I would stress the word hopefully. Based on my experience, you will need a lot of hope.

Just chipping in my tuppence.

I don't have a Vampire but I did look into them extensively before getting an A4000. A standalone Vampire is obviously not an Amiga but an Amiga compatible, just like a Draco system. We had Amiga compatibles back in the day. There's no shame in them. If you can do what you want to do with one and would be happy, rock on, I'm not here to yuck your yum.

From what I've seen from Vampires I've played with compatibility is slightly worse than my A4000 with an 040, and slightly better than with an 060 for some values of slightly worse and better. On the other hand you get a massive performance boost elsewhere and special Vampire-only versions of some software. If you'd like to use that software the Vampires are the only game in town.

The MiSTer has the advantage of being able to run a stupendous amount of simulated systems. If you're happy with a simulated system, a MiSTer can make up for an entire room of systems. Again, I'd class MiSTer as an Amiga compatible and not a native Amiga, but there's no issue with that - if it runs workbench and plays Amiga games I don't see the problem.

Your A1200 probably could do with a recap, an accelerator for WHDLoad and some RAM. An 030/50 would do the job nicely, maintaining compatibility. You'll have some issues with older software that ironically may not exist on a MiSTer configured as a 500.

The Pimiga setup looks very nice but is obviously emulation. I have WinUAE for that.

All this is a way of saying think about what you want to do, then how you want to do it. It's 2021, there are no wrong answers as long as they get the job done the way you want.

• Best value: Emulator on an existing PC followed by Pimiga
• Best performance: Emulator on PC/Vampire/Pimiga
• Best 'native' system performance: Vampire
• Most authentic feel: Doing up your A1200

Honestly, don't feel pressured into one thing or another. WHDLoad isn't perfect. Vampires aren't perfect. WinUAE isn't perfect. One thing that helped me was setting up a virtual A4000 with OS 3.9 before buying my A4000. That's what swung it for me till the day it arrived and realised I'd left JIT on all along. :D

If you set up an emulator correctly you can test most of the config options before you buy. That way you'll figure out what's right for you before blowing any cash.

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