FS-UAE 3.0 Stable Series

[FrodeSolheim]

Changes in FS-UAE 3.0 (compared to 2.8):

* Fixed JIT direct access on modern Linux distributions.
* FS-UAE default is now to show a 692x540 image, not stretched to fill screen.
* Built-in configurations for many more game controllers.
* New option whdload_quit_key to gracefully quit slaves.
* Added more shaders (compiled/ported/written by guest.r and rsn8887).
* Updated emulation core from WinUAE 3300b2.
* Several new configuration options (see Changelog for details).
* Many more smaller fixes and updates (see Changelog for details).

Changes in FS-UAE Launcher 3.0 (compared to 2.8):

* Plugins can provide files for offline use (WHDLoad, JST, SKick, etc).
* Added support for .gz/.adz/.roz/.xz-compressed files.
* Support WHDLoad versions 18.4 and 18.5 (game database).
* Revert fullscreen_mode to default when upgrading from older versions.
* Use https for all more fs-uae.net and openretro.org communication.
* Support hd_requirements = xpkmaster.library.
* Fixed problem on Windows where devices were sometimes not detected.
* Make configurations list wider when window width is quite large.
* Try to use config from game database when launching with a WHDLoad archive.
* Extract WHDLoad arguments from .info file when loading a WHDLoad archive.
* Sync "unpublished" games from the online game database, option to show.
* Many bugfixes and smaller improvements (see Changelog for details).

Build-related:

* Only x86-64 (64-bit) official builds for Windows and macOS and Linux.
* Building for x86 (32-bit) still works on all platforms.
* 32-bit packages for Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora and openSUSE are still available.
* Builds for macOS require 10.9+. The source can be built for older versions.

(Bottom line, no support is removed from the source code. I just want to maintain less build environments).

Road ahead:

I've already started the work on next development series. The biggest change is updated emulation core from WinUAE 4.2.1, which brings with it new features. But I will be looking at other improvements as well. If the stable series is to boring for you, stay tuned for v3.1.0dev

[malko]

Thank Frode
https://fs-uae.net/download

[studio460]

Yes, thank you, Frode!!!

[MartinW]

Just another thank you! Really nice to see activity

[Nova]

thanks frode

[Bazong]

Thank you very much

[Foul]

Best emul ever

Big thx to Frode for all his work

ps: and tony too

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Foul

Best emul ever

No, that would be WinUAE

[quantum8]

Fantastic, this is awesome news!

[AZka]

Thank You!

[Jason H]

U*R*THE*BEST! Cheers Frode.

[Dic_Ray]

Really great! Thank you sooo much for the further development. Would be great, if WinUAE as THE base would become platform idependant like fs-uae is.

[Noir]

Hi FrodeSolheim !

First, I’d like to thank you a lot for your amazing work on FS-UAE. It’s a really cool program and it’s perfect to show how cool is the Amiga for the new generation of gamers who never knew the real machine. Nice job, really.

I just finished to build my perfect library of programs (games). My goal was to build a « single folder » portable version of the entire emulator, arcade, confs, floppies and hard drives, screenshots, boxarts etc.

I would like to have an easy backup of the entire FS-UAE system in only one folder to give it easily to my friends, they could have just to change the paths in the « settings » and play without any particular knowledge. My words concern only the Windows version.

- I could zip my FS-UAE folder with everything inside (including screenshots)
- give them the zip file
- they change only the paths in the launcher settings
- and play the games

It was a good idea and i started my loooong building of the thing with the portable version of FS-UAE. There was no problem about that in the 2.8.3 version. I completed the task after days and days of tests and selection of programs one by one, it works well.


Unfortunately for me, that’s the moment you chose to upgrade the version... all seems cooler or same than before, but... it changes many things.

FIRST :
In the 3.0 version, you chose to use the C:/user/... and there is apparently absolutely no way to move these paths. It’s a problem and I think it’s a bad choice.

