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1.1 root 1: Some Frequently Asked Questions. Please read this carefully if you have
2: problems.
3:
1.1.1.3 root 4: ** COMMON PROBLEMS
1.1.1.2 root 5:
1.1.1.3 root 6: Q: Sometimes, after UAE exits, there is no autorepeat for the keys!
7: A: Do "xset r on" (happens only in X, apparently mainly on Solaris boxes.
8: Dunno why.). [Should be fixed by now. Note that this always happens when
9: UAE crashes]
1.1.1.2 root 10:
1.1.1.3 root 11: Q: When UAE starts up, it says "Illegal instruction: 4e7b". Why?
12: A: That's normal, it's just the Kickstart CPU type test.
1.1.1.2 root 13:
1.1.1.3 root 14: Q: When UAE starts up, it says "Illegal instruction: 00f8" (many times). Why?
15: A: That's because your Kickstart ROM was compiled for the 68020.
16: (could also happen when there's a bug in UAE)
17:
18: Q: When UAE loads <insert your favourite game> it says "Non-standard sync".
19: A: Your favourite game is copy-protected. There are ways to transfer such
20: disks, but it's complicated and I won't help you because it would be much
21: too time-consuming to figure out all sorts of copy-protection schemes.
22: I hope there will be a general solution some day, but for now you're
23: unlucky.
24:
25: Q: While it compiles, it says "xxx illegals generated" or "16 mismatches".
26: Is this a problem?
27: A: No. I can use this information to tell whether there is a problem, and
28: there isn't.
29:
30: Q: How can I produce an @ symbol (or any other sign)? On my PC keyboard it's
31: AltGr+Q, but that doesn't seem to work.
32: A: Look at the keyboard of your Amiga. Use the same combination that you would
33: need on a real Amiga. These combinations differ across countries. Make sure
34: you have loaded the right keyboard translation table for AmigaOS (e.g. in
35: Germany, make sure there's a "setmap de" command in the startup-sequence)
36: You can probably create a @ sign by pressing Alt+2, or Shift+2.
37:
38:
39: ** INCOMPATIBILITIES
40:
41: Q: UAE does not work with my Kickstart 1.2 image.
42: A: You may need to turn off the harddisk and fastmem emulation with the "-a"
43: parameter. Kick 1.2 doesn't support the autoboot features that the harddisk
44: emulation requires.
45: You can tell that you are suffering from this problem if UAE gives you the
46: message "filesys_bput called".
47:
48: Q: What do I do if a game/demo/application doesn't work?
49: A: If you're trying to run a game or a demo, enable some slow RAM, and try
50: running it again. Some older software has compatability problems which
51: slow RAM can sometimes fix. If it's an application, check for obvious
52: things like Kickstart version requirements, RAM, etc. Also make sure the
53: software you're trying to run isn't for AGA equipped machines.
1.1.1.4 ! root 54: You can also try changing various other options, like the CPU type. For
! 55: games, sometimes "-C0c" will make it work.
1.1.1.3 root 56:
57:
58: ** AMIGA DISKS, DISK IMAGES, HARDDISKS, CDROMS
1.1 root 59:
60: Q: Is it possible to read Amiga disks with a PC?
1.1.1.4 ! root 61: A: No, and yes. No, with a standard PC it's impossible. However, with some
! 62: additional hardware (i.e. a new floppy controller) it is possible. I
! 63: currently know of two solutions, the AFR package which consists of a small
! 64: parallel port interface that you have to build yourself and some software,
! 65: and the Catweasel controller which is available as an ISA card and comes
! 66: with DOS software that can create disk files. I have a Catweasel here, and
! 67: it does in fact work.
1.1 root 68:
69: Q: Couldn't I attach an Amiga floppy drive to the PC somehow, and use that to
70: read Amiga disks?
71: A: You can attach Amiga (low-density) drives to the PC, because they are
72: completely identical to PC drives. This won't help you, because the problem
73: is not the drive, but the PC floppy controller. You have to live with it.
74:
1.1.1.3 root 75: Q: But the PC can read 11-sector formats!
76: A: Yes, but those sectors look a little different to the hardware.
77:
78: Q: But the Amiga can read PC disks!
