Welcome to the Unix Amiga Emulator Frequently Asked Questions page. This page aims at answering the common questions that appear on the UAE Discussion Board, or that are posed to the author or other contributors via email, so that people need not answer questions which are asked time and time again.

The information in this FAQ is current as of version 0.6.9 of DOS UAE, 0.6.9 of Linux UAE and 0.6.9r13 of WinUAE (Picasso96 Support).

When a new version is released, the FAQ will be updated accordingly.

Most Important: READ the documentation that comes with UAE thoroughly - we keep getting questions posted on the discussion board which are answered in the documentation!

This document is NOT an AmigaDOS tutorial - if you've never used AmigaDOS before, and don't understand the Amiga filesystem, I honestly can't see why you're using UAE in the first place, but at any rate, do not email UAE contributors asking for help on mundane AmigaDOS tasks.  If you wish to learn these things, it's up to you to take the initiative and locate the appropriate reading material (There is some information available on the Web, I will locate and post the URL's soon).
This FAQ already covers several topics which aren't essential to running UAE.

Note: Command examples prefixed by "CLI>" indicate commands which are executed from the AmigaDOS Shell. Command examples prefixed by "C:\>" are commands which are executed from a MS-DOS prompt.

1. What is UAE?

2. Why is UAE slower than the FELLOW Amiga emulator?

3. Can you read Amiga disks with a PC floppy drive?

4. What other things do I need to run UAE that don't come included?

5. Creating/Transferring .ADF files on very basic/low-end systems.

6. How do I transfer Amiga software to my PC?

7. How can I make use of software from AmiNET with UAE?

8. I have an .ADF file that I'd like to run on a real Amiga, can I do that?

9. .ADF files take up a lot of space - is there anything I can do to solve this problem?

10. UAE is slow! Why not rewrite it in 100% assembly language?

11. Where can I obtain .ADF files from?

12. <Insert Favourite Game Here> does not run/behaves strangely when run from UAE. What can I do?

13. When I run UAE with sound, music and effects are really shakey and break up frequently.

14. When I run Workbench in an interlace mode, the lower portion of the screen vanishes.

15. When attempting to run WinUAE, I end up getting a cryptic error related to DirectX.

16. When is the next version going to be available?

Q: What is UAE?

A: UAE originally stood for Unix Amiga Emulator - a software emulator designed by Bernd Schmidt. UAE emulates an OCS (Old Chipset) Commodore Amiga, and allows you to run software native to the Amiga and it's Workbench operating system, on a variety of platforms, including MS-DOS, Unices (Linux, etc), Mac, BeBox and others.. Work was started on UAE in early 1995, when it was named the Unusable Amiga Emulator, as the first version had almost no functionality whatsoever. Since then, it has grown into a powerful and functional emulator, which allows you to emulate a low-end Amiga system on an entry-level Pentium machine.

If you don't have any Amiga software, then you have no need for UAE.

Q: Why is UAE slower than the FELLOW Amiga emulator?

A: UAE was developed, from the very beginning, in UNIX C.  This was done not only because it was the programmers development platform of choice but to ensure maximum portability to other platforms.  Therefore, UAE (in it's native UNIX form) does not include processor-dependant assembly language in the speed critical areas of the program.  If the author was to incorperate inline assembly into the UAE source, sure, it would make it faster, but at the the same it would sacrifice portability to other platforms.  Fellow, based on the original UAE source, was written largely in assembly language, thus making it substancial faster than UAE.

The bottom line is, if you have a slower machine and just wish to play the odd game from time to time, then Fellow is definitely for you.  However, if you wish to build a usable Amiga system on your PC/Mac/etc., and have greater CPU resources, then UAE would be the answer.

Update:  Fellow has advanced a quite a long way over recent months, and as a result, it is fast becoming as chipset compatible as UAE is.  The last few Fellow updates have seen most of the 40k demos from AmiNET working perfectly (except those with AGA and 68020 requirements).

Q: Can you read Amiga disks with a PC floppy drive?

A: No. I've asked Dr. Peter Kittel, of PIOS, to explain why.

"The Amiga as well as the PC use MFM coding, so up to this level they are equal. But then the PC writes separate sectors on a track, where each sector is separated by a defined gap and some sync patterns from the previous one. These sector gaps are not used in the Amiga format. Here all sectors are written as one "long track" directly following each other, and thus also more sectors fit on one track"

"A second issue is that the Amiga format does not use the index hole in the floppy to sync the start of a track to a certain position on the disk. Amiga tracks start at the very point where the drive head is at that moment."

