Emulating WormsDC

Worms: The Directors Cut was only released for the Amiga home computing system and can only be played one of two ways: on an Amiga which means the minimum system requirements, or via emulation. Emulation is the quickest and, arguably, cheapest method of getting the game to run on your PC, Mac or Linux-based hardware.

This guide aims to make it as easy as possible to emulate WormsDC on your computer. For the purposes of this guide we will be referring to WinUAE, a Windows-based Amiga emulator. Other emulators are available for other platforms, however WinUAE is still in constant development and receives updates every couple of months or so.

This guide also assumes you meet the minimum system specifications for emulating an Amiga, in this case an Amiga 1200. At the very least you'll need a graphics card that supports DirectX 9 and at least 512MB of RAM. Obviously the higher-spec your computer is the better your emulation experience will be.

TO DO: Write additional guide for getting WinUAE running on Linux and OS X based systems.

The Basics

Software + Kickstart ROMs

The first thing you will need is WinUAE. I would recommend a version no lower than 2.3.1, which at time of writing is the latest build and the most compatible with WormsDC. This can be downloaded from the WinUAE website.

You'll also need Kickstart ROMs, the core of the Amiga operating system. You'll need at least Kicksart 3.1 to be able to successfully run the game. Unfortunately the ROM is still copyrighted to Amiga Technologies and there are only two legal ways of obtaining the ROM - dump the ROM from an Amiga, or purchase Amiga Forever, a fully-licensed emulation package from Cloanto that includes everything you need to successfully emulate an Amiga.

If you plan to purchase Amiga Forever, you'll need to purchase either the Plus Edition (US$29.95)or the Premium Edition (US$49.95). The Value Edition only includes the 1.3 Kickstart ROM, which is incompatible with either Worms or WormsDC. Amiga Forever can be purchased from the Amiga Forever website.

Configuring WinUAE

Once you have WinUAE and the necessary Kickstart ROM, you'll have to configure the emulator to these specifications:

Hardware

CPU and FPU

• CPU: 68020
  • JIT: Enabled
• FPU: 68881
• CPU Emulation Speed: Fastest possible, but maintain chipset timing
  • A "CPU" slider should be greyed out, but if not set to zero (slider to far left)
  • Chipset: Zero (slider to far left)
• Advanced JIT Settings
  • Cache size: 8 MB (slider to far right)
  • Hard flush: Disabled
  • Constant jump: Enabled
  • 'FPU support: Enabled
  • No Flags: Enabled
  • Direct/Indirect: Direct

Chipset

• Chipset: AGA
  • NTSC: Disabled
    • Worms and WormsDC require a PAL display mode. The FPS should be at or around 50FPS.
  • Chipset Extra: Generic
• Options
  • Immediate Blitter: Disabled
  • Cycle-exact: Disabled
  • Genlock connected: Disabled
• Collision level: Sprites and Sprites Vs. Playfield

Adv. Chipset

Just tick "Compatible Settings". You needn't adjust any of the settings here.

ROM

• System ROM Settings
  • Main ROM file: This should point to the Kickstart ROM
  • Extended ROM file: Should remain blank
  • MapROM emulation: Disabled
  • ShapeShifter support: Disabled
• Miscellaneous
  • Cartridge ROM file: Should remain blank
  • Flash RAM file: Should remain blank

RAM

• Memory Settings
  • Chip: 2MB
  • Fast: 8MB
  • Slow: None
  • Z3 Fast: 8 MB
  • 32-bit Chip: None
• A3000/A4000 Advanced Memory Settings
  • Motherboard Fast: None
  • Processor Slot Fast: None

Floppy Drives

If you're planning on running WormsDC from an emulated hard drive, you can leave these fields blank and skip to the next category.

If you plan to run WormsDC from emulated floppy disks, you'll want to enable the first three drives - DF0:, DF1: and DF2: - and set the paths to each respective disk image. The first disk should always go in DF0:. If you intend to be able to save team names, graffiti maps and option sets, "Write-protected" must NOT be enabled for DF0:. You can have this enabled for DF1: and DF2:.

Finally, Floppy Drive Emulation Speed must be set to 100% (Compatible). You may experiment with increasing the floppy load speed, however some games experience issues when the disk load speed is in any way altered.

Hard Drives

If you wish to play WormsDC from an emulated hard drive, you'll need to configure the drive here. We will cover this in a later section of the guide.