Ultima 8 In Windows? YES !
Dragon Baroque
Ultima 7 and then asked about Ultima8, Dragon Baroque has decided
to look whether he could do try the same on Ultima 8.
Be glad. Baroque believes he has succeeded. U8Win9x is now
available for download on the very nice site of Gaseous Dragon, at
http://members.iinet.net.au/~rsd/U8inWindows.html
And please believe Baroque : The voice of the Guardian grumbling
"You have been a thorn in my side for far too long, Avatar", under
Win 98, was quite a reward, already...
Dragon Baroque
=== UDIC ===
Zarathustra Dragon
--
ZD
"Dragon Baroque" <gilbert....@fnac.net> wrote in message
news:95s9bv$5ae$1...@news2.isdnet.net...
Ethan
________
-=Dragon's Dragon=-
Usenet: The greatest thing since sliced television.
Aquamarine Dragon
> Thanks to all of you who reported your joy at using U7Win9x, on
> Ultima 7 and then asked about Ultima8, Dragon Baroque has decided
> to look whether he could do try the same on Ultima 8.
And there was never a doubt in my mind.
> Be glad. Baroque believes he has succeeded. U8Win9x is now
> available for download on the very nice site of Gaseous Dragon, at
> http://members.iinet.net.au/~rsd/U8inWindows.html
Go all, and download it. It's Dragon-Baroque-ish, i.e. truly awesome.
> And please believe Baroque : The voice of the Guardian grumbling
> "You have been a thorn in my side for far too long, Avatar", under
> Win 98, was quite a reward, already...
Hah! He'll soon find out just how much of a thorn we can be, eh?
--
Josef Drexler, Aquamarine Dragon (UDIC) | http://publish.uwo.ca/~jdrexler/
---------------------------------+-------+----------------------------------
Please help Conserve Gravity | Email address is *valid*.
Give up downhill skiing. | Don't remove the "nospam" part.
Bateau
<gilbert....@fnac.net> wrote:
> Thanks to all of you who reported your joy at using U7Win9x, on
>Ultima 7 and then asked about Ultima8, Dragon Baroque has decided
>to look whether he could do try the same on Ultima 8.
>
> Be glad. Baroque believes he has succeeded. U8Win9x is now
>available for download on the very nice site of Gaseous Dragon, at
>http://members.iinet.net.au/~rsd/U8inWindows.html
I live in Perth and use iinet too.
--
| _ \ _ ^~ email:bateau at jupiterio.net
| <')_,/ , ; \ >(')__, . ` ' , ,______________._
| (_~=/ \._`.'. \ (_~_/ _, '------:_______ ;==( *BANG*
| ='- \=~_) ; \ ~^~~^~ ` (_~_/ | | `-\ \ *BANG*
| ICQ:11367619 -'= \ ~^~~^~ `~' \_;
Ethan
::insert star wars "nooooo!" sound effect::
1. Where is my config.sys file?
2. Once I find it, how do I change it to "FILE=40?"
Tel
"Dragon Baroque" <gilbert....@fnac.net> wrote:
> Be glad. Baroque believes he has succeeded. U8Win9x is now
> available for download on the very nice site of Gaseous Dragon, at
> http://members.iinet.net.au/~rsd/U8inWindows.html
Very nice.... even though it is just as non-working as the DOS original
for me. Would be even cooler to see a version intended for not so
obsolete OS'es ;) Win2000 anyone?
--
Tel
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
jeff_f...@my-deja.com
>> Thanks to all of you who reported your joy at using U7Win9x, on
> Ultima 7 and then asked about Ultima8, Dragon Baroque has decided
> to look whether he could do try the same on Ultima 8.
>
When that's done, there's another Origin game that's a pain to run in
anything but DOS: Privateer. So if you're bored with nothing to do:-)
Darien Dragon
wrote:
I am! I am! But I lack the skills to do what you ask, so I'll continue
being bored wih nothing to do. heh, I just spelled nothing as nother
before I fixed it ;)
>
>
>Sent via Deja.com
>http://www.deja.com/
Darien Dragon
--==(UDIC)==--
http://www.geocities.com/darien_dragon
"A dream that's old, a song thats new.
Money borrowed, guitar blue.
True love tries, but has to fail.
When distance time and space prevail."
Stacey the Computer, Prozzak
Owner of 400 shiny new points. :)
Ethan
>On 07 Feb 2001 20:55:30 GMT, lemmi...@aol.comsucks (Ethan) wrote:
>
>>THANK YOU GOD! I NOW HAVE REASON TO GO ON!
>>
>>-=Dragon's Dragon=-
>>Usenet: The greatest thing since sliced television.
>
>You poor thing. ;)
>
Baldur's Gate II gets boring after awhile...
Dalboz Dragon
Dragon Baroque, I think that I can honestly say that you are Godsend
to the Dragons! You've gotten things working in Windows that most of
us had given up hope on without the need for a rewritten engine.
Truly amazing!
Question, though: Since the Crusader games seem to use the same
engine as U8 and won't run in Windows either, is it possible to make
this same program to work with those games as well (the install
program won't even run in Windows, but that part could probably be
bypassed or dealt with since that is supposedly a one-time thing)?
I bow before you and your magnificent coding skills!
--
Dalboz Dragon -=(UDIC and Member of CLOUDS)=-
AIM: BeerStud362
ICQ: 14285834
Maos earned: 1
--------------
d+++ e+ N+ T+ Om+ U147'S'9!KL u- uC+ uF- uG++ uLB+ uA+
nC++ nH nP+ nI++ nPT nS+ nT o oA+++ y+++ a22
--------------
"I would rather die than forsake any one of them."
- Tenchi Muyo!
Voyd
uF- uG++ uLB uA+ nC+ nR nH+ nP nI nPT nS+ nT- wM- o+ oA+ oE y a23
Coolness. :)
One question though. How?!
--
- Michael C. Maggio
Voyager Dragon, -=(UDIC)=-
Homepage http://www.voyd.net/
Exodus Project http://exodus.voyd.net/
-----------------------------------------------------------------
d++ e+ N++ T- Om+ UK1!2!3!4!5!6!A!7'!L!S'!8!9!W!M!O u++ uC+++
Dominus Dragon
<95sbps$n8s$1...@news.tpi.pl>:
>Why isn't a W2K version possible?
>
I second that question. I´m unwilling to install a Win9X version...
--
Dominus Dragon
http://Beam.To/Dominik/
Yapp's Basic Fact:
If a thing cannot be fitted
into something smaller than itself,
some dope will do it.
Gaseous Dragon
"Dominus Dragon" <Gi...@bluewin.de> wrote in message
news:Xns9041EE7AB774...@63.209.170.209...
> "Zarathustra Dragon" <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote in
> <95sbps$n8s$1...@news.tpi.pl>:
>
> >Why isn't a W2K version possible?
> >
>
> I second that question. I´m unwilling to install a Win9X version...
