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Games Entertainment

Ultima 7 in Windows? 168

Posted by timothy from the backward-compatibility dept.
trotski writes "In its day, Ultima 7 was one of the most complex and detailed RPG's ever made. Lets put it this way, in 1992 it required 20 mb of hard drive space and a 386 processor; cutting edge equipment that at the time retailed at well over $2000. Unfortunatly, until now getting Utlima 7 to run properly under win9X or worse, win2K or XP was heart-breaking. Fortunatly, someone has designed a utility that allows you to run this program under all versions of Windows as well as Linux! Very exciting for people out there who want to play this classic." Actually, Linux support seems to be only hypothetical at this point; along with the link to download the code is a note that says "Anyone who wishes to study the source code, or to port it to Linux or any other OS, is welcome to download this file."
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Ultima 7 in Windows? More

Ultima 7 in Windows?

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  • Exult (Score:5, Informative)

    by eddy ( 18759 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @09:43AM (#4837396) Homepage Journal

    Just use Exult [sourceforge.net] instead. Must be a slow newsday?

    • My thoughts exactly -- Exult == good (Score:4, Interesting)

      by 0x0d0a ( 568518 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @09:46AM (#4837414) Journal
      Exult is a hell of a lot more technically *good* than this thingie, has complete Linux support (as well as Windows), and even adds a few features. If you're an Ultima fan, check it out.

      Ultima, Star Control 2, Marathon...eventually, *everything* comes to Linux.
    • Damn, I was gonna post that.

      1.0 was just released last month too :)

    • Re:Exult (Score:4, Informative)

      by Marton ( 24416 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @09:50AM (#4837435)
      Exult uses a totally different approach - it is a rewrite of the game engine. The memory manager & hack in this case is a much more generic piece of software that could be adapted to other old software that does not run under emulated DOS sessions anymore.

      • Re:Exult (Score:4, Insightful)

        by eddy ( 18759 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @10:00AM (#4837473) Homepage Journal

        The "news" isn't that there's a new generic "old-game-loader" out, the "news" is that you can now run Ultima 7 on Windows. For that purpose, Exult is better. That Exult is a re-implementation is hardly a secret and not something that one should feel the need to point out (it's in the domain "so obvious it hurts")

        Furthermore, I haven't checked the source of this loader, but I'll wager it's very executable-specific, and I doubt that many other games would benefit from this particular loader (that is, there's already less intrusive ways of playing most games).

        In short; the whole problem with U7 is the messed up hack of a memory model (real flat mode) the cracksmoking freaks chose to use. Exult, which is newsworthy in itself, solved the problem, and more.

    • Re:Exult (Score:5, Informative)

      by auntfloyd ( 18527 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @10:08AM (#4837500) Journal
      Exult is fantastic. I've been using 1.0 (under Linux) to run BG and SI (with their respective expansion packs) with no problem.

      Exult has a ton of extra features over the original U7 engine, including:

      SI-style "paper doll" support in BG

      The ability to use the "T" button (pause and click on someone to talk) in BG

      Configurable display size. This is great because you can configure Exult to show more of the game world on screen. The original U7 only did 320x200, but if you have a bigger screen, why not take advantage of it?

      Unlimited save and restore slots. Each save also has a party list and screenshot associated with it

      Sound support, including speech. I don't think I could ever get this to work with U7 under DOS

      *Much* more stable. U7 was fairly buggy - random lockups were distressingly common. Exult hasn't crashed on me once.

      Normal play speed. Exult doesn't require any sort of slow down utililty like moslo

      The need for food seems to have disappeared. I beat BG recently and only had to feed my party once. I guess the Exult developers thought that the food system was a bad idea and just didn't implement it fully. In my book, not having to deal with Shamino whining "I must have food" every 2 minutes is a plus.

      Advanced cheating system :)

      So get Exult [sf.net]. It's better than the original, and runs under unix, too.

      • "The need for food seems to have disappeared. I beat BG recently and only had to feed my party once. I guess the Exult developers thought that the food system was a bad idea and just didn't implement it fully. In my book, not having to deal with Shamino whining "I must have food" every 2 minutes is a plus."