79: A: So what?
80:
81: Q: But the PC can read Atari ST disks!
82: A: So what?
83:
1.1 root 84: Q: But...
1.1.1.3 root 85: A: No way. If you still are convinced that it must be possible, prove it.
86: Write a program to read Amiga disks with a standard PC controller, and I
87: will apologize in public.
88:
89: Q: How can I use DMS images?
90: A: Run DMS under UAE and use it just like you would on a real Amiga.
91: Decompressing a DMS file to DF0: will overwrite the .adf file that is
92: currently used to emulate df0:.
1.1 root 93:
1.1.1.2 root 94: Q: How can I transfer non-DOS disks that are used by many demos?
95: A: With transdisk. The fact that they are unreadable by AmigaDOS does not
96: mean they are unreadble by transdisk.
97: Long explanation: There are two things to consider when talking about the
98: "format" of a disk. First, the low-level format which divides each track
99: into sectors in a special way. Most Amiga disks are in the standard Amiga
100: format which has 11 sectors with 512 bytes each per track, with a total of
101: 880K per disk. There's also some extra information outside the sectors so
102: that the floppy controller can find the sectors. PC disks use a different
103: format, which is the reason why a PC controller can't read Amiga disks.
104: If a disk is formatted this way, it can be copied with the normal AmigaDOS
105: diskcopy program or the Workbench equivalent, and transdisk can handle it.
106: Copy-protected disks have a different track layout (sometimes, they don't
107: divide the tracks into sectors at all, or use more sectors, or put
108: different things between the sectors. This type of thing can't be handled
109: by diskcopy or by transdisk.
110: Now, the second part of the "format" of a disk is the filesystem. If you
111: want to put files and directories on a disk, you have to write some special
112: information into some of the sectors on the disk. That information includes
113: (for example) the name of the disk (e.g. "Workbench1.3"), and what files it
114: contains. This information is called a "filesystem". The Amiga knows about
115: several filesystems: There is the original filesystem (called OFS), and the
116: newer Fast Filesystem (FFS) which was introduced with Kickstart 1.3.
117: If you don't put a filesystem on the disk, the data in the sectors can still
118: be read by programs like transdisk or diskcopy, but the data makes no sense
119: to them. The point is, it doesn't have to. It only has to make sense for
120: the Workbench which tries to determine what files there are on a disk. If
121: the Workbench can't find a filesystem it knows about on the disk, it will
1.1.1.3 root 122: be marked as a non-DOS disk (as opposed to an "unreadable" disk which you
123: get if the low-level format is different from the standard).
1.1 root 124:
125: Q: How can I change diskfiles?
1.1.1.2 root 126: A: Your version of UAE may have a user interface (the X11 version does) which
127: enables you to do this. Read your system-specific README file for details.
1.1.1.3 root 128: You can also use the "uaectrl" programs from the "amiga" subdirectory.
1.1 root 129:
1.1.1.3 root 130: Q: Why is the floppy emulation so slow, after all the disk image is on a
131: harddisk?
132: A: Because the disk rotation is emulated. This is necessary. Use the harddisk
133: emulation wherever possible.
134:
135: Q: <insert your favourite problem with the hardfile emulation here>
136: A: Don't use the hardfile. Use the filesystem emulation ("-m" option).
137:
138: Q: How can I read Amiga CD-ROMs?
139: A: With the harddisk emulation. Give UAE the parameter "-M CD:/cdrom" if you
140: are using a Linux system with the CD mounted at /cdrom, or "-m CD:D:\" if
141: you are using DOS and D: is your CD-ROM drive (and if you have a different
142: system you should be able to figure out what to do)
1.1 root 143:
144: Q: Is it possible to read Amiga harddisks with a PC?
145: A: Yes. Linux 2.0 has an Amiga filesystem that can reportedly read Amiga
1.1.1.2 root 146: OFS/FFS harddisks. Please don't ask for details, I didn't write the thing,
1.1.1.3 root 147: and I don't use it (yet). I did use it to read .adf disk images, though.
1.1 root 148:
149:
1.1.1.3 root 150: ** FUTURE PLANS
1.1 root 151:
1.1.1.3 root 152: Q: When will the next version come out, and what will be in it?