From the U8Readme file:
There is no hope at the moment for running Ultima 8 :
o under Win 2000 or Win NT (as opposed to Win 9X)
This is because Ultima 8 does rather nasty things to some hardware
resources : the Local Descriptor Table (LDT), as well as the
hardware timers. In addition it communicates directly with the
Video and Sound hardware. The Windows 9X, with their DOS ancestry,
are permissive about all this. Win NT and Win 2000 are not.
Sorry guys...
--
Gaseous Dragon -==(UDIC)==- In an alternate reality, Ron Windeyer
r...@iinet.net.au
http://members.iinet.net.au/~rsd/
ICQ 14725047
Dalboz Dragon
>....then again..
>::insert star wars "nooooo!" sound effect::
>1. Where is my config.sys file?
>2. Once I find it, how do I change it to "FILE=40?"
I have another question. Er, more a point of clarification needed,
actually. Okay, I admit it. I'm a dummy when it come to low-level
DOS.
What is "FILE=40" or "FILE=?" for? What exactly does it do? I had to
put this in my otherwise empty config.sys file to make U8run works
(works beautifully, btw), but I was just wondering what it actually
does. Is there a danger of this line screwing up other stuff, or not
running as efficiently (i.e., should I "rem" it out when I'm not going
to play U8)?
Just curious.
Helgraf Dragon
>
> On 07 Feb 2001 22:16:33 GMT, lemmi...@aol.comsucks (Ethan) wrote:
>
> >....then again..
> >::insert star wars "nooooo!" sound effect::
> >1. Where is my config.sys file?
> >2. Once I find it, how do I change it to "FILE=40?"
>
> I have another question. Er, more a point of clarification needed,
> actually. Okay, I admit it. I'm a dummy when it come to low-level
> DOS.
>
> What is "FILE=40" or "FILE=?" for? What exactly does it do? I had to
> put this in my otherwise empty config.sys file to make U8run works
> (works beautifully, btw), but I was just wondering what it actually
> does. Is there a danger of this line screwing up other stuff, or not
> running as efficiently (i.e., should I "rem" it out when I'm not going
> to play U8)?
>
> Just curious.
IIRC, it's a dos remnant, specificing how many files can be open
at once.
--
Helgraf Dragon, the NSA Dragon, Liason to Echelon
A Chronicler of the Circle of Dragons, King of Sloth
__ The Exodus of the *Other Side*; Plonk Count : 5
/__\ d++ e++ N T-- Om+ U1!23!4!5!6!7'!S'!8!KA!L!
/|__|\ u+++ uC++ uF uG++ uLB+ uA++ nC+ nH+ nP+ nI+ nPT nS++ nT+
|----| y++ a25;a1600 When home is a torus, expect curves.
|_||_| Fossil; Mao Count : 5
Dalboz Dragon
<hel...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
>Dalboz Dragon wrote:
>>
>> On 07 Feb 2001 22:16:33 GMT, lemmi...@aol.comsucks (Ethan) wrote:
>>
>> >....then again..
>> >::insert star wars "nooooo!" sound effect::
>> >1. Where is my config.sys file?
>> >2. Once I find it, how do I change it to "FILE=40?"
>>
>> I have another question. Er, more a point of clarification needed,
>> actually. Okay, I admit it. I'm a dummy when it come to low-level
>> DOS.
>>
>> What is "FILE=40" or "FILE=?" for? What exactly does it do? I had to
>> put this in my otherwise empty config.sys file to make U8run works
>> (works beautifully, btw), but I was just wondering what it actually
>> does. Is there a danger of this line screwing up other stuff, or not
>> running as efficiently (i.e., should I "rem" it out when I'm not going
>> to play U8)?
>>
>> Just curious.
>
>IIRC, it's a dos remnant, specificing how many files can be open
>at once.
Does it affect anything in Windows? When I tried to run U8w, it gave
me an error that FILES=37 (config.sys was blank). Can I leave it in
without blowing anything up?
Helgraf Dragon
>
> On Thu, 08 Feb 2001 05:33:24 GMT, Helgraf Dragon
> <hel...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
>
> >Dalboz Dragon wrote:
> >>
> >> On 07 Feb 2001 22:16:33 GMT, lemmi...@aol.comsucks (Ethan) wrote:
> >>
> >> >....then again..
> >> >::insert star wars "nooooo!" sound effect::
> >> >1. Where is my config.sys file?
> >> >2. Once I find it, how do I change it to "FILE=40?"
> >>
> >> I have another question. Er, more a point of clarification needed,
> >> actually. Okay, I admit it. I'm a dummy when it come to low-level
> >> DOS.
> >>
> >> What is "FILE=40" or "FILE=?" for? What exactly does it do? I had to
> >> put this in my otherwise empty config.sys file to make U8run works
> >> (works beautifully, btw), but I was just wondering what it actually
> >> does. Is there a danger of this line screwing up other stuff, or not
> >> running as efficiently (i.e., should I "rem" it out when I'm not going
> >> to play U8)?
> >>
> >> Just curious.
> >
> >IIRC, it's a dos remnant, specificing how many files can be open
> >at once.
>
> Does it affect anything in Windows? When I tried to run U8w, it gave
> me an error that FILES=37 (config.sys was blank). Can I leave it in
> without blowing anything up?
Because U8 is essentially falling back to old dos through windows,
I'd recommend upping that to Files=40 - you can take it out after
you finish U8 without a problem, I'd think.
Gaseous Dragon
"Dalboz Dragon" <sn4...@csun.edu> wrote in message
news:3a822cc2...@news.earthlink.net...
> On 07 Feb 2001 22:16:33 GMT, lemmi...@aol.comsucks (Ethan) wrote:
>
> >....then again..
> >::insert star wars "nooooo!" sound effect::
> >1. Where is my config.sys file?
> >2. Once I find it, how do I change it to "FILE=40?"
>
> I have another question. Er, more a point of clarification needed,
> actually. Okay, I admit it. I'm a dummy when it come to low-level
> DOS.
>
> What is "FILE=40" or "FILE=?" for? What exactly does it do? I had to
> put this in my otherwise empty config.sys file to make U8run works
> (works beautifully, btw), but I was just wondering what it actually
> does. Is there a danger of this line screwing up other stuff, or not
> running as efficiently (i.e., should I "rem" it out when I'm not going
> to play U8)?
>
> Just curious.
It is indeed a DOS remnant, and tells the computer how many files can be
open at one time. If your computer spits at you, (as mine did) your Windows
evidently defaults to some lesser number, and U8 needs the higher capacity.
This will NOT upset anything else you happen to be running. Windoze, IE, or
any other 32-bit program. Stick it in the config.sys and forget it.
David & Barbara Schmidt
be less than perfect, but if your old default was 37 (difference of only
3), the extra entries won't really hurt in modern machines with 10s if
not 100s of Megabytes (FILES= was important back when 8M was a LOT of
memory).
Other than wasting a miniscule amount of RAM, it's harmless.
Chocolate Breathing Dragon
--
Antifeminism is the radical notion that both men and women are people.
Dominus Dragon
01.iinet.net.au>:
>> >Why isn't a W2K version possible?
>> >
>>
>> I second that question. I´m unwilling to install a Win9X version...
>
>From the U8Readme file:
snip
I was first asking before reading the readme... :-)
But this is bad...
