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Ultima 7 in Windows?
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."
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.
May we never see th
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
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!
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
It may be an old game, but being able to run it on a modern OS is amazing, while running the more recent Ultima 8 on a modern OS wouldn't impress me at all.
It was so complex to configure a working operating environment that could run Ultima 7, you had to understand the whole i386/MS-DOS memory model with all its hacks and subtleties just to run that game. Being able to start a game for the first time was the first quest of the game, even before that of solving the murder in Trinsic.
I've always used Ultima 7 as a hardcore test when I try an emulator. If it runs Ultima 7, it must emulate every feature and bug of the i386 architecture/MS-DOS and passes the test, if it doesn't, it fails. I've only tried VMWare that passed the test (but with no sound), all others failed.
Now thanks to Exult I don't really care anymore if an emulator can run Ultima 7 or not, but it's still a good way to check if an emulator does its work well.
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.
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.
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.
There they were, sitting in the van with all those dials, and the cat was dead. -V. Marchetti, CIA