        But this means that only the players who played the original DOS version will be able to see the antics that happen when the party gets really, REALLY hungry ;-) (The members randomly start saying Moo, Oink, etc... It's all the funnier when you see it in that old english type font they use.)

    • Just use Exult instead. Must be a slow newsday?

      An extremely slow news day if a) Exult 1.0 wasn't noted in Slashdot some time ago, and b) U7Run has been, like Exult, around quite a while. This isn't exactly even news =)

      And everyone interested playing U7 should definitely get Exult, because it fixes some annoyances in original U7BG and, in general, feels slightly better and is technically far superior. And it's also easier to configure, I guess! =)

    • And here I thought when I first started reading the desc that U7 was embedded in a windows app. (Like that one game in versions of excel) Too bad... I was looking forward to a whole bunch of knocks on MS for sneaking yet MORE bloat into their OS. :-)

      Oh well, not as much fun, but still a good piece of software. *sigh*

    • Exult and U7run... (Score:3, Informative)

      by DrCode ( 95839 )
      For some reason, I'm a bit partial to Exult. But without U7run (the utility this story refers to), Exult would be a lot farther behind. U7 with U7run was often run to see how things were supposed to work in the original, since Exult is a complete re-implementation.

    • Re:Exult (Score:2, Funny)

      by Alorelith ( 118865 )
      What's the fun in that? One time I got Serpent Isle to work with BOTH sound and music in DOS. I'm probably one of just a handful of people that accomplished this massive feat. Heh, when I walked by girls at school, I could feel their eyes gleaming in awe. They called me the Serpent Master...
  • Now i just have to go find a copy of ultima, god knows where it has gone

    nich

    • You can still find the Ultima Collection in a lot of stores.

      Or you can hit some abandonware sites, if you really can't find it anywhere... it is getting harder and harder to find.

    • Re:Cool (Score:2, Insightful)

      by ThumbSuck ( 629952 )
      Yeah..I had had to check through my cd's for ultima VII too. Looks like I've created archiving system so complex even I cannot understand it. But finally I found it, the *complete* ultima VII, right between wind commander II and ultima underworld 1. I think I'm going to browse my diskettes too, I saw a glimpse of ultima 3 there a year ago. But to the compability part, I solved all my problems by not selling my old 66 MHz 486. Now it lies in the corner and just waits for me to play the classic games again and again.

      • Re:Cool (Score:2, Funny)

        by owenb ( 91248 )

        right between wind commander II and ultima underworld 1

        Ah, the hours of flatulence-based fun to be had from playing wind commander II!

    • KaZaa, obviously.

  • Ultima!! (Score:4, Informative)

    by Beetjebrak ( 545819 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @09:44AM (#4837401) Homepage
    Ultima runs exceptionally well inside a VMWare virtual machine under both Linux and Windows. I have an athlon 2000+ on which I do this, and it works perfectly. No sound though, which is sad because the Guardian's voice is awe inspiring at times!
    • If you haven't yet been inspired by all the other posts, you should know that Exult [sf.net] supports full speech and sound. Get it. It's good.
      • Last time I tried Exult, it gave strange glitches when playing U7 Serpent Isle.. :-(( Did it improve much over the past 6 months??
        • Yeah, I haven't had any problems. 1.0 was released a few weeks ago, so I think they've been doing some pretty serious work recently.
    • From the efficient screensaver dept.: POKE 53281,0:POKE 53280,0
      Wow. That takes me back. I Can't believe that this ultimately useless bit of knowledge is still sitting there inside my head. Ah well, one more line for the resume I guess.