Especially when you think about it that those OS will probably only be
around another three years (at least supported by MS)...
Ram Dragon
> Ultima 7 and then asked about Ultima8, Dragon Baroque has decided
> to look whether he could do try the same on Ultima 8.
>
> Be glad. Baroque believes he has succeeded. U8Win9x is now
> available for download on the very nice site of Gaseous Dragon, at
> http://members.iinet.net.au/~rsd/U8inWindows.html
As if you haven't already secured a place in the annals of Dragonish
history... there you go again!
Many warm and heart felt thanks (again) Dragon Baroque. Your efforts and
devotion are an inspiration to us all.
Just between you and me, I was secretly looking forward to running U8 in
windows. Unlike a good majority here, I enjoyed U8 (and what I've seen
of U9 for that matter).
>
> And please believe Baroque : The voice of the Guardian grumbling
> "You have been a thorn in my side for far too long, Avatar", under
> Win 98, was quite a reward, already...
Hehehe... I can imagine.
A word of caution tho. Don't be surprised or overwelmed when hords of
Dragons beat down your door asking for other miracles. :)
Ram Dragon
--
-==(UDIC)==-
Matthew Duncan
Toronto Ontario
"We rock baby!"
Joseph Morris
>
> Thanks to all of you who reported your joy at using U7Win9x, on
> Ultima 7 and then asked about Ultima8, Dragon Baroque has decided
> to look whether he could do try the same on Ultima 8.
Oh Master, tell us.. how did you defeat Spanky?
(For those who don't know what Spanky is, there now follows a brief description.
This was written days before U8win was released.)
Ultima 8 is a DOS program. Traditionally, DOS programs had a limit of 640K.
To get around this limit, you could either piss about with EMS and XMS memory,
or you could use a DOS extender,made popular by DOOM and company.
U8 came before DOOM, and so before DOS extenders were popular, and so it uses
a strange old 286 DOS extender. This I know for a fact because I had a look
inside it.
According to Jason Ely, ex-Origin engineer, Ultima 8 also uses 386 instructions
to speed up the graphics and various other tasks. The problem with using 386
stuff in a 286 program like this is that when the DOS extender handles
interrupts,
for timing the game and also the sound system, the 16-bit extender only saves
half
of the 32-bit registers used by the game.
The net effect is that the game is happily doing something and then suddenly the
registers it was using get mashed for no obvious reason and it crashes.
To solve the problem, an evil piece of work called 'Spanky' was written by
John Watson and Tony Z. (See the U8 credits.. DOS extender kernel hacking)
But to preserve the registers it has to take complete control of the CPU, which
Windows obviously doesn't allow.
If you can disable SPANKY the game should naturally run, because the Windows DOS
extender will preserve registers correctly (or Windows would die itself).
Removing something as deeply embedded as SPANKY isn't going to be trivial.
The alternative is to do like U7run and emulate some of the CPU, but you would
have
to do MUCH more for U8.. you would also have to emulate the interrupt
controllers
too at the very least.
>
> Be glad. Baroque believes he has succeeded. U8Win9x is now
> available for download on the very nice site of Gaseous Dragon, at
> http://members.iinet.net.au/~rsd/U8inWindows.html
>
> And please believe Baroque : The voice of the Guardian grumbling
> "You have been a thorn in my side for far too long, Avatar", under
> Win 98, was quite a reward, already...
>
> Dragon Baroque
> === UDIC ===
--
JP Morris - aka DOUG the Eagle (Dragon) -=UDIC=- do...@it-he.org
Fun things to do with the Ultima games (http://www.it-he.org)
Developing a U6/U7 clone (http://fly.to/ire)
d+++ e+ N+ T++ Om U1234!56!7'!S'!8!9!KA u++ uC+++ uF+++ uG---- uLB----
uA--- nC+ nR---- nH+++ nP++ nI nPT nS nT wM- wC- y a(YEAR - 1976)
Ibn al-Hazardous Dragon
}I was first asking before reading the readme... :-)
}But this is bad...
}Especially when you think about it that those OS will probably only be
}around another three years (at least supported by MS)...
Well, there's still VMWare and Plex86. And if you really insist that
there should be a proggie specialized for U8 only - try to hack Plex86
apart until it does what you want and nothing more (it's open source).
Not that I can see why anyone should bother.
--
Ibn al Haz Drake <GMOTUDIC> 1 Mao
Not 'lone to start group of //\\ Old piece
drakes who did not get greet splut. of stone.
Mind Piis... Goof
Moscow Dragon
Not so :-)
U8 is '94 game, and Doom I was '93. Maybe U8 is simultaneous with Doom II.
Max
Dragon Baroque
"Dalboz Dragon" <sn4...@csun.edu> a écrit dans le message news:
3a820731...@news.earthlink.net...
> Question, though: Since the Crusader games seem to use the same
> engine as U8 and won't run in Windows either, is it possible to make
> this same program to work with those games as well (the install
> program won't even run in Windows, but that part could probably be
> bypassed or dealt with since that is supposedly a one-time thing)?
Apart from using the same engine as U8, as you claim, what is
Crusader ?
Dragon Baroque
"Ram Dragon" <ram_d...@my-deja.com> a écrit dans le message news:
95ufps$sdf$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> A word of caution tho. Don't be surprised or overwelmed when hords of
> Dragons beat down your door asking for other miracles. :)
Looks like this has already started. Take a look a little above about
Crusader ...
Dragon Baroque
"Joseph Morris" <j...@it-he.org> a écrit dans le message news:
3A82ED50...@it-he.org...
>
> Oh Master, tell us.. how did you defeat Spanky?
>
Aha, you would like the whole story ? Beware, I love telling this
kind of tale ...
Spanky corrects 286|DOS, the Dos extender embedded with U8.
When 286|DOS hooks interrupts, the interrupt service routines
(ISR) it attaches to the interrupts ignore the higher part of the
386 registers. This is expected, since 286|DOS as its name indicates,
was made - long ago - for the 80286.
A good part of U8, even though it is basically protected mode and
16 bits mode, uses the 32 bits registers, for computation and for
adressing, rather like U7 did. So if, whenever it is using the 32bits
registers, a hardware interrupt comes in and the ISR looses the 16
higher bits of the registers, then when the ISR completes and
the CPU returns to U8, the registers will not be have been restored
properly and U8 crashes.
This really occurs ONLY if somewhere during the handling of the
ISR, there is a use of the 32bits registers, and that use is not
properly wrapped in a set of 32 bit register save and restore. This
was what really make me wonder about the real logic of SPANKYs,
since, if 286|DOS is consistent, it will not touch the 32 bits registers
at all and neither will the DOS standard ISRs that 286|DOS is bound
to call sooner or later...
But anyway. Windows ISRs are 32 bits safe. By definition. Therefore
Spanky is useless. QED. Since it does things to run, that Windows
does not accept, like changing the Interrupt Descriptor Table (IDT),
then switch it off altogether.
That was the easy part. Locate Spanky in U8, find the initialisation
routine, the one that grabs the IDT, patch a RETF at its entrance.
