WinUAE 2.6.0 beta - The BEST Amiga Emulator

Toni Wilen has released the latest beta 2.6.0 of this amazing Amiga Emulator WinUAE. Which enables us to play Amiga games on windows. We are not long since the previous final version of 2.5.1, so hopefully it's worthy of this beta update so soon.

What's more you can even have an Amiga Os on your Windows PC, WinUAE really is the best emulator you can use, I wouldn't recommend any other.

So let's see what's been updated!

2.6.0 beta series.

Major MMU emulation improvements, improved "alien" OS compatibility, lots of minor updates and fixes.

Beta 1:

Big MMU emulation update:

- Previous (Next emulator) 68030 MMU added (+missing bus error exception stuff implemented by me), some 68040 MMU updates merged. A3000 1.4 boot ROM, 1.3 SuperKickstart (which uses special MMU mapping for "bonus" code), Enforcer and Amix confirmed working (Amix can't be installed because tape drive is not emulated but pre-installed HD image work)
- 68060 MMU emulation added, mostly same as 68040, different stack frames and 68060 restarts all bus faults, 68040 restarts only read faults (excluding MOVEM).
- Executable is larger, MMU compatible 68030 and 68060 CPU emulation cores added.
- MMU double fault stops the CPU (just like real CPU does), no more instant resets, makes debugging easier. Windowed mode status bar shows "HALTx" (Hx in OSD) in this situation (x = reason code). Only reset gets out of halted state. Also non-MMU mode fake double bus faults or other impossible states (for example odd supervisor stack) now enters halted state.

Note that 68030 MMU is very complex compared to 68040+ = slower than 68040 or 68060 MMU emulation.

- Added second A3000 Quickstart compatibility level, 68030 MMU emulation or fake MMU + JIT.
- Always refresh windowed status bar floppy leds when emulation starts or statefile is loaded.
- Executable as a disk image mounting does not generate identical disk creation dates anymore, wrong date calculation fixed.
- Use name of original file when mounting executable as a disk image, will be truncated if too long.
- Disable floppy sounds when exe mounted as a disk is inserted.
- Added wheel mouse Game Ports device type. Old "Mouse" is renamed "Wheel Mouse" and new "Mouse" is mouse without wheel mapped. Added because some older programs can get confused with mouse wheel keyboard events.
- Win+D (show/hide desktop) has now same behavior as minimize/unminimize.
- Named pipe accepts also UTF16LE (Windows native) and UTF8 strings if BOM is included. No BOM = assumes current "ANSI" character set. Old ipctester.exe works finally again.
- Named pipe also supports debugger commands, either using dbg_<name of debugger command> or first setting it to debugger mode using "ipc_debug" command. ("ipc_config" = config mode, "ipc_event" = event mode, "ipc_restore" = back to normal mode). Other direct commands are cfg_<config entry and evt_<event name>. (Works exactly same as uae-configuration commands)
- Call DwmEnableMMCSS(TRUE) if running under Vista or later.
- VSync/HSync counting CIA TOD counters run at half rate if genlock mode is active.
- Added hack that fixes unreliable KS ROM genlock detection in fastest possible CPU modes.
- Enabling or disabling windowed mode status bar does not reopen the window anymore.
- Horizontal programmed screen mode registers' upper byte must be masked. Fixes Debian Sarge blank screen.
- All debugger commands support MMU logical to physical address translations, enable with "mmu <CPU function code>", 0 = disabled.
- Added support for A2000 old style RTC address range (Adv. chipset panel), this also maps new style clock address range (0x00DC0000) as custom chipset.
- FPU NULL state implemented. Fixes Amix FPU detection, it tests FPU by restoring NULL frame then immediately saving FPU frame and only accepting the FPU if stored FPU frame is NULL frame.
- Filesystem added using FileSys hardfile option will have at least 4000 byte stack, filesystem will be only added to FileSystem.resource if it does not already include filesystem with same dostype. (Previously it was always added, replacing previous one)
- addmemx config option(s) caused crash if emulation was restarted.
- Filter position and zoom values uses now floats, weird integers are gone. Old settings are ignored, config entries renamed!
- Custom input events can send commands to debugger, "dbg <debugger command>", output goes to console window if open.
- Changing filter position/zoom values using custom events or uae-configuration incorrectly forced display subsystem reset.
- WD33C93/DMAC SCSI emulation improved. (Amix, NetBSD and so on..)
- Added A590/A2091/A3000 SCSI DMAC state file support. Only basic state, any SCSI operation must not be active while saving.
- Windowed mode title bar doubleclick now maximizes normally, shift+doubleclick = fullscreen and ctrl+doubleclick = fullwindow.
- Immediate blitter didn't check if blitter DMA was enabled.
- Added CHD (Mame) CD image support. Full data, CD audio and subchannel support.
- CHD image as a hardfile support added. Read-only.
- LZMA (7zip) support code updated to latest beta (required by CHD LZMA code)
- Host FPU rounding/accuracy mode was not reset back to correct original values when using filters.
- Pause mode updates, configuration changes while in pause mode work better but currently display becomes blank if display mode changes while in pause mode (Old screen was lost and new data can't be generated in pause mode)
- Filesystem config (cylinders, sectors etc..) parameter passing rewritten, now uses same structure everywhere instead of passing huge and random amount of ugly variables around. Big change, can break things.
- Partition hardfile parameter/geometry support update, if file named <original hardfile name>.geo is found in same directory as hardfile, it is parsed for mountlist-like parameters (key=value). It also supports parameters that are not available in GUI or in config file (for example lowcyl, buffers, maxtransfer etc..).
- Log partition hardfile full geometry data when mounting.
- Added native resolution selection to Display panel fullscreen resolution options. Uses always monitor's native mode. (Actually it is monitor's desktop resolution because biggest listed resolution may be unsupported)
- Replacing or removing HDF files using the GUI now changes the drive on Amiga side too. Inserting new HDFs won't work.
- Fixed IDE emulation bug introduced in 2.4b17, IDE status register returned bogus data after execute diagnostics command. (KS driver didn't care, other drivers probably did)
- 1.5M chip RAM size didn't work (Note that this can't work if JIT is enabled)
- Very very long (hours..) startup delay if emulation was started in fastest possible + CPU throttle enabled.
- Windowed RTG to native switch (or vice versa) while window had no focus set internal focus state causing keyboard input to appear on Amiga side.

That's a mouthful, however don't forget to check Indie Retro News for the latest Amiga playable games on your PC, that don't need all this hard work!

Basic Tutorial(old)

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Also available are easy to install OS packages which again you may need certain legal files, but there is nothing more satisfying than having an Amiga OS running through an emulator. Further more, you can make separate installs of WinUAE by making a WinUAE.ini file in the same directory as WinUAE.exe. However make sure when you update, that you delete everything in the WinUAE.ini file(back up previous). I have three separate installs for example ;)

Amiga OS(ClassicWB)
Amiga in a Box(Currently having legal issues with files)

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