  • Amazing! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Malicious ( 567158 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @09:44AM (#4837403)
    So, let me get this straight....
    Suddenly, there is a large movement for people to port Linux programs to Windows?
    Isn't this slashdot? Shouldn't this be a selling point for crossing over.?
    Make it up! "http://linux.org/Ultima7/Switch"

  • is everyone sleeping or ? (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    it's been possible to play u7 since eons under linux

    exult.sourceforge.net
  • I remeber those days, the cutting edge, I remeber having a Packard Bell 486, with 500 meg HD and 5 megs of ram, it was good for its time, but like the car its a distant memory. These games set the stage for everything that followed as far as RPG just like Wolfenstein 3D was for the First Person Shooter. Ah the memories.

  • Flat Real Mode (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 08, 2002 @09:47AM (#4837421)
    The cause of all the problems with ultima 7 is flat real mode, or 32 bit real mode. Turns out it is possible to switch to protected mode, change the segment limits, and when you return to real mode, the segment limits are not changed back. This allows access to the full 32 bit flat memory address space, while still being in real mode. This is much faster than a DOS extender (DPMI), which rapidly switches back and forth between real and protected mode. Unfortunately, flat real mode is incompatible with anything except pure DOS with himem.sys as the only memory manager loaded. It is even incompatible with emm386 and qemm.

    • Re:Flat Real Mode (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bsartist ( 550317 )
      Wow - that really takes me back. Many, many years ago, in '91 or '92 I think, I wrote an article about Flat Real Mode for the comp.lang.asm.x86 FAQ. I wonder now if the U7 programmers read it - it would be *really* cool to find that I had contributed, in even a small way, to one of my favorite game series.

      It can still be useful - and as far as I know, sometimes still used - in embedded applications that need to address more than 1MB of memory while dealing with a high rate of interrupts. Interrupts in protected mode cause a context switch, which carries with it a substantial amount of overhead.

    • Re:Flat Real Mode (Score:3, Informative)

      by caspper69 ( 548511 )
      We OS developers like to refer to this as "unreal" mode. It works like a charm, but is technically considered "undocumented" processor behavior by Intel.

      It can be very useful in getting a 32-bit protected mode operating system running. This is because as soon as you switch to protected mode, you need to write all of your own interrupt code (i.e. if you've ever written code in x86 assembly under DOS, you have access to a ton of INT(errupt) instructions that do things like write to the screen, read from a disk, etc, but in Pmode, YOU must write the code to do all of this yourself - quite tedious and time-consuming). Well, in unreal mode, you switch to pmode, then switch back to real mode without resetting the segment registers, and gain access to the entire 32-bit flat address space, and still use the real mode interrupts.

      This mode is therefore most useful for a second-stage bootloader, and/or other miscellaneous times when you need to access memory beyond 1MB, but using real-mode interrupts. Plus, it can be a hell of a lot easier than setting up V86 mode (vitual-8086 mode), with the necessary Global Descriptor Table entries (GDT) and getting your Task State Segments (TSS's) correct. Eventually, you'll need V86 mode if you wish to execute 16-bit code from your 32-bit protected environment, but it's nice to be able to work on different parts of an operating system at different times without being relegated to do so in a certain and well defined order.
      • It [flat real mode] can be very useful in getting a 32-bit protected mode operating system running. This is because as soon as you switch to protected mode, you need to write all of your own interrupt code (i.e. if you've ever written code in x86 assembly under DOS, you have access to a ton of INT(errupt) instructions that do things like write to the screen, read from a disk, etc, but in Pmode, YOU must write the code to do all of this yourself - quite tedious and time-consuming).

        Sorry, that's inaccurate. For a basic Dos extender you just had to:

        - Set up the GDT and IDT

        - Point the 32 bit interrupts at the 16 bit real
        mode interrupts

        - Write special case code for interrupts that use pointers, such as disk io, to copy the data
        via a buffer instead

        - A few other wrinkles

        It took me 2-3 weeks to do that as I recall. There was no rewriting of bios routines needed, though since most of them suck too badly for words, it's worth doing anyway.

        I did not find 32 bit protected mode to be significantly slower than real mode.

        Well, in unreal mode, you switch to pmode, then switch back to real mode without resetting the segment registers, and gain access to the entire 32-bit flat address space, and still use the real mode interrupts.