Bingo, Spanky is off. (Patch item #1).
No really, the troubles I have faced, where NOT In Spanky. After
I had understood, with your help, all the above, then the story
unfurled like this :
Storage Management. U8 allocates higher memory. Memory above
1M. I believe it uses about 8 Megs or so. It also manage memory in
large segments - larger than 64k. I guess 286|DOS would not allow
the creation of memory segments above 64k - you need the 80386
to do this - and this is why U8 grabs the Local Descriptor Table (LDT)
and start managing the segments itself. Windows allows it to do this,
to my amazement. But then very soon U8 started to complain about
lack of memory. Memory was plenty, what it was lacking really was
selectors : the LDT was too short. What U8 expected, was, like
286|DOS probably works, a large static LDT. Well Windows
allocates and expands the LDT dynamically. So when U8 had
grabbed the LDT, it was very small. No space enough to manage
all the memory segments it wanted to handle. Solution : force
via DPMI - Allocate LDT selector - a biiiig LDT expansion before
U8 grabs it. Return all selectors to Windows except the highest
one so that Windows would not be able to reduce the LDT.
(Patch item #2),
Then the game started, switched to full screen and then hung
there. I expected this, because although I claimed that Spanky
was useless, it has still one important task : Hook the Timer
Interrupt. U8 is Timer based. The engine is based on the Timer
Ticks. When I switched Spanky offm I had switched the Hook
off too. Then U8 waited for ever on Timer Events that would
not occur. I checked to logic of that piece of Spanky, corrected
it because it no longer needed the tricky IDT grab that was
Spanky main function and made the Timer Hook again.
(Patch Item #3).
Then the introduction started playing. Nice reward. The game
crashed when I entered the name of the Avatar, or later, from
a saved game, randomly during conversations, cinematic
sequences (the execution), or even simple moves. Checking
a little bit the locations and the registers made me realise that
I was having the exact same problem that the developers of U8
had initially : the upper parts of the 32 bits registers where
trashed. How come ? Simply : Because U8 relied on Spanky to
save and restore the higher parts of the registers, the ISR
that U8 hooked on the Timer Interrupt DID NOT SAVE
THEM ! Neither did the other U8 ISRs by the way, but
those where riskless, they performed very quickly their
duty, using only the 16 bits registers, and returned.
Solution : ensure that the Timer ISR in U8 properly
save and restore the 32 bits registers.
(Patch Item #4).
Then, the game played !
Following a report from Gaseous about U8 not being
able to handle PC with more that 128 M, I located and
fixed an array overflow during the initialisation of
the storage management.
(Patch Item #5).
And there I stand, still expecting that the story is not yet
done, because Paulon Dragon and Road Dragon have
a very similar problem ....
Dragon Baroque
=== UDIC ===
Oh and by the way, I have fetched from your site, the
walkthroughs of U8 in which the Avatar is the naughty
boy .. Nyark .. Nyark ..
Lumina Dragon
Polychromic wrote:
> On 07 Feb 2001 20:55:30 GMT, lemmi...@aol.comsucks (Ethan) wrote:
>
> >THANK YOU GOD! I NOW HAVE REASON TO GO ON!
> >
> > ________
> >-=Dragon's Dragon=-
> >Usenet: The greatest thing since sliced television.
>
> Oh woe is me. A Dragon who actually wants to play U8.
> You poor thing. ;)
Hey! It's not that bad.
Haven't you played Ultima 2?
As I said, U8 isn't bad.
-Lumina Dragon
P.S. U8 is actually pretty nifty, despite all the flak it's gotten. IMO.
Tel
"Gaseous Dragon" <r...@iinet.net.au> wrote:
> From the U8Readme file:
>
> There is no hope at the moment for running Ultima 8 :
> o under Win 2000 or Win NT (as opposed to Win 9X)
> This is because Ultima 8 does rather nasty things to some
hardware
> resources : the Local Descriptor Table (LDT), as well as the
> hardware timers. In addition it communicates directly with
the
> Video and Sound hardware. The Windows 9X, with their DOS
ancestry,
> are permissive about all this. Win NT and Win 2000 are not.
>
> Sorry guys...
>
So in other words, 'u8 under windows' will be rather short lived
considering that in a year from now hardly anyone will seriously want
to use any sort of DOS/Win9x OS...
Too bad.
--Tel
Bateau
<gilbert....@fnac.net> wrote:
>"Joseph Morris" <j...@it-he.org> a écrit dans le message news:
>3A82ED50...@it-he.org...
>>
>> Oh Master, tell us.. how did you defeat Spanky?
>
>Aha, you would like the whole story ? Beware, I love telling this
>kind of tale ...
<snip coolness>
People like you give hope to classic gamers everywhere!
--
| _ \ _ ^~ email:bateau at jupiterio.net
| <')_,/ , ; \ >(')__, . ` ' , ,______________._
| (_~=/ \._`.'. \ (_~_/ _, '------:_______ ;==( *BANG*
| ='- \=~_) ; \ ~^~~^~ ` (_~_/ | | `-\ \ *BANG*
| ICQ:11367619 -'= \ ~^~~^~ `~' \_;
Aquamarine Dragon
> the Underworlds. It would be nice to run them from within W9x...
They run for me without problem. Both UW1 and UW2. Every once in a while
I get the odd crash, but in general they run very well.
I don't even have sound problems, but then I have an SB16 (in addition to
my SBLive) for that particular reason, sound problems in DOS.
--
Josef Drexler, Aquamarine Dragon (UDIC) | http://publish.uwo.ca/~jdrexler/
---------------------------------+-------+----------------------------------
Please help Conserve Gravity | Email address is *valid*.
Walk with a light step. | Don't remove the "nospam" part.
Whreky
>>>Usenet: The greatest thing since sliced television.
>>
>>Oh woe is me. A Dragon who actually wants to play U8.
>>You poor thing. ;)
Well, I was going to try it, as I had never played it and never heard anything
good about it.
But this did not work out well for me. It got my computer into a reboot loop.
It would not run, and Windows would not boot.
I was able to use a boot disk to erase all the files in the U8 directory, and
after one more aborted boot (with a scary VFAT error warning), everything is
back to norbal. <intentional spelling>
~~O^O~~
Optician Dragon
-==UDIC==-
"Did you get rid of all the voices in your head?
Do you now miss them, and the things that they said?"
krec...@my-deja.com
patch and had to try it again. I had two problems though, and would
appreciate any help....
The first involves the sound--basically, I don't have it:) This could
easily be a factor of my not remembering how to configure the darn sound
card though. It's a Turtle Beach Montegro II.
The second is a crash bug with u8w. The game starts fine, but clicking
the mouse causes it to crash to the desktop. It's happened with left and
right clicks, at different points in the introduction or in the actual
game. Doesn't always happen at the first click, but doesn't take many
before it crashes. The message is this: "The program has performed an
illegal operation and will be terminated. Quit all programs, and restart
your computer." Details: "The program tried to execute an invalid
instruction.
Fault Location: 0000:16CE
Interrupts in Servce: None "
System is pIII 500, Voodoo3 3000, 256MB Ram, Win98SE.
