Test reports
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Test reports
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By way of a Christmas present to all who keep the flame alive, Cloanto have released version 4.0 of their well-known emulator package. Amiga Forever is a collection of Amiga emulators for several platforms, with special regard to easy installation and intuitive handling under Windows.
This test will concentrate on Amiga emulation with WinUAE, but the CD also contains versions for DOS, UNIX, PPC-Amigas and PowerMacs. In case that is not enough, it includes Fellow, another Amiga emulator for DOS, in version 3.6.R1 with source code.
The nice bonus with Amiga Forever is not the emulators themselves but the pre-installed OS versions and additional tools, which not only make emulating and transferring data between an Amiga and a PC easier, but, dare I say it, fun. Another important feature included is the original ROMs from 3.1 through back to 1.0.
The minimum requirements for this emulation are a Pentium CPU, 16 MB of RAM and Windows 95 or Windows NT. While this will manfully soldier on, it is not really a fun to work on such a setup: I think a Pentium III would be more like it. And of course, the faster the PIII, and the more RAM you have, the better.
Upon inserting the 643 MB-CD, the menu box, familiar from earlier versions, automatically starts up and offers the most important functions for Windows. The menu and good HTML documentation are available in English only.
Installation of the software is usually quick and easy. If you bought an update instead of the full version, you should make sure that it really looks for the old version. (That's where I had problems. Here I have to thank Stefan Ossowksi and Cloanto's support for their fast and exemplary help. The problem was not in Amiga Forever 4.0, by the way.)
When you start the emulation for the first time, it tests your graphics board to find the optimal settings. This test is necessary and only has to be performed once. (If you have WinUAE installed already, you won't see it at all.)
The first nice surprise comes after booting the Workbench. All icons and also the dock at the lower edge of the screen appear in GlowIcon-style. No, OS 3.5 is not pre-installed: NewIcons makes it possible.
The extensive dock is well done, too, and after glancing through it you'll notice that Cloanto made considerable effort to make starting as easy and convenient as possible for a new user. Many tools, like ClassAct, NewIcons, ToolManager, CycleToMenu and KingCon are pre-installed, and accompany programs like PPaint 7.1, TurboText 2.0, DOpus 5.5 and more, too many to list here. Of course I missed some, especially MagicMenu and MUI. But since everybody has their own preferences, you will have to get around to personalizing your own system.
For the veteran Amiga user, who has most of those programs on his Amiga anyway and has spent months on fine-tuning his system, it will probably be more sensible to move complete partitions from the Amiga to the PC to save a lot of hassle. This worked fine, even with OS 3.5.
WinUAE knows two different ways to the access Amiga partitions. It can read a hardfile, where the whole partition is contained within one single file, of fixed size. Or you can define a Windows directory which will be included as a partition in WinUAE. The latter method seems to be more elegant, because you can access all files from Windows as well as from the emulator. Furthermore, the size of the partition is not fixed as with a hardfile, but only limited by the size of the real hard disk.
But how do you get the files from the Amiga to the PC? This is where Cloanto's Amiga Explorer comes in. It is a completely independent program that can be used without UAE. The transfer can be done via null modem or a TCP/IP connection. Installation of Amiga Explorer on the PC as well as on the Amiga can be done from the PC only! This has been designed cleverly. (Otherwise the installation of the Amiga side is done quickly by just "dragging" the appropriate drawer over.)
I had a null modem connection, so I did not expect any problems. Well, thanks to the excellent documentation, I quickly found out that the cable was not connected correctly, even though I had never had problems before. So I got out my soldering iron and swapped a few wires. After a smear of salve on all my burned fingers it was time for a new attempt. And it was really worth it! The connection worked immediately and was very stable even at 115,2 KBps. (Higher rates are also possible, but my old Amiga couldn't keep up.) Just make sure you enable the FIFO buffer on the PC, or you will experience errors and connection breakdowns while transferring larger files.
The Amiga Explorer is easy to work with: the Amiga is fully integrated into Windows, you can not only access all partitions, but also all drives, CD-ROMs and also the RAM disk. Even file comments, which are possible with Amiga files (unlike Windows) are displayed!
The ROM of your Amiga can be accessed and copied to the PC. Furthermore, there is an .hdf or .adf symbol for every device and drive to copy it as an image that can be used by UAE and Fellow. This saves you creating those images with the appropriate Amiga programs. Very convenient. Unfortunately, the Explorer can only be used from the PC, there is no user interface on the Amiga side.
Amiga files can be transferred anywhere on the PC hard disk, and there are no problems with 8+3 DOS filenames. Of course the connection works both ways, not only from the Amiga to the PC. During the transfer neither the Amiga nor the PC is blocked, so you can just work on normally. (While I'm writing this, I'm transferring my 40 MB boot partition and having no problems.) You can even disconnect the Amiga or change the transfer rate without the Explorer kicking up a fuss or needing to be restarted.
The only problem with the Explorer is that you can't create empty directories.
Now that all your amiga files have been transferred to the PC (hopefully without problems), it is time to test the emulators for their compatibility.
My few short tests with Fellow have been disappointing. The program is for people who are keen to experiment, because Fellow didn't start half the time after modifying the settings. The bad visual quality is another drawback. That you can drag screens (which WinUAE can't) doesn't redeem the program.