"Normal PC floppy controller chips choke on at least one of these issues, they simply cannot read such tracks. Often they are capable of reading sectors longer than the usual 512 bytes (as also used on the Amiga), but still not full tracks. There are some few controller chips which have the potential to also read Amiga format. The Draco seems to use one of them, and also the one used in the PIOS ONE is maybe able to work in this format (has yet to be tested), but the normal PC hardware is unable to do it."

- Special thanks to Dr. Kittel for his time.

The only way you could possibly plug an Amiga disk drive into a PC is via a third-party piece of hardware, like a controller card. One such controller card exists, and it is manufactured and distributed by Symantec in the U.S.A. I have little information on this card, other than it enables you to read Mac and Amiga disks on a PC. These cards are few and far between, and are not supported by UAE.

Update:  The aforementioned card is no longer available.

There is NO other way, so please DO NOT ask.

Q: What other things do I need to run UAE that don't come included?

A: You will require two things: Amiga software, and a Kickstart ROM image taken from a Kickstart chip of a real Amiga. Here's how to obtain both of them:

IMPORTANT NOTE: You will need a REAL Amiga to obtain a Kickstart ROM file. The Amiga Kickstart is the intellectual property of Amiga International, and is NOT freely distributable. We ask that you DO NOT:

1. Ask for a Kickstart ROM file on the Discussion Board, or information on where to obtain one other than from a real Amiga.

2. Ask for a Kickstart ROM file on any Amiga related channels on IRC - you will be kicked and banned if you do.

CLI> transrom >RAM:kick.rom

This will 'capture' a copy of the Kickstart chip, and save it to the RAM: disk as "kick.rom". It is best left named "kick.rom" as that is the filename which UAE looks for as default when loading the Kickstart image. Once you've created it, transfer it over to your PC.

2. Because UAE cannot read Amiga floppy disks from a PC floppy disk drive, it uses .ADF files, which are images of an Amiga floppy disk contained into one file. These files are created on a real Amiga, using the TRANSDISK software, which, like TRANSROM, comes with UAE. Once you've copied TRANSDISK over to your Amiga, put the disk which you want to use with UAE into DF0:, open a shell, and type the following:

CLI> transdisk >RAM:df0.adf

This will transfer the contents disk in DF0:, into an .ADF file called "df0.adf", and save it to the RAM: disk. You can now copy it over to your PC using one of the prescribed methods, and load it using UAE.

Q: My Amiga doesn't have a hard-disk, or very much RAM, so I don't have anywhere to store .ADF files that I create with Transdisk!

A: This is a problem quite a few people have been having - the Amiga upon which they tried to create .ADF files either didn't have a hard-disk, or didn't have much space in RAM: to store the created .ADF's. There is a fairly simple solution to this problem, that should allow you to make .ADF's on the most basic of Amiga setups.

TRANSDISK allows you to break .ADF files down into multiple parts, so if you don't have the space to store a WHOLE .ADF file (901120 bytes), then you can create them 20 tracks at a time. Here's an example:

CLI> transdisk >RAM:df0_1.adf -s 0 -e 19

Will read the first 20 tracks of the disk in DF0:, and save it to RAM: as "df0_1.adf". You would then issue the following commands:

CLI> transdisk >RAM:df0_2.adf -s 20 -e 39

CLI> transdisk >RAM:df0_3.adf -s 40 -e 59

CLI> transdisk >RAM:df0_4.adf -s 60 -e 79

To convert the rest of the disk into .ADF format. You can transfer these parts over to the PC one by one, to keep the space in your RAM: disk free for the next part. Once you've transferred all parts over, issue the following command under DOS on your PC:

C:\> copy /B df0_1.adf+df0_2.adf+df0_3.adf+df0_4.adf df0.adf

To join all four parts together into the final file, "df0.adf". It is time consuming, and takes longer than creating an .ADF in one part, but unless you feel like upgrading your Amiga, there is no alternative :-(

Users with 1MB Amiga's with only one floppy disk drive, have a couple of choices:

1. Create a bootable Workbench disk with CrossDOS/MessyDOS installed, so that you can read/write 720k PC floppies. Put TRANSROM & TRANSDISK onto the Workbench disk, boot up from it, and create the .ADF file in parts, saving them to RAM:. Place a 720k PC disk into DF0: and copy the parts from RAM: over to the disk. As an .ADF takes 901120 bytes, you will have to make two trips between the Amiga and the PC.

or...