Thanks for any help!
Kevin
Holtzmann
> Question, though: Since the Crusader games seem to use the same
> engine as U8 and won't run in Windows either, is it possible to make
> this same program to work with those games as well (the install
> program won't even run in Windows, but that part could probably be
> bypassed or dealt with since that is supposedly a one-time thing)?
I just want to mention (even though you never said this) that it doesn't
have to be Dragon Baroque who writes the patch for Crusader (if it is
possible, that is).
If Dragon Baroque were to release the source code for his U8 patch
(hint, hint), somebody else could modifify it to work with Crusader.
Which reminds me: After Baroque released the U7 patch, another Dragon
claimed that he *could* have written a patch like that, too. I don't
remember who it was, but here's your chance to prove yourself! ;)
--
Ibrahim Holtzmann
Paulon
>On 8 Feb 2001 22:20:42 GMT, Aquamarine Dragon
><nospa...@joesbox.penguinpowered.com> wrote:
>>I don't even have sound problems, but then I have an SB16 (in addition
>>to my SBLive) for that particular reason, sound problems in DOS.
>
>Oh, maybe they do. I guess I was thinking about them not running in
>W2K by mistake. My bad.
I can't run them on Win98 either, though some people can. Win95 isn't a
problem, Win98 seems trickier, and Win98SE seems to be harder still from my
limited experience.
--
Paulon Dragon d++ e- N T+ Om U1!23!4!5!6!7'!S'!8!9K!A!L!W!M!
-==(UDIC)==- u++ uC+ uF uG uLB+ uA+ nC nH+ nI nPT nS+ nT+ y?
The Other Codex http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~paulryan/Ultima/
Settle for what you can get, but first ask for the World
Ka'a Orto'o, Gnomic Utterances, C IV
Negate the Spell to Wish me Well...
Dalboz Dragon
It does use the U8 engine, from what I've been told. It was another
game put out by Origin at the same time that was designed as more of
an action game
Check out:
http://www.zdnet.com/gamespot/filters/products/0,11114,197006,00.html
And the sequel, which was released a year later, has the same problem:
http://www.zdnet.com/gamespot/filters/products/0,11114,197005,00.html
Dalboz Dragon
Well, it was just a suggestion. I figured that if you got U8 to run
in Windows, the same program would probably work for Crusader, just
one or two line changes. Plus, it's an Origin game, and we've kinda
run out of Ultimas to say don't work in Windows (expect W2K).
Aquamarine Dragon
> On Thu, 8 Feb 2001 20:54:19 +0100, "Dragon Baroque"
> <gilbert....@fnac.net> wrote:
> >"Ram Dragon" <ram_d...@my-deja.com> a écrit dans le message news:
> >95ufps$sdf$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> >
> >> A word of caution tho. Don't be surprised or overwelmed when hords of
> >> Dragons beat down your door asking for other miracles. :)
> >
> >Looks like this has already started. Take a look a little above about
> >Crusader ...
>
> Well, it was just a suggestion. I figured that if you got U8 to run
> in Windows, the same program would probably work for Crusader, just
> one or two line changes.
Dalboz, I think you're underestimating the work that went into the U8W
patch. If you've read Baroque's story about how it came into existence,
you'll see that there are always many many small things that go wrong in
such a project.
Even just the fact that Crusader runs in 640x480 (AFAIK) is likely to
cause some headaches.
Anyway, I'll be surprised if it's just one or two lines that have to be
changed...
> Plus, it's an Origin game, and we've kinda
> run out of Ultimas to say don't work in Windows (expect W2K).
Yeah, it's amazing isn't it. Now we just have to get Microsoft to fix
W2K so that it runs them too ;)
I haven't checked back how far plex86 is now, it might start to be a
viable alternative.
I've also tried to make both Baroque's U7 and U8 patches work in the
Linux Dosemu, but haven't had much luck yet. Neither have I had the time
to really work on them...
--
Josef Drexler, Aquamarine Dragon (UDIC)| http://publish.uwo.ca/~jdrexler/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please help Conserve Gravity | Email address is *valid*.
Use tape&glue, no paperweights | Don't remove the "nospam" part.
Goldenflame Dragon
<gilbert....@fnac.net> wrote:
>
>"Joseph Morris" <j...@it-he.org> a écrit dans le message news:
>3A82ED50...@it-he.org...
>>
>> Oh Master, tell us.. how did you defeat Spanky?
>>
>
>Aha, you would like the whole story ? Beware, I love telling this
>kind of tale ...
>
<snip story>
Wow. Amazing. *applause*
I'll mention here, for the hell of it, the odd problem I am having- when
I play with music turned off, it runs wonderfully. Speech, everything.
When music is on, the game runs half as quickly and occassionally slows
down perceptably, causing the Guardian's words to slur and drag on,
animation and movement to lag, and music to sound like a scratched
record. Oh, and speech acquires a bizarre static.
My system is an Athlon 700, Soundblaster Live! Platinum, 256M RAM. And,
I never could get speech to work with U7Run.
I should try switching the PCI slot my soundcard is in- someone
suggested it back when I was trying to make U7Run work, but I haven't
done it yet. Anyone have any other suggestions?
Goldenflame Dragon
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-=<UDIC>=- Goldenflame Dragon http://www.tumbolia.org/golden.html
d++ e++ N++ T-- Om++ UK1!2!3!4!5!6!7'!S'!8!9!A u++ uC++ uF- uG++ uLB++
uA(+) nC+ nR nH+ nP+ nI nPT+(++) nS++ nTo++ oA++ oE oy++ a25
In the beginning was the Word.
In the end... past honor, past life, past caring...
In the end will be the Word.
Spalls Hurgenson
wrote:
>On Thu, 8 Feb 2001 20:54:19 +0100, "Dragon Baroque"
><gilbert....@fnac.net> wrote:
>>"Ram Dragon" <ram_d...@my-deja.com> a écrit dans le message news:
>>95ufps$sdf$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
>>> A word of caution tho. Don't be surprised or overwelmed when hords of
>>> Dragons beat down your door asking for other miracles. :)
>>Looks like this has already started. Take a look a little above about
>>Crusader ...
Well, if we're standing in line waiting for miracles, I'd like to put
in a vote for Strike Commander, another much-maligned Origin game.
Or BioForge, for that matter.
Or what about Shadowcaster?
Hey, stop pushing back there! You'll get your turn to ask for your
miracle when I'm done! Now, where was I... ? ;-)
Voyd
"Goldenflame Dragon" <mad...@well.com> wrote in message
news:3a836dc4...@news.pacbell.net...
> In the beginning was the Word, and then "Dragon Baroque"
> <gilbert....@fnac.net> wrote:
>
> My system is an Athlon 700, Soundblaster Live! Platinum, 256M RAM. And,
> I never could get speech to work with U7Run.
> I should try switching the PCI slot my soundcard is in- someone
> suggested it back when I was trying to make U7Run work, but I haven't
> done it yet. Anyone have any other suggestions?
Those sorts of DOS games don't rely on PCI resources. I honestly doubt
switching the card between slots will make a difference.