153: A: It will come out when it's done.
1.1 root 154:
1.1.1.3 root 155: Q: Will there be a shareware version or some registration fee for future
156: versions of UAE?
157: A: No.
1.1 root 158:
1.1.1.3 root 159: Q: Couldn't you use ARDI's CPU emulation to speed it up?
160: A: UAE is free software. It comes with sourcecode. ARDI's Executor is
161: proprietary and sold commercially. ARDI has no reason at all to give away
162: their code for free, because they wouldn't make any more money if they did.
163: (yes, I really get asked this kind of thing! I don't know where people take
164: these ideas from).
1.1 root 165:
166:
1.1.1.3 root 167: ** UAE SPEED
1.1 root 168:
1.1.1.3 root 169: Q: I don't get steady sound output! I only have a 486DX40, could this be
170: related?
171: A: Try a Pentium-II-300, these things are reported to do better.
1.1 root 172:
173: Q: Would it be possible to speed it up by emulating the CPU native on, say,
174: a 68k Mac?
175: A: I doubt it. UAE needs to be able to interrupt the CPU emulation anytime to
1.1.1.2 root 176: perform tasks necessary for emulating the hardware. So you can't just let
177: it run all by itself.
1.1 root 178:
179: Q: Would it be possible to speed it up by using graphics accelerator boards
180: for example by using the blitter in S3 chips?
1.1.1.2 root 181: A: I doubt it. I'm no PC graphics card expert, but probably the only thing the
182: S3 blitter and the Amiga blitter have in common are seven lowercase
183: letters. Even if they were similar you'd have to keep all Amiga chip
1.1 root 184: RAM in the graphics memory and that would most likely make everything
185: painfully slow.
186:
1.1.1.3 root 187: Q: How about adding special support for the GUS/other wavetable boards that
188: uses hardware features to speed up the sound emulation?
1.1.1.2 root 189: A: Again, due to the differences in Amiga and PC (in this case: GUS) hardware,
190: this isn't really feasible. You _might_ get something like this to work in
191: some special cases (ProTracker modules might be a case that could be made
192: to work), but I don't think you can come up with something that emulates
193: all of the Amiga sound hardware.
194: The problem is that by just examining the values a program writes into the
195: audio hardware registers, you can hardly figure out what a program is
196: trying to do, and what it is going to do in the future. In contrast to
197: that, it's easy to write a SoundTracker module player for GUS cards because
198: you know exactly what you are playing, and how you have to do it.
199: (That doesn't mean you can't use the GUS for sound output; you just can't
200: use it to _speed up_ the sound output)
1.1 root 201:
202: Q: Emulating all the hardware is a bad idea. Why don't you just emulate the
203: OS? After all, that's what makes the Amiga the Amiga.
204: A: Short answer: I disagree.
205: Long answer: The OS is half of what makes the Amiga the Amiga. It is a very
206: nice OS, and there are some features that I miss in any other OS, but it is
207: also severely lacking in terms of (for example) memory protection and
208: filesystem performance.
209: The other thing that made the Amiga special back in the 1980s is the custom
210: chip architecture. If you look into old (1985) computer magazines, you will
211: find that the capabilites of the Amiga OS are only mentioned as a side
212: note, because people were not aware that it was revolutionary for a home
213: computer. They were aware, though, that the Amiga could display 4096 colors
214: at the same time and that it had a blitter and a copper that could do all
215: sorts of stuff, like bouncing balls for instance. And I think it was the
216: superiority of the hardware that made the Amiga a success.
217: I see UAE as a program that is similar to C64 emulators: it allows you to
218: run some old games and other programs that you can't replace with better
219: equivalents on the PC. As such, it can already be used to run non-action
220: games (like Monkey Island or Bard's Tale) at a satisfactory speed. Faster
221: CPUs will eventually make it possible to run action games, just like faster
222: CPUs have made it possible to emulate a C64 at full speed on a PC. UAE is
223: not (primarily) meant for the Amiga PowerUser who is running high quality
224: applications on his A4000 with a 68060 board, but for people like me who
225: switched from an A500 to the PC a few years ago because they wanted to make
226: money by developing software.