2. Create a bootable Workbench disk with a small terminal package installed. Boot up, transfer TRANSROM and TRANSDISK over to the Amiga's Workbench disk via the null-modem cable, and create the .ADF files in parts, saving them to RAM:. After making each part, transfer it via a null-modem cable to the PC (where you will join them together using the method described above).

CrossDOS is supplied with releases 2.1, 3.0 and 3.1 of Amiga Workbench. MessyDOS is a shareware alternative and is available from AmiNET (See further down for download).

I'm not sure if either of the above would work with an Amiga 1000 that has only 256k (Yes, they do exist), as I don't have an A1000 on hand to try it out with. If you have an extra floppy drive though, you could always use that as temporary storage space for .ADF parts in between transferring them between the Amiga and the PC.

Q: How can I transfer Amiga software to my PC?

A: You have to learn how to do this if you're going to get anywhere with UAE. There are a number of ways in which this can be achieved. Here are the two easiest and most logical methods:

1. Using a null-modem cable, you can do a Zmodem transfer between an Amiga and a PC. Simply plug the cable into a serial port on each machine, load up a terminal package such as Terminus, NComm or Term on the Amiga, or Terminate, Telemate, Telix (or HyperTerminal for Windows 95 if you insist) on the PC, and initiate a Zmodem upload on the Amiga. If you have it configured correctly (automatic ZModem download at the recieving end should be enabled), the PC will automatically accept this upload, and will download the software onto your PC's hard disk. For best results, obtain a copy of BaudBandit serial.device replacement for the Amiga, and set both ends to 57,600 Baud. BaudBandit should allow transfers of up to 5500cps to/from a 68000-based Amiga, and 10,100cps from an AGA/68020 Amiga - it is available from AmiNET.

If you're one of those people with an AmigaOS 1.2/1.3 A500, with only one floppy drive, you could be in trouble.  Unless you have a Terminal package on a floppy disk which you can boot or use in a second drive, there's no way you can use a null-modem cable to talk to the PC (which is essential to actually get software like transdisk or transrom onto Amiga floppy).  Your best bet would be to approach an Amiga user group, who may be able to supply you with such a disk, or if you're lucky, an Amiga shareware house/distributor in your area.  People who are in truly remote areas and are without user group support should consider mail catalogue.

2. If you don't have a null-modem cable, or don't particularly want to buy one, you can transfer the Amiga software over the PC using a 720k PC floppy disk. Workbench 2.1+ come bundled with CrossDOS, which is software which allows you to read PC 720k disks in your Amiga's floppy drive. If you don't have CrossDOS (i.e., you don't have access to Workbench 2.1 or higher), you can also use MessyDOS which is located at on Aminet. Here's a step by step guide on how to transfer software by floppy.

i) Obtain a 720k PC diskette. Format it either on your PC, or on the Amiga using CrossDOS.

ii) Create either an .ADF file or Kickstart ROM image using the method described above.

iii) Archive this file using either LhA or Zip (Make sure you have these on the PC, so you can unarchive them when you take the disk over).

iv) Copy the archive to the 720k diskette, using CrossDOS or  MessyDOS.

v) Take the diskette over to the PC, copy the archive to the hard-disk, and unarchive it. Copy the Kickstart ROM image or .ADF file to the UAE directory and you're ready to go!

Q: How can I use software from Aminet with UAE?

A: Getting this to work has appeared to be somewhat tricky for the beginner, so I will go over it step-by-step in the following example.

Software that comes from the Aminet Internet archives is obviously not stored in the .ADF format used by UAE, so you either have to install on it onto a blank .ADF file, or put it in a mounted directory which can be accessed from within the emulator in order to be able to make use of it.

As the majority of Aminet software is stored in the .lha compression format, you will have to obtain a copy of the LhA archiver to uncompress it. LhA is available on Aminet.  It is a self extracting archive, so when you run it, it will leave you with the main LhA executable and the documentation.  If it will not execute under AmiDOS from within UAE, use the AmigaDOS protect command to change the files properties so that it is executable.

I have recieved a lot of email from people telling me that the LhA_138E.run file on Aminet does NOT work.  Remember, this is an executable file, and must be launched from the AmigaOS shell, by typing:

CLI> lha_138e.run

Note: LhA is available for MS-DOS and UNIX, so to save time, you can just extract the LhA archive which you got from Aminet, into a directory, and then mount that for use under UAE. Please note that the MS-DOS version of LhA does not support the Amiga long filenames and may not correctly extract the contents of an LhA archive if its files have long filenames. You can then run or install the software you downloaded from Aminet from there. If you are not familiar with how to mount empty directories for use under UAE, please read the documentation for details.

