FS-UAE Amiga Emulator

Documentation

Getting started

TODO: Split into:

  • Getting started with FS-UAE (only)
  • Getting started with FS-UAE Launcher

This page will help you get started using FS-UAE. It is quite easy to get FS-UAE up and running with your favorite games, as long as you have access to Kickstart ROM images and floppy image files for your games.

First, you need to download and install FS-UAE! I recommend you download the suite containing both FS-UAE and FS-UAE Launcher. FS-UAE Launcher is an easy-to-use configuration frontend which makes it much easier to get started. The alternative is to manually write config files yourself.

The next step is to install Kickstart ROMs for the Amiga models you wish to emulate. FS-UAE Launcher has a kickstart import helper you can use to copy kickstart ROMs to the correct directory. Information about how to acquire Amiga Kickstart ROMs is available here.

Finally, you should have some software you want to run, for instance games. Amiga Forever comes with a selection of software and games, and there are several web sites with legal Amiga downloads:

When you start FS-UAE Launcher, it should be quite straight-forward how to select the floppy disk images and start the emulation :)

While you are running the emulation, press F12 to open the menu. From this menu, you can quit, change floppies, restart the emulation, save states, and more. Depending on your keyboard and operating systems, you may need to press more than just F12 alone, for example Fn+F12 on some laptops, or even Fn+Cmd+F12 on Mac laptops.

Starting FS-UAE for the first time

The following information is useful if you want to run FS-UAE manually without FS-UAE Launcher. If you are using FS-UAE Launcher, you do not need the rest of these instructions.

When you start FS-UAE for the first time, an on-screen message "No configuration file was found" will be shown. This is normal.

You can now enter the menu by pressing F12 (or Cmd+F12, or Fn+12 or Cmd+Fn+12 depending on your system setup), navigate to the X button in the top right corner with the cursor keys, and press Return to quit FS-UAE.

FS-UAE will now have created a directory FS-UAE under your (My) Documents folders. The FS-UAE folder contains the following folders (among others): Kickstarts, Floppies, and Configurations.

You should now copy your kickstart files into the Kickstarts folder. If you have a Cloanto Amiga Forever CD-ROM, these files will be called amiga-os-130.rom and similar. Copy all .rom files (and the rom.key file!!) to the Kickstarts folder.

If you want to play a game from a floppy disk image (ADF), copy the file (or files if a multi-disk game) to the Floppies folder.

Note: It is not a requirement to copy the ADF files here, read the detailed documentation if you want to learn how to have the disk files stored wherever you like.

Creating a configuration file

The last thing you need to do is to create a configuration file for FS-UAE. Download Default.fs-uae and save this file in the Configurations folder (right-click the link and choose "Save link as", or similar option in your browser).

If you now start FS-UAE, it should no longer complain that the configuration file was not found. The Default configuration file you downloaded specified Amiga 500 as the model, and if you copied the necessary kickstart file(s) to the Kickstarts directory, you should now see the standard Kickstart 1.3 boot screen when you start FS-UAE.

Please quit FS-UAE again and I’ll show you how to boot your game. Open the file Default.fs-uae which you saved to the Configurations folder in a text editor, for instance Notepad on Windows, or gEdit on Linux.

The line

floppy_drive_0 = Disk1.adf

should be changed to reflect the name of the floppy you want to boot. If, for instance, your ADF file is named Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 (1991)(Gremlin)[cr CPY].adf, then you should change the line to read:

floppy_drive_0 = Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 (1991)(Gremlin)[cr CPY].adf

Booting the game

When you now start FS-UAE, Lotus 2 (or the game you configured) should boot :)

If you had a recognized and supported gamepad or joystick controller connected when you started FS-UAE, this will be used as the primary Amiga joystick. The mouse will be connected to the second Amiga joystick port by default. You can change the inserted controllers from the F12 menu.

If you do not have a joystick or gamepad connected, the cursor keys and right ctrl/alt key on your keyboard will be used to emulate the primary Amiga joystick.

Configuring a multi-disk game

When a game has multiple floppy disks, there are two ways to set this up in FS-UAE. One way is to use multiple floppy drives, and put one disk in each drive like you would on a real Amiga with multiple drives:

floppy_drive_0 = Pinball Dreams (Disk 1 of 2)[cr FLT].adf
floppy_drive_1 = Pinball Dreams (Disk 2 of 2)[cr FLT].adf

You can emulate up to four floppy drives this way (floppy_drive_0...floppy_drive_3).

When a game has more than 4 floppies, or the game supports just one floppy drive and requires floppy-swapping, you can do this instead:

floppy_drive_0 = Pinball Dreams (Disk 1 of 2)[cr FLT].adf
floppy_image_0 = Pinball Dreams (Disk 1 of 2)[cr FLT].ad
floppy_image_1 = Pinball Dreams (Disk 2 of 2)[cr FLT].adf

You are then able to swap floppies using the FS-UAE (F12) menu. In the above example, Disk 1 is inserted in drive 0, and both Disk 1 and Disk 2 is added to the floppy image list. You can add up to 20 floppies to the floppy image list using the floppyimage... options.

Troubleshooting

If you encounter any issue, please see if your problem is listed in the FAQ. If not, you are welcome to post a question in the support forum. I monitor this forum myself, and everyone else there is nice and will help you if they can :)

More information and configuration options

Head over to the Documentation section on https://fs-uae.net/docs if you want to explore the options and features FS-UAE can offer!