I picked up a PAL Amiga A1200 three months ago and have been doing the "deep dive" on getting it setup the way I want and exploring the huge games library for the first time. I'm happy to answer any questions.
First off, I recommend going with an A1200 over an A500. You'll pay more up front, but save a lot of money and trouble in terms of having to upgrade the computer later. For example, the A1200 has internal IDE, so you can inexpensively add a Compact Flash reader to fit the entire games library on one single card.
Also many of the later games were either A1200 exclusive or at least made use of the A1200's more advanced graphics capabilities.
> The thing that has always stopped me is that it seems mostly a PAL hobby, and finding a monitor would be an issue.
With an A1200, you can purchase a device called the Indivision FlickerFixer that makes the Amiga work perfectly on modern DVI monitors.
Link:
http://amigakit.amiga.store/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=82&products_id=1148
With any Amiga, you can use a upscaler like the OSSC or Framemeister with either a SCART or VGA connection. Either upscaler accepts the PAL resolutions just fine. Sounds like you have an XRGB so you're all set.
Pay attention to power though - the power supplies aren't switched, so a UK supply won't work in the US with a cheap adapter. You can use a US A500 power supply with an A1200, or you can pick up a power transformer off of Amazon for $15 - which is what I did:
https://www.amazon.com/Power-Bright...512782995&sr=8-1&keywords=power+bright+vc100w
> If I get a Gotek floppy drive emulator will playing euro exclusives be an issue?
Honestly, another reason I suggest going with the A1200 over the A500 is so you can skip the floppy emulation stuff in favor of storing and loading all of the games off the hard drive via WHDLoad. WHDLoad is faster and much more convenient to deal with than the Gotek. That said, Euro vs US compatibility isn't really an issue since you can switch the machine between NTSC and PAL mode.
> I also read that the games run better in 60hrtz anyway, as that is the way they were developed.
Actually, the opposite is true - most games were developed in Euro 50hz for the PAL standard since the computer was far more popular in that region than in the US. Many games either crash, cut off the bottom of the screen, or run unplayably if you set the machine to run in NTSC 60hz mode. That said, the games that were developed with compatibility for both in mind do run faster and smoother in 60hz mode. Unfortunately, there isn't a "master list" out there on 50hz vs 60hz compatible games that I've been able to find, so you have to figure out which mode a game runs best in through trial and error in most cases.
> What are some other mods worth getting?
I can speak best to the A1200 since that's the model I researched and finally landed on. The A1200 shipped stock with 2 megs of internal memory, which will run all of the commercially released games off of floppies, but struggle if you use WHDLoad to run them off of the internal hard drive. As such, I strongly recommend an 8 meg memory upgrade. Indivision sells a nice accelerator board that plugs into the bottom of the A1200 that gives you a faster CPU, 8 megs of memory, and also does some remapping of system data to RAM disk for performance improvements - all for $112. I strongly recommend it:
http://amigakit.amiga.store/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1296
Swapping the internal IDE hard drive on the A1200 with a Compact Flash is a must - it's more reliable and MUCH faster. The kit for that is $13 here:
http://amigakit.amiga.store/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1216
Other upgrades? Like NEC hardware, Commodore went cheap on the capacitors, so any Amiga you buy should have the capacitors replaced ASAP if it hasn't already been done.
Also, the controller port looks like a standard DB9 port that you can plug a Genesis pad into, but it isn't electrically compatible. A Genesis pad can cause damage over time if it's plugged in directly. Either pick up a dedicated Amiga controller, or pick up a pad convertor like the 64JPX:
https://www.64hdd.com/64jpx/64jpx.html
The 64JPX only gives you one action button (Amiga standard), but some later CD32 games would use extra buttons. There's an open source project where you can cobble together your own device for around $10 in parts if you can solder. I'll post the link later when I can find it.
> Will PAL floppy games even run on an NTSC Amiga? I see lots of games on ebay. Never says what region they are though.
Yes - I mentioned the behavior with running PAL games on an NTSC Amiga above. It's not really an issue though because it's easy to kick the Amiga back and forth between NTSC and PAL modes. On the A1200 at least, you can hold down both mouse buttons when turning the computer on and then select the boot up mode. There's also a command line tool you can run before launching a game to swap the mode on the fly.
That said, I don't trust magnetic media - any game discs are over 20 years old. Go for floppies off Ebay if you want slow loading and possible bad sector errors, or go the Compact Flash WHDLoad route if you want your Amiga gaming time to be frustration free.
> Best games on system?
I still have a lot of the library to explore myself, but here's a few titles that are definitely worth your time:
Turrican series.
BC Kid (excellent port of Bonk's Adventure on PCE)
Fury of the Furries
Super Frog
Lionheart
Apidya
Gods
Cannon Fodder
Leander
Skeleton Crew