Firstly, decide where you're going to download the Aminet software to. In this case, we'll assume we've downloaded it to C:\AMINET. Let's also assume for this example that we've downloaded LhA_e138.run, so that we can unarchive our downloads, and that we've also downloaded Pinball.lha, which is the software we want to try out using UAE. In this example, they're both located in C:\AMINET, so in order to access them from within UAE, we need to mount that directory. This is done by running UAE from the command prompt (DOS) with the following command-line options:

CLI> uae -m AMINET:C:\AMINET

This will mount the directory C:\AMINET, so that when we boot Workbench using UAE, we find ourselves with a new device (yes, like a hard-disk) , named AMINET:. This is how we access software that we have stored in DOS directories on our PC.

Now we can check out what we've downloaded from Aminet. Firstly we run LhA_e138.run from a Shell, which will leave us with a file named "lha" amongst other things that we don't need in this example. We make sure the LhA executable file is in our path (in the C directory of your Workbench disk or hard disk is a good place) and then open a shell and type:

CLI> lha x AMINET:Pinball.lha

Which will extract all the files from the archive "Pinball.lha". We now just have to find the executable file for Pinball and we can try it out. If you want to keep things tidy, I recommend making a blank .ADF file before you boot up UAE, and extracting your software onto them, and then giving it a name so that you know what's on it. To make a blank .ADF file, issue the following command prior to booting up UAE:

C:\> makedisk df

Will give you a file named "DISKFILE", in the UAE directory. Rename this to something logical and assign it to a floppy drive before booting UAE - it will now be available from within the emulator. You will need to format it from Workbench before you can use it, though.

Some Aminet software is stored in the .DMS format, which is an archive containing the tracks of an actual floppy disk. This is used differently from an .LhA archive in the way that you have to extract it directly to a blank floppy disk in order to use what is in it. To do this, obtain DMS (DiskMaSher) from Aminet, and run the auto-extracting archive from a shell in the same way mentioned for LhA. You should then be left with an executable called DMS, which can be used by issuing the following command from a shell:

CLI> DMS write PROGRAM_NAME.DMS DF0:

You must have created a blank .ADF file to extract it to, and it can be in any drive, not necessarily DF0:.

Hopefully this will now allow people to be able to make use of the 30,000+ files contained on Aminet.

Tip: If you use a UNIX system and find Aminet to be a bit of a jungle when it comes to finding software, an excellent tool exists for UNIX systems called ADT (AmiNET Download Tool). This little utility enables you to receieve a listing of the latest (last 7 or 14 days worth) of software which has been uploaded to AmiNET, everytime you connect to an AmiNET server with it. It also alows you to search for and download software by keyword. This saves you from having to download the massive INDEX file and search through that manually.

You have a choice of either the Linux ELF Binary of ADT, or the C Source code.

Q: I have an .ADF file that I'd like to run on a real Amiga, can I do that?

A: Yes, by making use of DMS or Transdisk. Firstly load Workbench with UAE, but launch UAE with the -m switch so that you have somewhere to store the .DMS file that you're going to create. In this example, we'll use the AMINET: directory we used in the previous example. Insert the .ADF file you want to use on a real Amiga by using the Home+F2/F3/F4 combination, depending which drive you want to insert the disk into. Example: Home+F2 will insert a disk into DF1:, and End+F2 will eject it. Open a shell, and run DMS using the following syntax:

CLI> DMS read AMINET:GAME.DMS DF1:

Will create a .DMS archive of the .ADF file in DF1:. You can now transfer this .DMS file back over to your Amiga via one of the methods we mentioned before (the .DMS file may end up being larger than 720K, in which case the only way you'll be able to do it is via the null-modem cable), uncompress it to a real floppy disk, and boot it up.

The alternative to using DMS is to use Transdisk.  Transdisk has a -w option which allows you to write an .ADF file to an Amiga floppy disk.

Q: .ADF files take up a lot of space - is there anything I can do to solve this problem?