227: Besides, emulating an OS is far more difficult IMHO. Especially if the
228: platform you are emulating it on is completely different than the platform
229: that is being emulated. You'd have to mess with endianness conversions and
230: other nightmares. The AmigaOS wasn't designed with portability in mind
231: either.
232:
1.1.1.2 root 233: Q: How fast is it?
1.1.1.3 root 234: A: It depends.
235: For crunching files with PowerPacker, UAE is 17 times faster than my A500
236: on my K6-233.
237: For playing Turrican I, it's running at about full speed (with sound).
238: For playing Turrican III, it is slightly slower than the A500.
239: For some (not many) demos, it's a fair bit slower than the A500.
240: Rule of thumb: Sound emulation really takes time; so do copper effects and
241: scrolling. If you don't need either, you're fine.
1.1.1.2 root 242:
243: Q: How can I make it faster?
244: A: Run the emulator in the lowest screen mode (320x200), set it to 256 colors,
245: make sure aspect correction is disabled, and set the frame rate to every 3rd
246: frame. Finally, disable sound (if you have a version that lets you compile
247: your own executable, set "DONT_WANT_SOUND" in config.h). It won't look very
248: nice, but it will run as fast as your machine allows.
1.1.1.3 root 249: If you are running the X version, make sure you use the "-T" option. Not
250: using this option is "safer", but makes the emulator very slow. Even better,
251: when you run configure, say "configure --enable-dga" if your X server
252: (XFree86 3.2 or higher) supports it.
253: It's especially important that you don't use 24 bit or 32 bit color modes.
1.1.1.2 root 254:
1.1.1.3 root 255:
256: ** MISCELLANEOUS
257:
258: Q: Do I need a real Amiga to use this program?
259: A: Yes, unless you have some other way of legally getting ROM files and system
260: software, such as the Cloanto Amiga Forever CD.
261:
262: Q: Where can I download a Kickstart ROM/Amiga games?
263: A: Read the docs again. You can't. It would be illegal to put a ROM image or
264: other copyrighted software on the net (yes, even if you once bought a
265: specific Amiga game and sold it together with the computer, downloading the
266: same game now would still be illegal. Sorry.)
267:
268: Q: Does UAE run on the DEC Alpha/Sparcstations/SGIs/whatever?
269: A: UAE should run on all Unix systems that have at least X11R5 and a decent
270: C compiler installed. So the answer is probably yes. Just use the generic
271: Unix source and follow the instructions in README.UNIX to compile it.
1.1.1.4 ! root 272: However, using GCC and the GNU binutils can improve your chances.
1.1.1.3 root 273:
274: Q: Why is there a blank area on the left side of the screen?
275: A: The Amiga can display graphics there, but usually doesn't because this
276: would disable some sprites. The area is only used by some overscan demos.
277: Normal screens are off-center. I'm not going to do anything about that.
278: If you can't stand it, you can try to use 320x200 or 640x480 resolution,
279: which will attempt to center the screen. This is near impossible to get
280: right for every program. If your screen doesn't fit in lower resolutions,
281: use 800x600.
282:
283: Q: Where is a complete summary of all command line switches ?
284: A: In the README files. You can also generate it yourself by typing:
285: uae -h > uae-help.txt
286:
287: Q: Benchmark program <insert your favourite benchmark> gives weird results.
288: A: Amiga programs run by the emulator think the Amiga timers can be used to
289: measure real time. But in UAE, they only measure "emulation time". Sysinfo,
290: for example, gives the same results on all machines. So don't run
291: benchmarks to test the emulator speed.
292: Some benchmarks also use tight loops of DIV or MUL instructions to measure
293: CPU speed, and in "emulation time" these instructions take as much time
294: as any other instructions, and you'll get much too high values.
295: If you enabled the "HAVE_RDTSC" option, running benchmarks makes some more
296: sense. Still not a lot, since there is a minimum speed that the benchmark
297: will report on every machine. The faster the machine, the more accurate
298: will your results be.
299:
300: Q: Wasn't this called the Unusable Amiga Emulator?
301: A: Yes. But no one thought the name was very fitting anymore, though. It was
302: only really appropriate for v0.1, which couldn't even boot.
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