Well the mini is just running an emulator...

[KONEY]

The core of the question was if there was a way to detect it specifically, reckoning there isn't one from the simple fact it's an emulator itself isn't a very tech approach to the question.

[alexh]

The answer is no you can't detect A500 Mini from other UAE based devices. Not unless they change(d) the emulator. I mean they could have if they had wanted to. But I very much doubt they did.

[KONEY]

Thanks Alexh, for the answer and for not dodging the question

[paraj]

Originally Posted by KONEY

For the same reasons one would want to detect UAE: to make some code run better or not at all.

Checking for timings could be one way but it's a bit too generic as a solution. I was asking if something similar to the UAE check but specific for mini was already available.

I'm not sure what "just for yourself" is supposed to mean. I'm also confused about the official way of detection, is checking for uaehf.device official?

My reason for asking is that if it's just for yourself is that you can query WinUAE various things (e.g. which version it's running/paths of disks inserted), so if you just want a quick check in your program to see if you're running on your PC or a500 mini that can probably be done very easily, but it would not work in general.

Wasn't trying to be dismissive of the question, but usually it's better to rephrase it. If you have code that's better on an a500 mini why not run it if it's an amiberry with similar specs?

For example: Instead of say detecting a 68030 processor and then using a specific C2P routine, maybe it's better to time the generic function vs. the 030 specific one and selecting the best performing one instead of just checking AttnFlags. Or if you want to select keyboard input as the default for WinUAE on your PC but not on your a500 mini, check if there's a good controller connected instead.

[Toni Wilen]

Trying to detect emulation is generally not very good idea because there can be dozens of different configurations and some of them does not even have any "UAE" devices. Trying to detect these can break in any version.

[Galahad/FLT]

One way to detect for emulation that is usually 100% effective is disk loading timing.

Because WinUAE and other emulators are usually accurate when it comes to loading via ADF, usually people ramp up the floppy loading speed.

Absolutely easy to detect this on emulated, A500 Mini and real Amiga.

[alexh]

There are lots of other ways. Chip RAM or blitter speeds. But non will detect A500 mini against say RPi running UAE

[malko]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

One way to detect for emulation that is usually 100% effective is disk loading timing.

Because WinUAE and other emulators are usually accurate when it comes to loading via ADF, usually people ramp up the floppy loading speed.

Absolutely easy to detect this on emulated, A500 Mini and real Amiga.

So I am on the safe side as I leave this settings alone (real speed) .

By the way, I don't get the point from OP to try to determine if a program is run from an emulator or from real hardware...