Windows is a real shit, it need to be sometimes re-installed (ohhh I love mac and linux). When this happens, we need to backup our files because the C drive will be erased. Your new location for floppies, confs etc causes an annoying work to do it. Now, I need to backup my user folder AND the library... and it makes my « single folder » impossible to do. By this way, you lose portability at the end of the process.
I think it’s bad and not user friendly (just a question of ergonomy).

Is there any way to modify these paths to my « E:/EMULATION/FS-UAE » ?
Or can you make it possible in the future, it could be really handy for people like me.


SECOND LITTLE THING :
In the 2.8.3 windows version, when opening the emulation menu during a program running shows the menu to the right and an amazing minimized view of the entire amiga screen to the left. It was sooooooooo clean and perfect.

But now, in the 3.0 version, opening the menu hides a big part of the amiga screen who became « flat ».
I really don’t understand this choice, perhaps it’s technical, perhaps it’s just something you didn’t think...

Can we have a solution to return this simple thing to the old fashion way ?
It could be a good idea to make this optional in the settings...

I know this is only a detail, but it makes your program so classy.

That’s all !
Thanks for your time on this project, thanks to read my message and thank you a lot for making the Amiga great again.

You have my biggest respect.

Noir

(Pardon my poor english, I’m french)

[Clark Kent]

Many thanx for the release! Works perfect here on MacOS 10.9.5!

Only thing I noticed is that the folder hd for AmigaOS 4.1 still does not work. Or does it need the latest emulation core?

[MikeyG]

Thank you Frode! Look forward to playing with the new features.

[vxm]

Hello
Sorry but it seems that debian packages are not yet available; the update installs version 2.8.3.

[FrodeSolheim]

@Noir Portable mode is still supported. I just made some changes in what downloads I provide. Since there isn't really any difference between the portable and non-portable mode except for the presence of a Portable.ini file, I put this file in an "Extras" folder in the zip. So to enable portable mode, just copy/move the Portable.ini within one level up (put it besides Launcher.exe and Arcade.exe).

As for the 3D effect when opening the menu, that was removed a while ago because:

- I made some changes to the scaling code which meant that I had do update the 3D view code if I wanted to keep it, and
- I planned to do an overhaul of the interface anyway, which would not include this effect,
so therefore I did not write the necessary code to keep it working. The UI overhaul hasn't happened yet. So the 3D view might not come back, but who knows.

@Clark Kent Directory hard drive for support requires FS-UAE 3.1.0dev or higher (not released yet).

@vxm I'll check!

Also, thanks for encouraging words everyone

I can shed some light on what improvements I want to do going forward (nothing certain though, and this is by no means an exhaustive list):
- Do necessary changes to make merged code from WinUAE 4.2.0 work properly without regressions (much of this is done).
- Revisit display, video sync and timing code. Optimize better for G-Sync/FreeSync mode. Ensure that fastest-possible mode works as intended. Maybe optimize non-vsync to be more lightweight (possibly better performance on very slow systems).
- Somewhat related to the above, maybe revisit audio code to allow for reduction of buffer sizes (less audio lag)
- Maybe finally implement onscreen keyboard. Also provide out of the box mouse control via gamepad as well, allowing for full control of the Amiga via single modern gamepad?
- See if I can get (optional) native file selectors for browsing floppy images implemented without too much hassle, making FS-UAE more suitable for productivity use.
- Maybe make FS-UAE optionally run with only SDL2 video/audio as dependency (not directly requering OpenGL and OpenAL), will make it easier to run FS-UAE on more platforms.
- Fix FS-UAE so it uses next to no resources while paused and/or minimized?

[seuden]

Originally Posted by FrodeSolheim

.
- Maybe make FS-UAE optionally run with only SDL2 video/audio as dependency (not directly requering OpenGL and OpenAL), will make it easier to run FS-UAE on more platforms.

Android?

[FrodeSolheim]

I uploaded the 3.0 packages to the devel repos by accident. They are pushed to the stable repos as well now. Packages should be available soon (if not already).

Originally Posted by seuden

Android?

No current plans for that

[Clark Kent]

I‘m excited to test next dev release!!