Amiga Forever purchase a mistake?

[Ral-Clan]

Since my real Amiga died I've started venturing into Amiga emulation for the first time ever.  My intention is to replicate on the PC, an exact copy of my dead A2000 environement (the OS, the apps, etc.) so I can continue some projects.  I mostly use the Amiga for productivity, not games.  Fortunately, I backed up my Amiga to CD-ROM shortly before it died.

I knew that I could just download UAE, as I already own the Amiga OS operating system and legal copies of the kickstarts, etc.  However, I chose to order the deluxe package of Cloanto's Amiga Forever.  This was because I had read it was a very polished package and because I wanted to support Amiga dealers for one last time.

I installed Amiga Forever, and was very impressed with the quality and speed of the emulation.  However, I'm not entirely sure it was set up with the intention of making a "productivity" Amiga.  It, along with the Amiga Player utility bundled with it, seems to be geared towards making it easy to start up ADF or DMS game images and demos, etc.  I want the full configurability of setting up a virtual hard-drive, installing all my productivity applications there, and essentially booting into what seems like my old A2000 again.  Amiga Forever seems to have a few limited, pre-set configurations (one for a 1.3 system, and another for a 3.1 system) that are great for running disk images and games, etc. but it doesn't seem it's easy to change these pre-set configurations.

Maybe I'm way off here.  I've only played with it for three days so far and am just getting things running.  But since I'm not really a games/demo user, would I be better off just installing UAE?

I do know that Amiga Forever uses UAE and Fellow as the engine for its emulation, but it seems you are using it through Cloanto's interface.

So what do people here think?  Which if more tweakable and configurable - UAE or Amiga Forever?  I

[Ral-Clan]

Maybe I am just missing it (I can't find documentation to explain how to do this in Amiga Forever).  But I basically want to set up a new virtual hard drive and configure WinUAE to run as my A2000 did (040, 32MB RAM, ECS, graphics card, etc).  However, although Amiga Forever allows you to get to the UAE config window, I doesn't seem to allow me to "save" any of the changes I make.  i.e. if I set the UAE settings within Amiga Forever to run as an 040 machine, specify the MIDI and Parallel port outputs, joystick settings etc. they are all "lost" at the end of the session.

Also, it doesn't seem possible to add another "SYSTEM" (of my own configuration) to the SYSTEM list in the Amiga Forever "Player".

Is it possible to add my own .dms game images to the "Games" list in the Amiga Player?  When I start these .dms images up, they are listed temporarily in the "games" list until I close Amiga Forever, then the next time they are not there.

That's part of the reason I get the impression that Amiga Forever is not meant to be set up as a custom configuration, but rather just a platform for instantly starting Amiga games and demos from disk images with a single click.  I get the impression that the designers want you to use their two Amiga setups (the 1.3 version and the 3.1 version).

[Ral-Clan]

Okay, I've got the configuration figured out in Amiga Forever.  Mostly I'm starting up Amiga Forever, going into the WinUAE settings, and have set up my own "machine" there (a 68040 AGA virtual A4000).  Fine.  I was even able to install Workbench 3.1 on it no problem.  Then I click the "START" button at the bottom of the WinUAE config screen to start it.

But is there any way to add this sytem to the Amiga Forever "Player"?  Otherwise, I'm not really using Amiga Forever at all, I'm just bypassing it in an awkward way to get to the UAE part of it all the time.  I might just as well install UAE in that case and uninstall Amiga Forever.

A few other questions regarding Amiga emulation:

- which is better to use as my virtual Amiga "hard drive": a hard-file or a windows directory mapped to the Amiga emulation.  I can see the advantage of mapping the Windows directory (you have instant access from the windows side to your Amiga files).  But perhaps the hard-file is more compatible or faster?

- I am a registered, paid user of Cybergraphix.  Is there any way to use it in UAE, or is Picasso96 the only RTG software for UAE?

- Everything was just great until I installed Workbench 3.9 over top of my 3.1 installation.  Then, things really slowed down like molasses.  Running programs was fine and speedy, but just opening a window and showing the icons of the workbench, etc. became slower than my old A500 (I am using an emulated 256 colour AGA screen in my Screen Prefs).  I installed Picasso96 figuring that RTG would speed things up (no custom chips to be emulated), but nope.  Things are sooo slow (this is on a 68020 & 68040 emulated Amiga with 2MB RTG RAM, 32MB Fast, 2MB chip).  I wonder what I am doing wrong.  The OS3.1 installation that comes as default Amiga Forever with RTG running is nice and speedy.

- I JUST READ that UAE does not support MIDI input!  This is the main reason I bought it (to use my MIDI software!).  Is this true?
http://www.amigaforever.com/kb/3-107.html