I'm porting iGame to AROS based on this:
https://github.co...mler/iGame

We can't run WHDLoad directly on x86_64, so I've made a few changes.

Amiberry has a whdboot mechanism that allows us to run WHDLoad games from compressed .lha files. My iGame port makes use of this.

In the original, we had to have all games unpacked, and for images and game information, we had to copy the igame.iff (image) and igame.data (game information) files to each directory containing an unpacked game.

On AROS, we keep the games in compressed archives at all times, and place the files game_name.iff and game_name.data next to them (I’ve provided pre-prepared .iff and .data files with the correct names for all games in the Retroplay WHDLoad collection).

And here’s the result:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWXy2jpmQSs

Great !!! iGame is one of the most popular GUIs among Amiga user

@retrofaza
Feel free to create a PR to the original repository. Although it seems you try to solve very specific needs for AROS, running from lha files using a feature available to amiberry, I would like to see your changes and if that will help others. For example, fast classic amigas, or AmigaOS 4 and MorphOS could use the lha files as well, but they probably will not have Amiberry available.

Just try to have those features set in your code with checks for the platform you target. And also, have a check if Amiberry is available.



Other platforms, like pistorm and apolloos, create a whdload wrapper that deals with these things. They usually name it as WHDLoad, renaming the original binary, taking the request and make the changes needed to use it, i.e. call the emulator and run it internally. Maybe that would be a solution for AROS as well.

@walkero

Thanks for your feedback. I'll think some more about the best way to handle this (for now, I've added an extra field in Settings where the user can enter the path to Amiberry).

Support for .lha files is entirely on Amiberry’s end; I haven’t added any related code to iGame.

Once I’m done, all the changes will be on my GitHub, and then we’ll decide if it’s worth integrating them into the main repository

As soon as it's available for download, I'll add it to AROS One, which will be packed with features in the upcoming version 1.4.

@retrofaza
I am fine with that, no worries at all. I would prefer though the release for AROS to be maintained by yourself, and making releases for it. But it should be clear on the documentation where people should ask for support. Also, please do not provide releases for other systems, especially those that iGame supports, as I would prefer the official repository to be the only one making them.

So, as long as you make releases only for AROS x86 and amd64 compatible, which I currently do not make specific releases, that is fine to have your own changes and releases. But for anything else, it should come from the official repo. Is that fine with you?

@walkero
Sure. Thanks!