Retro

Raspberry Pi 4: Chronicling the Desktop Experience – Emulate Home Computers – Week 15

Last Updated on April 22, 2022

FS-UAE

FS-UAE is a cross-platform Amiga emulator based on updated emulation code from WinUAE. FS-UAE uses SDL for input, OpenAL for audio and OpenGL for graphics.

FS-UAE boasts very accurate Amiga emulation. The program emulates the Amiga A500, A500+, A600, A1200, A1000, A3000 and A4000 models.

The Raspbian repositories host a package for FS-UAE, so installation is straightforward. Fire up PiPackages, and type FS-UAE in the search box. You want to install the three packages indicated below. You get version 2.8.4 which, sadly, isn’t the latest version. In fact, it was released way back in December 2017. Since then, there’s been substantial development.

RPI4 - FS-UAE - Installation

There’s a bit of configuration needed to get the emulator up-and running. The emulator requires (and doesn’t provide for copyright reasons) the original Amiga operating system ROMs. There are various ways you can legally acquire these ROMs. For example, they are provided with Amiga Forever Plus or Premium edition (which costs money). This offers licensed version of the Kickstart ROMs for all supported Amiga models. It’s also possible to extract a ROM if you own Amiga hardware. Alternatively, you can use the replacement AROS ROM. For the latter, you need to set the Kickstart ROM to “Internal”.

FS-UAE includes an easy-to-use graphical configuration program which allows you to use FS-UAE and Amiga emulation without writing configuration files. It’s definitely worth using this launcher program.

How did the emulator perform on the RPI4? In a word, excellent. I played a fair few games with the emulator. They run really well, and are impressive. Graphics are smooth and fast moving. Audio is faithfully reproduced. Loading times are faithful to the original, even the floppy disk sounds are nostalgic. My gamepad was automatically detected.

Here’s an image of Arcade Pool running on the RPI4 with FS-UAE.

RPI4 - FS-UAE - Arcade Pool

There’s no need to overclock the device with this Amiga emulator. The RPI4 has more than enough grunt even for the most demanding games.

Next page: Page 3 – ZEsarUX

Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Introduction
Page 2 – FS-UAE
Page 3 – ZEsarUX
Page 4 – Hatari
Page 5 – Survey of Home Emulators on the RPI4


Read all my blog posts about the RPI4.

Raspberry Pi 4 Blog
Week 36Manage your personal collections on the RPI4
Week 35Survey of terminal emulators
Week 34Search the desktop with the latest version of Recoll
Week 33Personal Information Managers on the RPI4
Week 32Keep a diary with the RPI4
Week 31Process complex mathematical functions, plot 2D and 3D graphs with calculators
Week 30Internet radio on this tiny computer. A detailed survey of open source software
Week 29Professionally manage your photo collection with digiKam
Week 28Typeset beautifully with LyX
Week 27Software that teaches young people how to learn basic computing skills and beyond
Week 26Firefox revisited - Raspbian now offers a real alternative to Chromium
Week 25Turn the Raspberry Pi 4 into a low power writing machine
Week 24Keep the kids learning and having fun
Week 23Lots of choices to view images
Week 22Listening to podcasts on the RPI4
Week 21File management on the RPI4
Week 20Open Broadcaster Software (OBS Studio) on the RPI4
Week 19Keep up-to-date with these news aggregators
Week 18Web Browsers Again: Firefox
Week 17Retro gaming on the RPI4
Week 16Screen capturing with the RPI4
Week 15Emulate the Amiga, ZX Spectrum, and the Atari ST on the RPI4
Week 14Choose the right model of the RPI4 for your desktop needs
Week 13Using the RPI4 as a screencaster
Week 12Have fun reading comics on the RPI4 with YACReader, MComix, and more
Week 11Turn the RPI4 into a complete home theater
Week 10Watching locally stored video with VLC, OMXPlayer, and others
Week 9PDF viewing on the RPI4
Week 8Access the RPI4 remotely running GUI apps
Week 7e-book tools are put under the microscope
Week 6The office suite is the archetypal business software. LibreOffice is tested
Week 5Managing your email box with the RPI4
Week 4Web surfing on the RPI4 looking at Chromium, Vivaldi, Firefox, and Midori
Week 3Video streaming with Chromium & omxplayerGUI as well as streamlink
Week 2A survey of open source music players on the RPI4 including Tauon Music Box
Week 1An introduction to the world of the RPI4 looking at musikcube and PiPackages

This blog is written on the RPI4.

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Zeeshan Hasan
Zeeshan Hasan
4 years ago

Is it possible to play the old Star Raiders Atari game on RPi4?

Jonas
Jonas
4 years ago

Thank you for a great series of posts and a good trinity of emulators! I own a RPi 3 but it’s not beefy enough for FS-UAE. This sounds interesting because it’s my Amiga emulator of choice when WinUAE is not an option, simply due to how mature it is and how well it emulates.

Mark Routledge
Mark Routledge
4 years ago

Not a single mention of Retroarch? I know that RetroPie is massive, but not everyone wants multiple distros. I run RetroArch (installed similarly to Kodi infact) and on top emulation station, which performs admirably. FS-UAE runs nicely to.