So let's stay with WinUAE, which is really usable and several times better than Fellow. Thanks to the Picasso screen driver, you can set a resolution up to 1600x1200 pixels in 32 bit! But you should play a little, especially with the graphics settings, to find the optimal combination of speed, color depth, memory usage etc.
SysSpeed showed me that this is not as easy as it might seem. Depending on resolution and color depth there can be huge differences, of a factor of 4 and more - and the rule is not that the speed increases with lower resolutions and color depths. The opposite is mostly more true, because most PC graphic boards are designed for Hi-/Truecolor. If it all seems too much trouble, you should use the settings determined by WinUAE.
The speed also depends on what is drawn. The emulator draws circles and ellipses half as fast, but lines 4 times faster than an original Amiga. Printing text was always slower in the emulator (again compared to a real Amiga). Here is much room for experimenting, which can be done easily with the settings of WinUAE. I would also like to recommend SysSpeed (from Aminet) which shows interesting and maybe helpful information.
SysSpeed was also used to determine the speed of the emulator in comparison with a real Amiga. The results were quite intriguing here, too, some better, some worse than a real Amiga.
The PC used for testing (Pentium III, 500MHz, 128MB) emulated an Amiga with 68020 CPU (and FPU) at 28MHz with all options (sound, AGA, high resolution, max. speed, basically the best possible setting in WinUAE) and had averagely(!) the same speed as a real 68020-Amiga. A 68030 with 50MHz is 1.5 to 2 times faster than the emulation. Of course, these values are only a very average guide, because of the varying speeds in different areas.
A quick comparison with the minimum configuration (Pentium, Win95, 80 MB RAM) was as expected. The emulation is far too slow: as fast as an A500 or even less. (For example, if you use the "randomize high" filter in PPaint, you can watch it - line by line.) Admittedly, I made no attempts to optimize the settings, but you won't get it much faster than that anyway. Amazingly, the menus reacted very fast.
So a Pentium III should be used. To conclude the speed issue: Amiga users with a 68030 CPU or better will probably notice a slowdown. It's up to you if you can live with that. Personally I don't have a big problem, but I still prefer to use a real Amiga. But of course that is only my subjective opinion.
If you stick with UAE, you will find that a lot of Amiga programs run quite stable with hardly any problems. (That is, if you are not using the Amiga as a pure game machine. The few, mostly older games that I have tested mostly didn't work.) I've noticed my version of "lha" ceased to work under WinUAE, but the version included by Cloanto works flawlessly.
WinUAE can access a Windows printer from the emulation, which is very convenient. (But of course you have to set the correct preferences on the Amiga.) Tests with a laserprinter at the parallel port showed no problems, neither with "PAR:" nor with "PRT:". A USB printer didn't work, though. Setting the USB path used by Windows and the settings of UAE didn't work, either. Maybe there is another way to access the printer via USB - I am not familiar with this. Maybe one of our readers has managed to make this work and would like to tell us?
How about the recently released OS 3.9? Good news and bad news. I didn't have enough time to test this thoroughly, but the good news is: OS 3.9 seems to work with UAE! The bad news: direct installation in UAE causes problems, but I haven't worked out what the problem is. UAE crashed in both PCs during the installation. The UAE default setting seems to be the major problem: UAE hung for me after accepting the licence agreement. With a higher resolution and more RAM I get further, but at some time during the copying UAE was exited the hard way. I didn't have the time to test this more, sorry! So I just transferred the boot partition with OS 3.9 from the Amiga to the PC, which then worked.
If anyone has made the installation work, it would be very helpful to hear from you. Anyway, I would also like to mention the support pages of Cloanto (http://www.cloanto.com/amiga/forever/), where there is an extensive FAQ area for Amiga Forever.
Last but not least a quick glance at the contents of the CD-ROM. Mentionworthy is an interview with the father of the Amiga, Jay Miner (as text as well as audio); as well as an MPEG video (~50 min) that shows, among other things, some commercial spots for the Amiga. In the HTML files you can also find copies of the Amiga patents.
Also included is the legendary two-hour "Deathbed Vigil" video by Dave Haynie as an MPEG. It contains, inter alia, the tour through Commodore's offices shortly before the bankruptcy. You get to see the faces of many developers, a lot of interviews and also the farewell party in detail.
Would you like to see the never produced AAA Amiga (was meant to be of the next generation after AGA)? Here you get a look. There are also many funny scenes like a nightly keyboard destruction or the (nightly as well) "spraying operation".
So far as I got, a rough overview of Amiga Forever 4.0. There is still more to tell and to try, but you can do this for yourself. Suffice to say that Cloanto's Amiga Forever is useful for anybody switching systems or anyone who has to transfer data between the Amiga and the PC. The connection with the Amiga Explorer is very convenient, and the preinstalled programs make it easy for beginners. People with old hardware and a PC can get a Workbench with high resolution and color depth practically for free: My Amiga monitor is not able to display a Workbench in 1600x1200, 32bit and 70Hz, but no problem for UAE. Users of powerful Amigas will have to decide whether the emulation is for them, depending on the level of PC hardware they have available.
Denis Nikolic <d-nis@ping.at>