        And try to handle all the grotty little cases where an interrupt or something comes along and destroys the internal registers. 32 bit real mode was a bad idea, no two ways about it, and a really bad strategy for writing a game.

    • Re:Flat Real Mode (Score:2, Informative)

      by NMSpaz ( 34277 )
      Actually, there is a wonderful utility called umbpci which allows access to high memory for loading device drivers while keeping the processor in real mode. This is a godsend for paying U7 since it's near impossible to load everything needed (sound drivers, mouse support, possibly CD-rom support) and try and cram it all into 640k...
  • I've been rather dismayed with the Ultima games on my laptop. Using MOSLO has been an extreme annoyance. I just finished (yesterday, actually) building my first non-Sun desktop (AMD2600/333, etc) with XP installed (still waiting for Mandrake 9.0 to ship!!!) and expect no better if I take this collection of Ultimas and try to run it on XP. Sorry to say, but it's actually better to get one of the emualtors for C64 or Apple ][ for the earlier (1,2,3,4) Ultima games.
    • it's actually better to get one of the emualtors for C64 or Apple ][ for the earlier (1,2,3,4) Ultima games.

      Amen to that. CGA was the worst. I can understand why, given the technical limitations of the time, IBM chose to implement a 4-color display. What I don't understand is why they chose four colors that, in combination, are one of the most hideous palettes ever to "grace" a PC screen.

  • Dosemu? (Score:3)

    by The Original Yama ( 454111 ) <lists.sridharNO@SPAMdhanapalan.com> on Sunday December 08, 2002 @09:50AM (#4837442) Homepage
    Doesn't it work in Dosemu [dosemu.org], with a DOS like FreeDOS or MS-DOS?

    • Re:No, it doesn't even work with emm386 (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Ultima 7 does not work in virtual 8086 mode (yes, that means no emm386.exe or qemm). It uses a bug in the x86 CPU to access 32 bit real mode. That is, accessing the full 32 bit flat memory address space while still being in real mode.
      • I wouldn't call it a bug. If segment size limits were reset upon returning to real mode, that could easily result in problems. If, for example, the 32-bit EIP register had a value in it that was larger than 64K, immediately resetting the segment size limit upon returning to real mode would mean that the instruction immediately following the mode switch would be inaccessible. Worse, whatever was left in the bottom 16 bits of EIP would be used as the address of the next instruction - the result wouldn't be pretty. Equally ugly things could happen with the stack, and ESP.

        To prevent problems like this, Intel's documented procedure after a mode switch required you to first ensure that you were executing in an address range that would be safe for real mode execution, and then reset segment limits yourself after ensuring that you could safely do so. Some clever person - Michael Abrash, IIRC, although I could easily be wrong - figured out that, by skipping this step, you could access large memory segments from real mode.
      • Well it shouldn't be super hard to extend dosemu with an optional flat-real-mode emulation...
    • NO!!!!!!

      IT was frustrating to try though :)

  • Ahh! MIDI warning on the link! (Score:4, Funny)

    by XorNand ( 517466 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @09:55AM (#4837459)

    The scourge of the WWW: embedded MIDI files!

    Er, actually, I kinda dig this one. In fact, it's the only embedded MIDI I've ever replayed.

  • The answer is.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by woogieoogieboogie ( 598162 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @09:55AM (#4837463)
    DOS.... who would have thought that something as simple as installing a real copy of DOS and some real mode drivers, or creating a real DOS bootdisk with real mode drivers would make playing an antique game easy on a modern OS.

    • who would have thought that something as simple as installing a real copy of DOS and some real mode drivers, or creating a real DOS bootdisk with real mode drivers would make playing an antique game easy on a modern OS.

      What if your Really Recent PC no longer has support for real-mode apps that use VGA graphics? In theory, it's possible to make a PC that can boot to Windows XP (with appropriate drivers) but can't boot to DOS.

      • It is not an accelerated game. If standard DOS SVGA drivers will not work on your card then your card is not VESA SVGA compliant and will have problems with many other programs and games.

