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FS-UAE Amiga Emulator
Getting Started
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:
- Full versions of many games: http://www.amigafuture.de/downloads.php?cat=6
- Team 17 games
- Gremlin games
- Some Factor 5 games
- List of downloadable games
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 floppy_image_* 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!
I am on Mac and have the Amiga Forever kickstarts, and am able to import them with a normal success message and with the ROMs landing in my ~/Documents/FS-UAE/Kickstarts folder . However, at the bottom of the screen it still says “Using Kickstart ROM Replacement” and when I try to start a game it doesn’t show the expected workbench startup screen. I have also tried to set the Custom ROM field, but regardless of what I select the field stays blank and the message about “Using Kickstart ROM Replacement” remains. This seems to be a pretty bad bug or something, and it prevents me from using FS-UAE for a lot of games. Please help!
I should mention that after import there are still no green checkboxes in the list of Kickstarts. This is using a just-purchased Amiga Forever 2016 package. I have even tried installing once via a Windows VM and once via Wine, and in both cases the resulting ROMs are not recognized by FS-UAE.
Hi, can you check if there is a rom.key file in ~/Documents/FS-UAE/Kickstarts?
One possible explanation; I believe the rom.key file (needed to decrypt the Cloanto ROMs) is only written when first starting Amiga Forever. So if you only installed it without running it, that file could be missing…
“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).”
Seems as if this link is broken/missing?
Hi, the link should be https://fs-uae.net/files/Default.fs-uae. However, this config does not really do anything useful, it’s just an example. I recommend using FS-UAE Launcher to manage your configuration(s) instead.
Hi,
Great work!Keep it up:)
I installed fs-uae and fs-uae launcher under Debian Wheezy.
Can I autostart a custom configuration with fs-uae ?
I can with fs-launcher but I’d like to start it automatically and fs-uae autostarts with a plain a500 kick waiting for a floppy.:P
Thanks for any help!
Hi, you can give the path to an .fs-uae config file to FS-UAE (or to FS-UAE Launcher) and FS-UAE will start with that config. So you can for example create a desktop shortcut which does this. I’m not sure if this is what you where thinking of, or something else?
Hi guys I’m new to this but it sounds massively complicated. Is there no way, like console emulators, that you can just download FS-UAE, and a game ROM and then just play? What’s with all these Kickstarters etc? I just want to plug and play!!
Hi, the process is more complicated than necessary due to copyright. The games need an operating system running on the Amiga, and this is “Kickstart”. But since the Kickstarts are copyrighted (and still sold, even), they cannot be bundled with FS-UAE.
(An open-source Kickstart replacement is included with FS-UAE, but compatibility isn’t 100%, so many games will refuse to run unless you have the original Kickstart(s))
I ‘ve read everything but still have problem when trying to import my kickstart roms from amiga forever. I copy all .rom including the rom.key but when i try to import gives me an error that the folder is not a directory. Any clue? Sorry about my poor english.
I made a copy of the directory and use the option above the amiga import button and works perfectly. Thanks again for the great work!
This is a really awesome work! TKS!!!!!
Thank you for leaving positive feedback 😀
There is some bug in last portable beta, kicstart path is after folder move to other location still related to first folder when i started emulator – i can fix it temporally through change kickstart file location, but in next start is again broken.. I checked ini, i dont know why, but in setting.ini is still wrong – related to first-time folder, even after setting.ini and cache deletion is wrong, are you using some registry key or some files which arent in emulator folder?
I also strongly recommend add plausibility to use only relative path.
Hi, if I understand you correctly, there isn’t a bug. Portable mode is only truly portable if you only add directories *inside* the FS-UAE portable folder. For example, if you have:
D:\Amiga\KickstartsD:\Amiga\FS-UAE\Portable.ini
D:\Amiga\FS-UAE\...
and you add D:\Amiga\Kickstarts, this will be added using absolute path. If you move Kickstarts inside FS-UAE, it will be added with relative path.
There is one option though. I have implemented it, but not really tested it. If you *move* Portable.ini like this:
D:\Amiga\KickstartsD:\Amiga\Portable.ini
D:\Amiga\FS-UAE\...
Then D:\Amiga will be used as the base folder when determining relative addresses, and then you should be able to add the Kickstarts folder.
(If your problem is something else entirely, please explain more detailed).
Well portable – in those days, usually means – without installation, just download and run, but fully portable could be better, but not for roms – for example my roms are on my NAS and im using they with multiple machines and emulators… and copy roms into emulators folders is simply waste of space.
And to be honest – even with totally portable definitions isnt program working, is really bugged, because their is somewhere in settings, registry etc.. a value, which still searching roms in first folder, where was emulator executed and when you move folder – its broken, still related to first folder.
Simply i hate programs, which arent able to save and load their settings after restart.. and this
exactly what is happens – i change path, its working a moment, i restart program, path settings are lost..
Portable also usually meant that you could keep the program on an external drive, and move it from computer to computer, where the device could appear on different drive letters (Windows) or path (other OSes), and still work. This is that FS-UAE portable mode is designed for.
If you think you have found a bug (path settings are lost?) then please provide more detailed information so I can look into it. What paths are you using, what folder is moved, what happens then? Can you create a step-by-step list for me to follow in order to reproduce the problem?
Hi. Please update instructions for new users! I have a dozen or so amiga game zip files that I want to play. I have a kickstart file. Can I use FS-UAE arcade to browse and start and then play them while offline? If so how do I set that up?
Hi, yes you can, if the games are recognized by the online game database.
1. Login to your oagd.net account in FS-UAE Launcher (create a new account if necessary).
2. Let FS-UAE Launcher scan your zip files so information about found files are added to the file database.
The recognized games will appear both in FS-UAE Launcher and Fs-UAE Arcade.
Hi, I just download FS_UAE and registered to OAGD net to take advantage of the amazing work you do… but I’ve problems logging in… I got error 10060 (I think it’s a timeout related error).
I can argue it is a proxy related problem, since I’m under proxy server… does FS_UAE Launcher get proxy informations from the O.S. (Windows 7 64) setup? Is there a way to set this up? Am I wrong think about a proxy related issue?
Thannk you for the support and the amazin job!
No, you are probably correct. FS-UAE Launcher does (probably) not work through proxies. Perhaps you can add more details here: https://github.com/FrodeSolheim/fs-uae-launcher/issues/23 (what kind of proxy you have, “normal” HTTP proxy? SOCKS proxy?)