Amiga File Formats — The Guide
You've downloaded a .dms file and don't know what to do? An .ipf won't play? Here's the complete overview of all important Amiga file formats — with profile and tools for opening.
Floppy Disk Images
The standard format. 880 KB = 1:1 image of a DD floppy. Uncompressed, unencrypted. Every emulator can read this.
Open with: WinUAE, FS-UAE, Amiberry, vAmiga — mount directly as a disk.
Compressed ADF (approx. 400-700 KB). Was a standard for BBS uploads around 1990-1995. Must be converted to ADF before mounting.
Open with: xDMS (Aminet), amitools (Python, cross-platform), or directly in older WinUAE versions.
Cycle-accurate floppy disk images with original copy protection. For original games that only run from real floppy media. Maintained by the Software Preservation Society.
Open with: WinUAE + capsimg.dll from SPS download. Only then will IPF work.
Simply a .adf.gz file with a different extension. To extract: 7-Zip or gunzip.
Hard Disks & WHDLoad
Container of a virtual Amiga hard disk. Sizes typically 32 MB, 100 MB, 1 GB. Mount in the emulator as a "hardfile".
Open with: WinUAE mount, or for FS access via amitools xdftool.
Not a file format, but a system for installing floppy disk games to hard disk. A WHDLoad slave contains the necessary patches, loads the game from the HD/emulator directory. Almost every commercial Amiga game has a slave.
Find slaves: whdload.de or the iGame/XBench GUI.
Archives
99% of all Aminet downloads. On Amiga: lha x file.lha. On PC: 7-Zip.
Better compression than LHA. On Amiga: lzx -x file.lzx.
Graphics & Sound
The Amiga's native image format. Supports HAM/HAM8, EHB, all Amiga colour depths.
Open on PC: XnView, GIMP with plugin, IrfanView.
Anim-5/Anim-7: Delta-compressed moving image sequences. Classics: Eric Schwartz anims.
The Amiga invented the format. ProTracker on the Amiga itself, on PC OpenMPT or VLC.
8-bit mono audio, 8000-22000 Hz. Standard for Paula samples.
Cross-Platform Tools for All Formats
- amitools — Python toolkit.
xdftoolfor HDF/ADF FS access,vamosfor programs. Cross-platform. - 7-Zip — opens LHA on Windows.
- xDMS — DMS on Amiga.
- capsimg.dll (SPS) — IPF support for WinUAE.
- OpenMPT — tracker player & editor.
.adf always works, extract .lha with 7-Zip, for everything else use amitools. If you're really stuck: mount the ADF in an emulator and let the real Amiga software open the format there.