        • If standard DOS SVGA drivers will not work on your card then your card is not VESA SVGA compliant

          Some newer cards seem to have dropped VESA support.

          and will have problems with many other programs and games.

          But not with GDI, DirectX, and OpenGL games, which cover 99.9+% of PC games sold in 2002. "Oh, you can't run your old games? Here, try some new games."

          • I don't see how any card will not be VESA SVGA or VGA compliant and still be usable. VESA only describes a minimum ruleset for SVGA compliance and there is absolutely no need for any card maker to avoid offering VESA compliance modes on their card
      • Ultima uses 320x200 resolution, displaying 256 colours. That's absolutly standard. Any VGA-card can display this resulotion. Even the fastest Radeon or Geforce can do this. But you won't get any utilities for setting your refresh rate in DOS, so you will most probably be stuck to 60 Hz.

    • Re:The answer is.... (Score:5, Funny)

      by IIRCAFAIKIANAL ( 572786 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @10:24AM (#4837553) Journal
      Who wants to reboot to play a game?

      That would be like doing all your productive stuff in one operating system and all your game playing in anot-

      Uhm, nevermind.

    • Re:The answer is.... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by WWWWolf ( 2428 )
      or creating a real DOS bootdisk with real mode drivers would make playing an antique game easy on a modern OS.

      It's just that U7 is the only really painful program I've had to deal with. It never ran right without hours and hours of tuning! Getting a satisfactory amount of low memory, getting the perfect combination of EMS and XMS ::shudder at the abbreviations::, and trying to fit the damn mouse driver to that soup. And then the real fun begins: Configuring the sound support perfectly...

      <old-dos-user>And nowadays, people complain that Microsoft sucks when they need to reboot a couple of times when installing Windows. But back when I was a newbie... (blah blah) booted 20 times to get EMM386 and HIMEM right (blah blah) uphill both ways in snow. And this is Finland we're talking about. Lots of snow. Lots.</old-dos-user>

      Also, there's the issue of incomplete DOS support for current hardware. (I could, for some weird reason, get my USB rat and keyboard to work in some DOS games when running Windows98SE... lucky they weren't too memory-exhaustive.)

      The installation of Exult couldn't be easier: apt-get install exult, some messing with the conf files, and tadah! And it even runs perfectly, properly frame-limited (U7BG was just a little bit too fast in P166, and I haven't dared to test it without mo'slo on my P3-600...) and MIDI comes through software synthesis and there's proper sound effects and tons of new cool features.

    • Ummmm, I really doubt that would work on a modern system like mine.

      Ok, first there is the HDD problem. All my HDs are in NTFS format, which DOS doesn't understand, and contain partitions larger than 2GB, which DOS doesn't support.

      Then there is my sound card. It's a SoundBlaster Audigy 2. Receant card, very advanced, and NO DOS drivers. Wouldn't work even if there were, it needs access to system memory to load up its soundfonts, which would scrw with teh 32-bit realmode U7 runs in.

      Then there's my processor. P4 1.6ghz. Not really all that fast by today's standards, but still rather faster than the 486 U7 was designed for. How much faster? Oh say about 100 times (on an integer benchmark). This would make teh game run a little faster than it is supposed to.

      Finally, there's all the IRQ sharing that goes on. My system has a lot of devices, and BIOS assigns them to share IRQs. This isn't a problem for Windows, it can handle that (and actually 2000 takes over, starts up the APIC, and reassigns interrupts to have more than 16 of them). DOS, on the other had, might have some trouble with multiple devices on the same IRQ.

      So I se no real way that I could make modern hardware, like what I have, run an old game like that with a boot disk. That, and I don't want to reboot my system to play a game.
      • The NTFS partitins would obviously be a problem with DOS although there are solutiuons for this problem. [sysinternals.com]

        If you disable PnP in the bios, it will not allow IRQ sharing which is also a major cause of instability on older motherboards and Win XP.

        Soundcard, SB16 emulation on any SB card should be available and if it is not, then chances are the card will not work under Linux if there are no linux drivers since the only other way to get it to work is via SB16 mode..

