winuae woes....

[mcb]

How do i rename the kickstart roms or whatever so whdload works? I am either missing some, or as I recall, some of them need to be renamed or copied.

You don't need to, as WHDLoad-ready ROM and RTB files are included:

http://www.amigaforever.com/kb/15-120

Mike

[mcb]

Don't these have to be copied into the os3.x install somewhere?

They are preinstalled already (and so is WHDLoad), so there is no need to copy or rename. You can see the article linked to a few posts back for more details.

It would be kinda cool for them to add MorphOS, but i guess that is a paid OS

Paid or not paid, PowerPC or another CPU isn't really the issue. If the OS publisher/developer is open to distribution in Amiga Forever, and if there is an emulation engine that can be supported (e.g. PearPC), then anything is possible. Apple's Rosetta software demonstrated in 2006 that good PowerPC emulation on x86 is feasible. In the meantime Moore's law keeps working on the side of emulation. The RetroPlatform framework as used in Amiga Forever was written from the grounds up to interface with different emulation components, so having a 68K part and a PowerPC one is possible (although a hybrid might be more desirable).

The main limit I see is the small market. That's why our resources are so limited, and every customer, every word of support or piece of feedback, and even the occasional "sucks" post, can all make a big difference.

Another cool thing is if you have a game that you like playing like Elvira (5 disks) AF see's it and loads it in on a 4 drive set up. It then asks you to eject a disk and insert disk 5 on the 5th one, sometimes it does all 5 but I haven't figured out why. (I do come to amiga.org you know, so I really aren't that smart).

I am not sure about this. Given the Amiga limit of four floppy drives, I don't see how Amiga Forever could insert five disks at the same time. However, it could have used a hard disk to boot, while also using four non-bootable floppy disks in the respective drives. In any case, if the five (or more) disks are listed in the Media tab of the game's configuration (right-click the title and select Edit), then the disk images will be listed for easy insertion in the floppy drive menu (in the playback window).

Cloanto must want some of us more vocal posters to give their product a whirl (since they gave me a free copy a few days ago).

Yes, to the risk of encouraging more "Amiga Forever sucks" threads, I sent download links to some amiga.org friends who posted in this one thread. Feedback from actual users, especially highly proficient (and often critical) ones as seen here, is always welcome. The problem is when a "sucks" thread has little foundation in actual facts. That only hurts.

I believe that questions from previous posts have now been answered. If not, feel free to follow up, or to provide feedback. We've been working on this project for many years, and improving it is still a full-time job.

Mike

[mcb]

Maybe I can copy the folder from the 2012 install to my older xp install?

After installation the WHDLoad ROMs are inside Amiga Files/Shared/dir/System/Devs/kickstarts. You can select Open Amiga Files from the Tools menu to access Amiga Files, which is inside your Documents on Windows.

As there are big differences in general usability and for power users between the 2012 version and any previous version, I'd encourage you to try and upgrade the existing installation (now that you have the links to the stand-alone SP3 and DirectX downloads). Just make a backup of the existing Amiga Files, in case you modified the default configurations.

I have to admit that I too started using Amiga Forever much more with the 2012 version. Before, complex configurations could only managed by using .uae files. But now I find it better with the Editor, which writes the changes as XML data into the RP9 manifest. It is easier, highly editable, and it takes into account portability and long-term stability.

Also are there some usb joysticks that work well with aforever out of the box besides the competition pro usb?

Any Windows-compatible joystick should work. What is the second button supposed to do (it's not autofire, is it?), and can you tell me one game where it doesn't work (and what it should do)?

Mike

[mcb]

I'm very impressed, stuck some photos in my gallery on here :-)

Thanks for the gallery and the feedback there.

If you run Amiga Forever and select Check for Updates from the Help menu, and then install the update that was released today, does it automatically close the Amiga Forever player window?

The general rule is that if the update was invoked from inside the player, it should close the player.

The following is now unrelated, but I thought that it could be helpful to share with such an expert audience, as it involves the preservation of original Amiga configurations, which are often still stored on aging hard disks. Isn't this something that our friends sometimes ask us to help with? I too have all my former A3000 and other configurations imaged and accessible in Amiga Forever, inclusive of a recognizable preview screenshot. These articles link to free tools and step-by-step instructions for creating images from original disks, and using them in Amiga Forever:

Amiga SCSI and IDE Devices: Disk Image Files and Direct Access
http://www.amigaforever.com/kb/15-113

Referencing External Content in RP9 Files
http://www.amigaforever.com/kb/19-112

System Configuration Import Checklist
http://www.amigaforever.com/kb/13-132

[mcb]

It is very well done and easy to use. It did mess with my existing Winuae installation a bit--changed the default paths to the Amiga Forever paths. I changed them back and now they seem to co-exist without affecting each other.

Thanks for the post. Amiga Forever does not write to the WinUAE registry or other settings files. Perhaps what happened in your case is the opposite: WinUAE, not being configured otherwise, autodetected "Amiga Files", so it started looking there? Then, as soon as you set WinUAE to a specific path, it followed your preference.

Mike