What are the resource settings on the "Creative SB16 Emulation" device in
Device Manager?
--
- Michael C. Maggio
Voyager Dragon, -=(UDIC)=-
Homepage http://www.voyd.net/
Exodus Project http://exodus.voyd.net/
-----------------------------------------------------------------
d++ e+ N++ T- Om+ UK1!2!3!4!5!6!A!7'!L!S'!8!9!W!M!O u++ uC+++
uF- uG++ uLB uA+ nC+ nR nH+ nP nI nPT nS+ nT- wM- o+ oA+ oE y a23
Voyd
"Tel" <te...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:95v2m6$els$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> In article <3a8217e1$0$10...@echo-01.iinet.net.au>,
>
> So in other words, 'u8 under windows' will be rather short lived
> considering that in a year from now hardly anyone will seriously want
> to use any sort of DOS/Win9x OS...
> Too bad.
I'm not so sure that will be the case. I've known several people (myself
included) who've switched back to Win9x because of all the issues they've
had with Win2k. For the most part, it's not compatible with most of their
software. And in some exceptional cases, it's not compatible with software
that claims to be win2k-compatible. Why should the home-user bother?
I don't consider it such a big loss.
Goldenflame Dragon
<voy...@NO.SPAM.voyd.net> wrote:
>Those sorts of DOS games don't rely on PCI resources. I honestly doubt
>switching the card between slots will make a difference.
I honestly don't remember why we thought it might help. IRQ conflict,
maybe?
>
>What are the resource settings on the "Creative SB16 Emulation" device in
>Device Manager?
SB PORT 220
MPU 401 PORT 330
ADLIB PORT 388
IRQ 7
8 bit DMA 1
16 bit DMA 5
Allow LPT Interrupt Sharing (checked)
This last was checked on just recently, to see if it would help in U8. I
have absolutely no idea what it does.
Voyd
> In the beginning was the Word, and then "Voyd"
> <voy...@NO.SPAM.voyd.net> wrote:
>
> >Those sorts of DOS games don't rely on PCI resources. I honestly doubt
> >switching the card between slots will make a difference.
>
> I honestly don't remember why we thought it might help. IRQ conflict,
> maybe?
>
> >
> >What are the resource settings on the "Creative SB16 Emulation" device in
> >Device Manager?
>
> SB PORT 220
> MPU 401 PORT 330
> ADLIB PORT 388
> IRQ 7
> 8 bit DMA 1
> 16 bit DMA 5
>
> Allow LPT Interrupt Sharing (checked)
>
> This last was checked on just recently, to see if it would help in U8. I
> have absolutely no idea what it does.
Eww... that might very well be it. Your parallel (LPT) port uses IRQ 7. It
looks like this option allows it to be "shared" somehow, but DOS is usually
not very friendly about sharing ISA resources, so I'm not sure I'd trust it.
Besides, you said it was only speech that was failing? Speech playback
requires the use of the card's IRQ... MIDI music does not.
If you can, manually change the IRQ to 5 as long as no other card is using
it. This is the recommended value.
Dalboz Dragon
<nospa...@joesbox.penguinpowered.com> wrote:
>Sorry, Dalboz Dragon, could you repeat that? I wasn't paying attention:
>> On Thu, 8 Feb 2001 20:54:19 +0100, "Dragon Baroque"
>> <gilbert....@fnac.net> wrote:
>> >"Ram Dragon" <ram_d...@my-deja.com> a écrit dans le message news:
>> >95ufps$sdf$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
>> >
>> >> A word of caution tho. Don't be surprised or overwelmed when hords of
>> >> Dragons beat down your door asking for other miracles. :)
>> >
>> >Looks like this has already started. Take a look a little above about
>> >Crusader ...
>>
>> Well, it was just a suggestion. I figured that if you got U8 to run
>> in Windows, the same program would probably work for Crusader, just
>> one or two line changes.
>
>Dalboz, I think you're underestimating the work that went into the U8W
>patch. If you've read Baroque's story about how it came into existence,
>you'll see that there are always many many small things that go wrong in
>such a project.
Well, I admit that I'm quite ignorant as to the gory details of how
this stuff works (or why it doesn't in Windows normally). It was just
a theory given the supposedly same engine and close release dates.
>Yeah, it's amazing isn't it. Now we just have to get Microsoft to fix
>W2K so that it runs them too ;)
Yeah! They're the real culpirates! Make them fix it. :)
Goldenflame Dragon
<voy...@NO.SPAM.voyd.net> wrote:
>
>"Goldenflame Dragon" <mad...@well.com> wrote in message
>news:3a8386c3...@news.pacbell.net...
>>
>> Allow LPT Interrupt Sharing (checked)
>>
>> This last was checked on just recently, to see if it would help in U8. I
>> have absolutely no idea what it does.
>
>Eww... that might very well be it. Your parallel (LPT) port uses IRQ 7. It
>looks like this option allows it to be "shared" somehow, but DOS is usually
>not very friendly about sharing ISA resources, so I'm not sure I'd trust it.
>Besides, you said it was only speech that was failing? Speech playback
>requires the use of the card's IRQ... MIDI music does not.
Well, I only turned it on to try U8- it wasn't on for my attempts to get
U7 to work. In U8, I get voice, but there's static and the weird
slowdown. If I turn the music off, I get voice and no problems at all.
>
>If you can, manually change the IRQ to 5 as long as no other card is using
>it. This is the recommended value.
>
This might have been why I was going to try to change its slot, because
I thought the card wouldn't let me change the IRQ. However, I've since
figured it out...
Just tried the game with sharing turned off and the emulation on IRQ 5.
Same problem. :(
Goldenflame Dragon
Dragon) wrote:
>Just tried the game with sharing turned off and the emulation on IRQ 5.
>Same problem. :(
>
Aha! Having looked more closely at the Sound Blaster settings, at your
request, I had noticed that it has a setting for MPU 401 midi emulation.
So, I tried that, and this time _didn't_ reset its port to 220 like I
did last time I tried it. :P And, lo and behold, I got midi music and no
slowdown or other adverse effects. Kick ass, rock on, and woohoo. :>
Claus Kick
Dragon Baroque wrote:
>
> Thanks to all of you who reported your joy at using U7Win9x, on
> Ultima 7 and then asked about Ultima8, Dragon Baroque has decided
> to look whether he could do try the same on Ultima 8.
>
> Be glad. Baroque believes he has succeeded. U8Win9x is now
> available for download on the very nice site of Gaseous Dragon, at
> http://members.iinet.net.au/~rsd/U8inWindows.html
>
> And please believe Baroque : The voice of the Guardian grumbling
> "You have been a thorn in my side for far too long, Avatar", under
> Win 98, was quite a reward, already...
baroque, i bow before you.
--
claus dragon
Claus Kick
jeff_f...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> In article <95s9bv$5ae$1...@news2.isdnet.net>,
> "Dragon Baroque" <gilbert....@fnac.net> wrote:
>
> >> Thanks to all of you who reported your joy at using U7Win9x, on
> > Ultima 7 and then asked about Ultima8, Dragon Baroque has decided
> > to look whether he could do try the same on Ultima 8.