        Legacy support in hardware is an important part of the success of the x86 platform. Advanced features of the hardware may not be available, but the basic functionality will be there.

        • My point was that it is highly impractal, even impossable, to just make a boot disk and run U7, or just about any old game on a modern system.

          Also, the Audigy 2 might have DOS compatibility, but it would require Windows to work. That's how the Live was. You HAD to have Windows installed to make it work right. Anyhow it's academic since the drivers for the Audigy require access to lots (at least 2MB, but much more in many caes) to store their soundfonts for MIDI playback. That would certianly cause problems with the real 32-bit mode U7 uses.

          And FYI I don't run Linux, doesn't matter to me if the Audigy 2 has drivers for it or not (I suspect not).

          This is all aside of the fact of not wanting to have to take the system to a single user mode. I still like to play older games, but I want to do it in the context of my modern OS.

  • Untill now? (Score:2, Redundant)

    by mha101 ( 576782 )
    Running Ultima 7 ("The Black Gate" and "Serpents Isle") has been possible for more than a year, both on Windows and Linux (and some others) through the use of the Exult Ultima 7-engine.

    Exult even lets your play the game in higher resolutions (using algorithms like SuperEagle and 2XSAI), and with more detail than in the original game.

    Exult Homepage [sourceforge.net]
  • If you like classic adventure-games you should have a look at:

    ScummVM [sourceforge.net]: A reimplementation of the SCUMM-engine used by most classic Lucasarts-adventures like Monkey Island, Sam'n'Max, Day of the Tentacle, Loom etc... Works amazingly good! I finished Sam'n'Max (in Linux) just yesterday and it had no glitches at all! It also supports Simon the Sorcerer 1 and (soon) 2.

    Sarien [sourceforge.net]: A reimplementation of the AGI-engine used by the first-generation Sierra-games like Space Quest 1+2, Kings Quest 1-3, Leisure Suit Larry 1 etc..

    FreeSCI [linuxgames.com]: A reimplementation of the SCI-engine used by most second-generation Sierra-games like Space Quest 3, Kings Quest 4, Leisure Suit Larry 2+3 etc...

    • Wasn't SCUMMVM being ported to Dreamcast as well? What happened with that? I can't find the .iso on the site anymore...
    • A free Windows port of LBA (known as Relentless in the US) is available [c0m.st]. It's still in beta but already runs extremely well.

      Note: this is the updated game engine, so you'll need the original game for the data files (as is the case for most ported versions).
    • Would you happen to know of anything like this for Lucas Art's X-Wing and Tie Fighter games? IMO, Tie Fighter is the most fun space shooter I've ever played, the new LA space shooters just lack something it had, not sure what.

      It runs on the little old DOS box I have, but a version for my Windows system would be cool if nothing else because I have a better MIDI synthesizer for it :)

      • I also wondered this a while back. Take a look at this [lucasarts.com]

        Click on "Official Site" for more info and system requirements ... looks like it runs on windows 95/98 compatible computers. Yay!

        • Aye, they reissued TiE Fighter and X-Wing using the TiE Fighter vs X-Wing engine; it's directx 5.1, I think? Or 3. Or something. But it runs properly, so who's complaining?

        • Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.......

          Looks promising my only question is are the copies of X-wing and Tie Fighter actual remakes that are Windows native programs, or are they just the old DOS mode stuff? Remember, DOS stuff run under 95/98. No help here, I have Windows 2000 and I'm not going back.

          If you know, please tell me. This interests me a lot.
  • There are a bunch of other great classic DOS based games out there (Kings Quest/Space Quest/Police Quest series). It seems every time I try to run them on my newer Pentium 3 Windows XP based system there is always a compatibility issue. No sound, missing graphics, running too fast seem to be the problems that always arise.

    Is there a good utility/DOS emulator out there that can make my newer system run these great games? I have both Linux and Windows XP professional.

