A: Amiga Forever requires
Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows
Vista SP2, or an equivalent Windows Server edition. Both x86 and x64 versions of Windows are
supported. Dark mode requires Windows 11, or Windows 10 version 1809 or higher.
If you wish to use the emulation
components on a system other than Windows, please refer to this
page.
Amiga Emulation Software
The About dialog, which is accessible from
the Help menu of Amiga Forever, lists
technical requirements for different
emulation plugins, including their
availability status.
The Amiga emulation requires a CPU with
SSE2 instructions, as included in Pentium 4
and later CPUs and equivalent AMD CPUs since
about 2001-2003.
Direct3D is a graphics API that is part
of DirectX. The Windows version of the Amiga emulation software uses
Direct3D 11 (preferred) or DirectX 9.0c, depending on what is available or set under Tools/Options/Emulation.
DirectX 11 is included in Windows 7 and
higher, and can also be installed on Windows
Vista with Service Pack 2. The original
version of Windows Vista shipped with at
least DirectX 9.0. Where a specific
required DirectX version is missing, Amiga Forever
can install it
automatically.
A "real" Amiga is not required for the Amiga emulation software to run, since
Amiga ROM ("Kickstart") and operating system (Workbench™) components are already included and conveniently preinstalled
in Amiga
Forever.
We also recommend to install any updates that Windows Update shows as available for
your operating system. Windows Update also lists new
versions of DirectX and other items which are used by the Amiga
emulation software. If you install either Windows Automatic
Updating or Windows Critical Update Notification, whichever is
available for your system, you won't have to worry about manually
checking for critical updates.
On all versions of Windows it is always good to have an up-to-date version of the
drivers for your display card, which is usually available for download from the website
of the manufacturer of the card. Sometimes, especially on notebook
computers, display driver updates require an updated version of the computer
BIOS. Please refer to the manufacturer of your computer or mainboard for
BIOS and other hardware-related downloads.
When installing multiple components from the ones described here, we advise to proceed
in the following order, and reboot the system after each installation to verify that each
step was successful:
- Windows Update
-
DirectX 11 for Windows Vista SP2
-
DirectX 9 Download (alternate
installer)
- Amiga Forever updates
- Display card driver update
- BIOS update
Amiga Forever can actually be installed in any order with respect to the other items,
and it does not need to be reinstalled after other components are added. It is however a
good practice to make sure that each item affecting the system was completely installed
before installing a new one, and rebooting the system often remains the best way to do this. The
installation of Amiga Forever does not add or modify any system files.
Videos
The Premium Edition of Amiga Forever
includes high-quality video content on
several DVDs. The DVDs are "Region 0" (All Regions), and
the video content is in NTSC format (as in the original footage,
also compatible with most PAL DVD players).
Performance
While many users are satisfied with the performance of the emulation
low-end systems such as those powered by Pentium 90 to Pentium 200 CPUs, we recommend a Pentium processor running at
750
MHz as a minimum configuration. This provides a quite usable environment,
roughly comparable to the speed of an Amiga 500 with a fast hard disk,
inclusive of custom chips emulation. In
this configuration, the emulated CPU can be several times as fast as that of
an A500,
while the Amiga chip set is emulated in real time in most usage scenarios
(including most games).
With emulation running
on Intel Pentium CPUs, the original performance of the Amiga chip set is
achieved in the range between 400 MHz and 1 GHz, depending on the resources
used by the software (games are the most demanding applications). In
comparison the performance of CPU-intensive Amiga tasks on newer and more
powerful GHz-class PCs can be defined as stunning: jobs which used to take
minutes or hours on "real" Amiga systems only take seconds when run inside
the emulation. Additional
performance comparisons are included in the FAQ
list, and in the section on Amiga emulators.
Memory
The Amiga emulation requires about as much RAM as a real Amiga, plus some
memory necessary to run the emulation software itself. AGA
emulation, if enabled, requires an additional 16 MB of RAM. The
RAM requirements to run the emulation software are not different than those
of any other Windows software. For an uncompromising use of Windows in
general, we recommend a configuration with at least 512 MB of RAM.
In the 1990s, both the Amiga emulation and the Amiga Explorer networking software have
been successfully tested on a system with only 16 MB of RAM. Several studies
have shown that the most effective way to improve the performance of an
average PC usually is to add more RAM.
Amiga Explorer
The Amiga Explorer data sharing software (which is not required by the emulation
components of Amiga Forever) is not as demanding as the
Amiga emulators and should work properly on any Windows XP SP3 or higher system
(x86 or x64). The Amiga side of
Amiga Explorer requires Workbench 1.2 or higher.
If Amiga Explorer is used to transfer data between a PC and an Amiga,
then a null-modem serial cable (optionally with a
USB serial interface or with a
Bluetooth adapter) or a TCP/IP connection are required. Detailed instructions
on cabling and configuration are included with the software.
The Amiga Explorer software contains one Amiga executable file which must be copied to the Amiga
in order for the PC-Amiga networking software to run. This means that if the
software is downloaded and installed on a Windows system, then the "AExplorer" (Amiga program file) and
"AExplorer.info" (Amiga icon file) must be transferred to the Amiga using either
a terminal program (which works with the same null-modem cable required by Amiga
Explorer), or a floppy disk (which requires a
PC file system
on the Amiga side). The Amiga Forever CD-ROM includes the required Amiga
files on the CD-ROM. From version 3.5, Amiga Explorer includes a
revolutionary self-transferring Setup function to copy the required files to an Amiga
which has no internet connection, no CD-ROM
drive, no PC file system for the floppy drive, no terminal software, no Amiga Basic programming
language and no connection to the
external world other than the Amiga floppy drive. (In such a condition the
only recommended option used to be to ask a friend or
a friendly dealer with the necessary tools to put those files on an Amiga floppy disk.)
Legacy Versions
We try to support older operating systems for as long as possible.
Ultimately, the minimum required versions are determined by the development
tools we use (e.g. Microsoft Visual Studio). Below is a list of OS requirements
for previous versions of Amiga Forever and Amiga Explorer.
- Amiga Forever 1.0-6.0: Windows 95 or
higher, Windows NT 4.0 or higher
- Amiga Forever 2005-2006: Windows 98
or higher, Windows 2000 or higher
- Amiga Forever 2008-2009: Windows
2000 or higher
- Amiga Forever 2010: Windows XP or
higher
- Amiga Forever 2011-2012: Windows XP
SP2 or higher
- Amiga Forever 2013-2016 and 7.0:
Windows XP SP3 or higher
- Amiga Forever 2016 and higher: CPU
with SSE2 instructions (i.e. 2001-2003
or newer)
- Amiga Forever 8 and higher:
Windows Vista SP2 or higher
- Amiga Explorer 1.0-2008: Windows 95
or higher, Windows NT 4.0 SP 6 or higher
- Amiga Explorer 2009-7.0:
Windows XP SP3 or higher
- Amiga Explorer 8.0 and 9.0:
Windows Vista or higher
- Amiga Explorer 10:
Windows XP SP3 or higher
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