> >
>
> When that's done, there's another Origin game that's a pain to run in
> anything but DOS: Privateer. So if you're bored with nothing to do:-)
what about strike commander?
--
claus dragon
Bateau
>On Fri, 09 Feb 2001 05:59:45 +0800, Bateau
><Its...@Not-A-Real-Address.com> wrote:
>
>>People like you give hope to classic gamers everywhere!
>
Yes, aka Deadite Dragon.
Who are you?
Bateau
>On Thu, 8 Feb 2001 20:54:19 +0100, "Dragon Baroque"
><gilbert....@fnac.net> wrote:
>
>>
>the Underworlds. It would be nice to run them from within W9x...
>
My copies of Underworlds I and II run perfectly in Win95.
Voyd
> In the beginning was the Word, and then mad...@well.com (Goldenflame
> Dragon) wrote:
>
> >Just tried the game with sharing turned off and the emulation on IRQ 5.
> >Same problem. :(
> >
>
> Aha! Having looked more closely at the Sound Blaster settings, at your
> request, I had noticed that it has a setting for MPU 401 midi emulation.
> So, I tried that, and this time _didn't_ reset its port to 220 like I
> did last time I tried it. :P And, lo and behold, I got midi music and no
> slowdown or other adverse effects. Kick ass, rock on, and woohoo. :>
;)
You go!
Dragon Baroque
"Goldenflame Dragon" <mad...@well.com> a écrit dans le message news:
3a8398ce...@news.pacbell.net...
> Aha! Having looked more closely at the Sound Blaster settings, at your
> request, I had noticed that it has a setting for MPU 401 midi emulation.
> So, I tried that, and this time _didn't_ reset its port to 220 like I
> did last time I tried it. :P And, lo and behold, I got midi music and no
> slowdown or other adverse effects. Kick ass, rock on, and woohoo. :>
I tend to get lost in those configuration tidbits about the SB Live ! If you
reached success with yours, with sound and music, could you e-mail
Gaseous and me with as complete as possible a configuration rundown.
Questions on how to configure SB Live! with U7Win9x and now
U8Win9x tend to come with a clockwork regularity ...
Dragon Baroque
=== UDIC ===
Ram Dragon
Now THAT would be something. I don't want to step on dear Dragon
Baroque's toes and suggest out of line but have you been able to take a
peek at the U7/U8 patch source code and still found the project a big
stinky mess?
Ram Dragon
--
-==(UDIC)==-
Matthew Duncan
Toronto Ontario
"We rock baby!"
Ram Dragon
there wrote:
> On Fri, 09 Feb 2001 02:51:22 GMT, sn4...@csun.edu (Dalboz Dragon)
> wrote:
>
> >On Thu, 8 Feb 2001 20:54:19 +0100, "Dragon Baroque"
> ><gilbert....@fnac.net> wrote:
> >>"Ram Dragon" <ram_d...@my-deja.com> a écrit dans le message news:
> >>95ufps$sdf$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
>
> >>> A word of caution tho. Don't be surprised or overwelmed when hords
of
> >>> Dragons beat down your door asking for other miracles. :)
>
> >>Looks like this has already started. Take a look a little above
about
> >>Crusader ...
>
> Well, if we're standing in line waiting for miracles, I'd like to put
> in a vote for Strike Commander, another much-maligned Origin game.
Never played it... kinda like Wing Commander wasn't it?
> Or BioForge, for that matter.
>
> Or what about Shadowcaster?
Played both of these. Shadowcaster was ok, but not one I'd return to
play again. Crusader... now that I would love to play. Hmmm... perhaps I
should skip over to the Crusader thread. :)
>
> Hey, stop pushing back there! You'll get your turn to ask for your
> miracle when I'm done! Now, where was I... ? ;-)
LOL! That sounds about right. Just wait til the pies start flying oh
my. ..
Maybe Dragon Baroque was really Miracle Max in another life?
<Ram Dragon sprinkles himself with "Dragon-B-Gon" and disappears into
the Crusader thread>
Dragon Baroque
"Aquamarine Dragon" <nospa...@joesbox.penguinpowered.com> a écrit dans le
message news: MPG.14ed2ae2...@server.our.house...
> I've also tried to make both Baroque's U7 and U8 patches work in the
> Linux Dosemu, but haven't had much luck yet. Neither have I had the time
> to really work on them...
I tought about your failure win U7Win9x for a while. Regarding U8Win9x,
I am pretty sure that Linux would be as reluctant as WinNT/Win2K to let
U8 play with the LDT. So I can safely predict that U8W woud crash very
similarly like Prax test did, before he told us that he was using WinNT.
Now U7Win9x. I believe that U7DPMI does not work under Linux because
I made the implicit assumption that the DPMI host was at least partly a
Dos Extender, in the sense that INT 21 from protected mode would be
serviced properly. Windows 9x is a Dos extender, basically because the
core file and DOS services were moved to a 32 bits protected kernel.
Then a Dos program in V8086 mode would see its INT 21 directly
reflected to the protected kernel as a Trap Gate to protected mode. This
made giving INT 21 to protected mode very trivial and cheap.
But Linux DosEmu is a DPMI host but certainly not a DOS Extender.
I would have to rework U7DPMI to switch to V8086 mode before
using INT 21 in U7DPMI. I intended to do that once I had changed
my personal PC and installed Linux on it ... Another convert ...
Dragon Baroque
> Played both of these. Shadowcaster was ok, but not one I'd return to
> play again. Crusader... now that I would love to play. Hmmm... perhaps I
> should skip over to the Crusader thread. :)
Go on. Tempt me. What kind of game Crusader is ?
Joseph Morris
>
> "Joseph Morris" <j...@it-he.org> a écrit dans le message news:
> 3A82ED50...@it-he.org...
> >
> > Oh Master, tell us.. how did you defeat Spanky?
> >
>
> Aha, you would like the whole story ? Beware, I love telling this
> kind of tale ...
>
[snip]
> Storage Management. U8 allocates higher memory. Memory above
> 1M. I believe it uses about 8 Megs or so. It also manage memory in
> large segments - larger than 64k. I guess 286|DOS would not allow
> the creation of memory segments above 64k - you need the 80386
> to do this - and this is why U8 grabs the Local Descriptor Table (LDT)
> and start managing the segments itself. Windows allows it to do this,
> to my amazement.
Isn't that how DOS4GW works anyway? It contains DOS16M which is a 286
DOS extender, and from there it sets a few bits in CR0 and sets the
segment limits to beyond 64k..
[snip]
> But then very soon U8 started to complain about
> lack of memory. Memory was plenty, what it was lacking really was
> selectors : the LDT was too short. What U8 expected, was, like
> 286|DOS probably works, a large static LDT. Well Windows
> allocates and expands the LDT dynamically. So when U8 had
> grabbed the LDT, it was very small. No space enough to manage
> all the memory segments it wanted to handle. Solution : force
> via DPMI - Allocate LDT selector - a biiiig LDT expansion before
> U8 grabs it.