    Thanks,
    Wes

  • Still pretty sure it won't work... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Hrothgar The Great ( 36761 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @10:11AM (#4837509) Journal
    If you have a PCI sound card, I seriously doubt you will get this thing to work under Windows. There is some sort of ISA SB emulator available for Windows NT/2000 called VDMSound [mcgill.ca], but I'm still running lowly Windows 98.

    As about a billion other posters have already pointed out, however, Exult [sourceforge.net] is a solution that is very nice, and does not have this limitation.
    • In 98, you don't need to worry, your soundcard (well if it is a good one like an SBLive) will be made directly available ot DOS programs, they just access the hardware as tehy would normally. In Windows 2k/XP VDM sound would be necessary for audio since they do not permit direct hardware access. Actually XP has built in DOS sound emulation, but it really doesn't work very well.

  • as cheap as older pentium machines are (Score:5, Interesting)

    by night_flyer ( 453866 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @10:17AM (#4837526) Homepage
    why not just purchase one of those and install all the old games you love?

    pricewatch has a pentium 166 listed at 48.00 including shipping!
  • .. and run the Apple II original under an emulator.

    AppleWin now supports mockingboard emulation.

  • Not $2000 in 1992 (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mikeplokta ( 223052 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @10:51AM (#4837648)
    You're a little out of step on those hardware costs. I bought my first PC in 1991, the year before -- a 25MHz 486SX with 100MB disk, well above the spec you quote, for about $1200.
  • Like others, my reaction was "so...Exult can already run U7". Yet, I know of no way to run Ultima 8...till I went to the web page.

  • We need a complete DOS machine emulator (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Control-Z ( 321144 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @11:13AM (#4837715)
    Someone who's a better system-level programmer than me needs to write a program that completely emulates an old DOS machine for gamers. You should be able to pick the virtual video card, memory, sound card, CPU speed (very important), and DOS version. Let each DOS .EXE have it's own settings so you don't have to muck around with them each time.

    I'd pay for software like that. Messing around with Moslo sucks.

    • Bochs [sourceforge.net]?

      It's slow enough that WinME complains it's too slow to install (or maybe I didn't configure it right). The only problem is that sometimes it might emulate things a little to fast (1 second on the host computer may equal 5 seconds in the emulation).

      Somebody else suggested VMWare [vmware.com], which is ok, but I couldn't get the sound to work in DOS (and I'll know when it will work with my trusty must-have-a-sound-card-to-install game called Privateer 2).

      Virtual PC [connectix.com] is another PC emulation, but I haven't tried it yet.
    • Might I suggest you try out DOSbox [zophar.net] then? It's still somewhat early in development (no protected mode games), but it's both promising and open-source.
  • A perfect couple. Set the screen resolution to 640x480 or 800x600 from Exult video settings and you got something that will definetly beat any other RPG to date. Ultima 7 is amizingly versatile, and Exult [sourceforge.net] has made it work even better than it did back in the 386 days.

    : J

  • Ultima 7 is not the best ultima game! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Veramocor ( 262800 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @11:41AM (#4837834)
    People keep on talking about U7 being the best. Clearly Ultima 5 Warriors of Destiny is. U7 had no challenge element.

    At no time was i afraid of dying, unlike U5 where youd be low on food, and stuck in New Magincia with a shadowlord guaring the town. U5 had turned based combat, U7 had poor AI combat. U5 had real dungeoneos with levels, U7 had caves.

    Now pro U7, yes it has better graphics but just wait until the dungeon siege remake comes out. http://www.u5lazarus.com .
    • This has been in the works for quite some time. I hope this actually comes together, but at this pace, the Dungeon Siege engine will be quite obsolete by the time it's finished. If I recall correctly, before this attempt, they tried to create their own engine and fell flat on their faces.
    • People keep on talking about U7 being the best. Clearly Ultima 5 Warriors of Destiny is. U7 had no challenge element.
      Speaking of having no challenge element, this reminds me of something I used to do back in the Ultima 5 days. I'd save my game, quit and load up PC-Tools for the hex editor. Then I'd change the save file such that the amount of gold my party had was -1. Restart U5 and never worry about gold again.

