FS-UAE Configuration Files

Most FS-UAE settings are controlled via configuration files. The available options are listed in the configuration options page. Also see paths and directories for more relevant information.

You can use FS-UAE Launcher, a user-friendly graphical interface instead of writing configuration files manually.

Default Configuration File

The following configuration file  will be automatically loaded unless the program is started with another configuration file (for instance by “opening” a configuration file in FS-UAE):

Documents/FS-UAE/Configurations/Default.fs-uae

On Windows, make sure it isn’t really called Default.fs-uae.txt. It is easy to be fooled since Windows Explorer hides the file extension by default.

Specifying Paths in Configuration Files

Paths in configuration files can be specified as either:

  • Relative paths
  • Absolute paths
  • Paths beginning with special variables

On Windows, you must either use forward slashes in paths in configuration files, or you must use double backslashes. Example: C:/Amiga/Files and C:\\Amiga\\Files are both correct, but C:\Amiga\Files is not!

Relative paths will be looked up relative to either the current directory, or most often relative to a relevant default directory. For example, relative floppy image paths will be looked up relative to the Floppies directory.

Absolute paths are paths beginning with a drive letter (Windows), or a slash (Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD).

To avoid having to use absolute paths, and to make configuration files more portable, you can prefix paths with some special variables (Note: these are not environment variables, though $HOME looks like one):

  • $CONFIG – The directory containing the loaded configuration file.
  • $EXE – The directory containing the currently running FS-UAE executable.
  • $APP – On Mac OS X, the directory containing the currently running FS-UAE.app, on other platforms, it is he same as $EXE.
  • $HOME – The user’s home directory.
  • $DOCUMENTS – The user’s documents directory.
  • $BASE – The FS-UAE base directory, usually Documents/FS-UAE.

Custom Configuration File

To load a custom configuration instead of the default, just give the path to the configuration file as a program argument, Example for Windows:

fs-uae.exe D:/example/CustomConfig.fs-uae

For other platforms, something like:

fs-uae /example/CustomConfig.fs-uae

This also means that you can (in most desktop environments):

  • Associate .fs-uae files with the FS-UAE application, so FS-UAE starts with the configuration if you open the .fs-uae file.
  • Drag and drop .fs-uae configuration files to the FS-UAE application icon.

FS-UAE Launcher and Configuration Files

FS-UAE Launcher will list all configuration files found in Documents/FS-UAE/Configurations in a convenient list view.

Relative Configuration File

If you are creating a portable FS-UAE setup, you will want FS-UAE to automatically find the correct configuration file even if the program is moved around. Before looking for Default.fs-uae, FS-UAE will look for the following file in the directory containing the executable:

Config.fs-uae

So for instance, if you had the windows version of FS-UAE installed in E:\Software\FS-UAE, and the executable is E:\Software\FS-UAE\FS-UAE.exe, it will then try to first find:

E:\Software\FS-UAE\Config.fs-uae

Inside that configuration file, you can also prefix paths with:

  • $CONFIG/ (the directory containing the configuration file), or
  • $EXE/ (the directory contaning the executable)

In this specific case, these should be the same. For example, you could use the base_dir option to have FS-UAE create its default directories in this same directory:

base_dir = $CONFIG/

And FS-UAE will then use/create the following directories (and more):

  • E:\Software\FS-UAE\Floppies
  • E:\Software\FS-UAE\Kickstarts

Hidden Default Configuration File

FS-UAE automatically creates a number of sub-folders in Documents/FS-UAE on startup. If you wish to avoid this behavior, you can use the base_dir option to specify an alternative directory. But obviously, it does not make any sense to specify this in Documents/FS-UAE/Configurations/Default.fs-uae.

If the following configuration file is found, it will be used as the default configuration file instead of Default.fs-uae:

$HOME/.config/fs-uae/fs-uae.conf

And by specifying the base_dir option there, you can have FS-UAE create the default directories somewhere else.

Host Options File

The file Host.fs-uae is always read in addition to Default.fs-uae (or the specific configuration file used when launching FS-UAE). Common settings such as fullscreen and scanlines can be set here. Options in Host.fs-uae will be applied first, so you can override the defaults set here in the primary configuration file.

When using FS-UAE Launcher, the Host.fs-uae file is ignored.