A: Yes. The most recent version of UAE supports .ADF files which have been GZipped. Please do not confuse GZip with PKZIP. GZip compresses the file and adds either a .gz extension to it or just a 'z' to the last letter in the filename, rather than creating a whole new archive containing a copy of the file like PKZIP does. Obtain a copy of GZip for DOS or UNIX (should be supplied on most UNIX systems), and compress your .ADF files by simply typing

C:\> gzip -9 <filename>.adf  (-9 is optional , but ensures maximum compression)

From a shell prompt. You can now load them while the emulator is running, without the need to uncompress them, because UAE will do this for you. However, please note that you will need GZip in the UAE directory for this to work.

Q: UAE is slow! Why not rewrite it in 100% assembly language?

A: This question is asked very often, and there is a simple answer. UAE was written in C so that it could be easily ported to other platforms without the need for major modifications. Writing a program wholly in assembly language is a complicated and time consuming process. It is up to the author of individual UAE ports to add in assembly language where they see fit. You also have to realise that not everyone is well versed in coding assembly language and it might not be in the authors best interest to attempt to add it into his port of UAE.

Q: Where can I obtain .ADF files from?

A: Please DO NOT post requests for sites where .ADF files can be found, or requests to have people send you .ADF files of commercial software. The majority of Amiga software available is still protected by copyright laws and the UAE team DOES NOT wish to see UAE associated with piracy. Please DO NOT email members of the UAE team asking for .ADF files or information on where they can be obtained, as such requests will be ignored. Please DO NOT ask for .ADF files in Amiga related channels on IRC, because doing so will see you kicked and/or banned from the channel.

If you do not have Amiga software which belongs to you, you shouldn't be using UAE.

Q: <Insert Favourite Game Here> does not run/behaves strangely when run from UAE. What can I do?

A: There are a few possible answers to this question. Firstly, make sure the game you're trying to run isn't corrupt - try rebuilding the .ADF file from the original disk. Secondly, some software will not transfer into .ADF format properly because of the track/sector copy protection they have. Some of these start booting fine, but then halt somewhere before loading finishes. Thirdly, some games have been found to behave strangely under UAE - problems include messed-up graphics and flickery sprites. Note that at this stage (0.6.9), sprite collision is not fully implemented. This means that if your ship/player gets hit during a game, the game might either crash, or nothing will happen. This will be fixed in a future version. General graphical problems are also being looked into, so just be patient and try again with a future version.

Other reasons for software not running includes the following:

• Kickstart ROM.  Older games which were written during pre AmigaOS 2.x times sometimes refuse to work on a system which has a 2.x or 3.x AmigaOS ROM installed.  The solution is to use a 1.2 or 1.3 ROM.

• RAM configuration.  Some older games simply refuse to run on an Amiga system which has more than 512K or Chip RAM, or one that has Fast RAM present.  Before assuming a given game does not work under UAE, try changing the amount of RAM available on the system.  Likewise, some newer games require more Chip RAM, like 1MB or more in order to fit all of the graphical data into RAM.

Q: When I run UAE with sound, music and effects are shakey and break up a lot.  Why?

A: Basically, your machine isn't fast enough to process UAE's graphical and audio output synchronously.  You need a relatively fast CPU to be able process audio and video emulation at a sufficient speed where no break-up occurs - AMD's K6, clocked at 200MHz, Intel's Pentium II, Pentium Pro and MMX range of Pentiums clocked at 200+ MHz are all capable of providing contiguous audio emulation.  The IBM/Cyrix 6x86 PR200+ CPU, running on a 75MHz bus, may also be another possibility.

A: Without going into too much detail, I'll just say in order to solve this rather annoying problem, simply add:

-C 224

A: A lot of people have been finding that they are unable to run WinUAE on their system, even after installing DirectX.  Normally this problem is related to an error which looks something like the following:

Directdraw initialization failed:  Mode not supported (120)

DMACON: 0  INTERNA: 0  INTREQ: 0  VPOS: 0  MPOS: 0

A: Please don't ask this question - work is being done on a new version, and when it is available, you will be made aware of it via Bernd's official UAE web page. When a DOS port of the next version is made, it will be available from this site. Just because there is a brief period between versions, does not mean that the whole project has been scrapped - remember that UAE is completely non-profit and that the programmers responsible for it are doing it in their own free time.

If you have sensible suggestions for a future version, feel free to email the authors and tell them about it. Do not be disappointed if it is not implemented, because designing an emulator is an awful lot of work and not all wishes can be fulfilled at the drop of a hat, especially when a limited number of people are contributing to the project.

Work is currently being done by Bernd Schmidt to add Picasso96 support to the UNIX version of UAE.