      It seems the U5 money algorithms only check if your gold reaches 0, but doesn't care if it drops below that, since that isn't supposed to happen. The result? Unlimited spending power! I could keep buying food, potions, and weapons without my gold ever reaching 0.

      Of course these days, games like Starcraft already have similar capabilities built in. "Power overwhelming, "Show me the money", etc.
  • Like many others have said, Exult is by far much more impressive than some front-end app.

    Here are some other open-source Ultima remakes that you may want to contribute to if you have the time, skill, or inclination:

    [a href=http://xu4.sourceforge.net]XUltima4 [/a] is an opensource rebuild of the classic Ultima 4 in an effort to make it easily portable to many modern systems. I imagine after this is complete, much of the code could be used to build similar versions of the other older Ultimas like 3 and 5.

    [a href=http://low.sourceforge.net]Here,[/a] : [a href=http://uw2rev.sourceforge.net]here,[/a] and [a href=http://uwadv.sourceforge.net]
    here[/a] you can find various open-source projects to faithfully rebuild the Ultima Underworld games. As a bonus, Ulitma Underworld shares an engine with the original System Shock, so that classic game would benefit from an engine rebuild as well.

    People that want to contribute to a rebuild of the much-maligned Ultima 8 should talk to the developers of [a href=http://exult.sourceforge.net]Exult[/a].

    Now we just need someone to start a project to rebuild Ultima 6 (and Martian Dreams & Savage Empire).
  • After this story was posted, i noticed alot of major abondonware sites managed to get hammered... Hrmm..
  • "In its day, Ultima 7 was one of the most complex and detailed RPG's ever made."

    Actually, I would maintain that it is STILL the most complex and detailed RPG ever made. Sure, we've got some wonderful RPGs with lots of eye candy and great gameplay today, but I honestly don't think that I have ever seen anything like Ultima 7 in terms of the sheer scope of the world in which it takes place... the content of that game is just HUGE! Has anyone seen anything comparable? If so, clue me in, because I'd love to play that game.
    • I agree. I actually found a newer game called Divine Divinity [larian.com] that is pretty good and probably the most Ultima 7-ish RPG released in the last 10 years. It doesn't have NPC schedules and a party, though, setting it back quite a ways. Still, if you are interested in decent modern RPGs, Divine Divinity is pretty damned good.
    • I've wondered for a long time why so many "modern" CRPGs have abandoned many of the innovations that the were staples of the Ultima series. For example: NPC schedules. Ever since Ultima 5, every single NPC in the game followed a realistic schedule whereby they got up in the morning, ate breakfast, went to work, had lunch, went home, ate dinner, went to bed, etc. Yet, when I play new RPGs that are supposed to be the best on the markey today, like Baldur's Gate 2 was (which I found boring) the NPCs just stand around, day or night, doing the same things. The world is just static.

      What is going on here?

      Another thing I hate: RPGs that do not use single-scale worlds. I want the entire game on one map, or multiple maps that blend seamlessly with no load screens.
    • Since others have already mentioned Exult, I'd like to point out that part of that project is "ExultStudio", which contains tools so that you could (with a LOT of work) create your own Ultima-style game.

  • Still need another project (Score:3, Funny)

    by p24t ( 312611 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @05:44PM (#4840164)
    Does anyone know of a project to make Ulitma IX run under Windows?
    • Oh man, if only I had mod points. :)

      I have no idea what their programmer though they were doing but U9 is SUCH a peice of crap. MY roomate and I bought it the DAY it came out. Now amazingly enough we did get it to run (I understand it didn't run on most systems with teh intial release) but it was SLOW. Even when the final patch came about, it was still SLOW. We both had systems that met or exceeded teh recommend specs in every way. and it still drug along.

      Also it was so 3dfx/Glide friendsly that is actually ran slower when I got a GeForce. finally now, with a P4 1.6 and a GeForce 4, I can run the game at acceptable speeds (though it still lags in some parts). Of course it crashes all teh time so what's the point? :)

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