The Amiga is one of the richest — and most confusing — systems in Recalbox: several machine models, half a dozen file formats, and games shipped both on floppies and as hard-disk installs. This page gathers everything you need to find your way.
Amiga machines are split across four distinct systems in Recalbox:
| System | Machines covered | Rom folder |
|---|---|---|
| Amiga ECS/OCS | Amiga 1000, 500, 500+, 600, 2000, 3000 | /recalbox/share/roms/amiga600 |
| Amiga AGA | Amiga 1200 and 4000 | /recalbox/share/roms/amiga1200 |
| Amiga CD32 | the Amiga CD32 console | /recalbox/share/roms/amigacd32 |
| Amiga CDTV | the Amiga CDTV console | /recalbox/share/roms/amigacdtv |
Several emulators ship with Recalbox — Amiberry (standalone) and the Libretro cores PUAE, PUAE 2021, UAE4ARM and Amiberry — with the default varying by machine. Details are on the Amiga 600, Amiga 1200, Amiga CD32 and Amiga CDTV pages.
.adf, .adz) — the most common floppy format. It cannot carry disk protections. Can be compressed to .zip or .7z..ipf) — a faithful floppy image, able to carry protections. Used by "no-intro" game copies. Can be zipped..lha, .lzx, .zip) — the reference format for hard-disk installed games. A WHDLoad folder is recognised by its .slave file, but it is strongly recommended to keep it packed as .lha: unpacked, it is no faster and makes browsing the interface very sluggish..hdf) — a hard-disk image in a single file. Can be zipped..hd. Rarely used, aimed at those who backed up their machine's hard drive..rp9) — Amiga Forever all-in-one packages..iso) and BIN/CUE (.bin + .cue) — CD copies. A .cue may reference one or several .bin files..chd, .ccd, .mds and .nrg are also accepted, depending on the emulator.When you launch a game from a
.zipor.7zarchive, Recalbox identifies the content type by looking for known extensions inside. ADF, IPF, BIN and ISO are identified instantly; WHDLoad is too, but prefer.lha; HDD FS, on the other hand, can be slow to identify and prone to misdetection — leave it as plain folders and files, with a root folder ending in.hd.
Simply copy your files into the rom folder of the matching system.
Multi-floppy games are loaded automatically, up to four floppies, provided the files follow the usual naming convention: Game Name (Disk 1 of 3).adf, (Disk 2 of 3), and so on.
Unpack your WHDLoad game, delete the .info file sitting next to the folder, and copy only that folder to your rom folder. Organising subfolders are allowed — for example /recalbox/share/roms/amiga1200/ShootEmUp.
A WHDLoad game needs a .uae file carrying exactly the same name as the folder, placed next to it. For a folder named Rick Dangerous, you need Rick Dangerous.uae.
Two options:
To generate a complete configuration without starting from scratch, the UCG utility does the job nicely.
.uae fileInside the .uae file you can define ;hardware, ;controls and ;graphics blocks that replace the standard configuration. Only sections preceded by one of these three block names are taken into account. This lets you, for instance, use two joysticks, force a very specific hardware setup for a fussy game, or set a custom resolution.
The boot sequence generated for a WHDLoad game is WHDLoad game.slave Preload. A handful of titles require extra parameters, and crash without them.
You can then add a second file, named after the folder with the .whdl extension, holding those parameters. For a HistoryLine game, you end up with:
┣ 📁 HistoryLine
┣ 🗒 HistoryLine.uae
┣ 🗒 HistoryLine.whdl
| Game | .whdl file content |
|---|---|
| History Line: 1914-1918 | CUSTOM1=1 for the intro, CUSTOM1=2 for the game |
| The Settlers / Die Siedler | CUSTOM1=1 to skip the intro |
Amiberry has its own interface, reachable in-game:
| Action | Controller | Keyboard |
|---|---|---|
| Open the interface | HOTKEY + B |
F12 |
| Quit | HOTKEY + START |
F12, then Quit and ENTER |
Libretro cores use the general configuration override mechanism. This section only concerns Amiberry.
Recalbox automatically generates a configuration suited to what you launch, in /tmp/amiga/conf. The central file there is uaeconfig.uae, holding every key describing the machine, the drives, the hard disks and so on. You can override those keys at two levels.
Create a file in /recalbox/share/system/configs/amiberry/, named after the system:
amiga600.uaeamiga1200.uaeamigacd32.uaeamigacdtv.uaeFor example, to hide the LEDs displayed in the bottom-right corner:
show_leds=false
Create, in the rom folder, a file named after the game with the .uae extension. For the game Aladdin (AGA).ipf stored in /recalbox/share/roms/amiga1200, that would be Aladdin (AGA).uae.
An empty .uae file therefore simply means using the base configuration.