Clever ;-)
[snip]
> Then the game started, switched to full screen and then hung
> there. I expected this, because although I claimed that Spanky
> was useless, it has still one important task : Hook the Timer
> Interrupt. U8 is Timer based. The engine is based on the Timer
So they moved ALL the timer code into Spanky?
I guess that would be a bit faster that way, actually.
If you're going to do something like THAT, might as well put
the timer code there too.
> Ticks. When I switched Spanky offm I had switched the Hook
> off too. Then U8 waited for ever on Timer Events that would
> not occur. I checked to logic of that piece of Spanky, corrected
> it because it no longer needed the tricky IDT grab that was
> Spanky main function and made the Timer Hook again.
> (Patch Item #3).
[snip]
What debugger did you use for all this?
SoftICE for windows or something else?
> Oh and by the way, I have fetched from your site, the
> walkthroughs of U8 in which the Avatar is the naughty
> boy .. Nyark .. Nyark ..
Have fun, although the Quest of the avatar and saving
Britannia pales compared to debugging adventures like that. ;-)
--
JP Morris - aka DOUG the Eagle (Dragon) -=UDIC=- do...@it-he.org
Fun things to do with the Ultima games (http://www.it-he.org)
Developing a U6/U7 clone (http://fly.to/ire)
d+++ e+ N+ T++ Om U1234!56!7'!S'!8!9!KA u++ uC+++ uF+++ uG---- uLB----
uA--- nC+ nR---- nH+++ nP++ nI nPT nS nT wM- wC- y a(YEAR - 1976)
Joseph Morris
>
> > U8 came before DOOM
>
> Not so :-)
> U8 is '94 game, and Doom I was '93. Maybe U8 is simultaneous with Doom II.
>
Okay, so it was being *designed* before DOS4GW became popular ;-)
> Max
Moscow Dragon
Linux Dosemu, but haven't had much luck yet. Neither have I had the time
> to really work on them...
Do you mean patching the dosemu source by adding the "flat realmode
instruction emulation" feature? Great idea!
Max
Moscow Dragon
>
> Yeah! They're the real culpirates! Make them fix it. :)
Writing an open-source NTVDM would be an easier thing :-))))
Max
Moscow Dragon
> claimed that he *could* have written a patch like that, too. I don't
I have started writing the VDD version of Baroque's patch for NT/w2k - and
even wrote some very buggy preliminary version (able to show U7SI's
introduction and main menu, but problems with the game itself) - but the
performance was so poor (I had about 1 frame per second on P166) that I
considered this code to be useless (no advantages over U7DPMI) and thus
stopped the work.
Even reverse-engineering and using the undocumented facilities of NTVDM
(GetClientRegisters() instead of getEAX() etc) did not lead to any
noticeable performance boost. The lack of performance is surely due to
NTVDM's (and mainly NTVDM<->VDD interfaces) internal stupidities - too long
code path from the VM trap to the VDD function call.
If somebody is interested - I can send the source.
I also know that one of us (IIRC Aquamarine?) once (very long ago, about a
year or more) mentioned that he had some experiments with locating and
patching all Voodoo instructions in the game code (the way Baroque's patch
works) and IIRC he used NTVDM's VDD for it - but IIRC he had no success.
Max
Moscow Dragon
> I would have to rework U7DPMI to switch to V8086 mode before
> using INT 21 in U7DPMI. I intended to do that once I had changed
> my personal PC and installed Linux on it ... Another convert ...
Suggesion:
- to write a universal add-on for Linux "dosemu" which will allow running
ANY flat realmode apps.
Surely, each app will need its own patch offset table - one for SI.EXE,
another for INTRO.EXE, another for MAINMENU.EXE :-)
Is it a bad idea?
Max
Moscow Dragon
> SoftICE for windows or something else?
Another questions to Baroque:
- what time have you spent on writing U7Win?
- am I right that most of the time was spent discovering the patch offset
tables?
Max
Paulon
>I also know that one of us (IIRC Aquamarine?) once (very long ago, about
>a year or more) mentioned that he had some experiments with locating and
>patching all Voodoo instructions in the game code (the way Baroque's
>patch works) and IIRC he used NTVDM's VDD for it - but IIRC he had no
>success.
No. His attempt and the source are still on his site though, for anyone
who's interested. http://publish.uwo.ca/~jdrexler/ultima/u7patch/
--
Paulon Dragon d++ e- N T+ Om U1!23!4!5!6!7'!S'!8!9K!A!L!W!M!
-==(UDIC)==- u++ uC+ uF uG uLB+ uA+ nC nH+ nI nPT nS+ nT+ y?
The Other Codex http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~paulryan/Ultima/
Settle for what you can get, but first ask for the World
Ka'a Orto'o, Gnomic Utterances, C IV
Negate the Spell to Wish me Well...
Aquamarine Dragon
That would be one way.
Another way, and this is the one I'm going to try first, is making
u7win9x compatible with dosemu, by adding the necessary breakpoint
handling. I think this will be much easier. I just wonder how the
performance would be, but we'll see.
--
Josef Drexler, Aquamarine Dragon (UDIC)| http://publish.uwo.ca/~jdrexler/
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Aquamarine Dragon
>
> "Aquamarine Dragon" <nospa...@joesbox.penguinpowered.com> a écrit dans le
> message news: MPG.14ed2ae2...@server.our.house...
>
> > I've also tried to make both Baroque's U7 and U8 patches work in the
> > Linux Dosemu, but haven't had much luck yet. Neither have I had the time
> > to really work on them...
>
> I tought about your failure win U7Win9x for a while. Regarding U8Win9x,
> I am pretty sure that Linux would be as reluctant as WinNT/Win2K to let
> U8 play with the LDT. So I can safely predict that U8W woud crash very
> similarly like Prax test did, before he told us that he was using WinNT.
Well, in principle dosemu supports changing the LDT. This is even
mentioned in some of the security documents, because it can potentially
allow modifying another app's memory. See for example
http://www.dosemu.org/docs/README/0.98/README-3.html
Then again, nobody should run dosemu on a machine where security is very
important anyway.
> Now U7Win9x. I believe that U7DPMI does not work under Linux because
> I made the implicit assumption that the DPMI host was at least partly a
> Dos Extender, in the sense that INT 21 from protected mode would be
> serviced properly. Windows 9x is a Dos extender, basically because the
> core file and DOS services were moved to a 32 bits protected kernel.
> Then a Dos program in V8086 mode would see its INT 21 directly
> reflected to the protected kernel as a Trap Gate to protected mode. This
> made giving INT 21 to protected mode very trivial and cheap.
As I said I didn't have too much time to dwell on the issue, but it could
very well be that.
> But Linux DosEmu is a DPMI host but certainly not a DOS Extender.
> I would have to rework U7DPMI to switch to V8086 mode before
> using INT 21 in U7DPMI. I intended to do that once I had changed
> my personal PC and installed Linux on it ... Another convert ...
I just hope that the DPMI handler is faster under Linux than Win9x, or
we'll have to write U7Linux or something. It would be very easy to
install our own hooks into the code, fortunately, because we have the
source. So even if DPMI is too slow, it shouldn't be very difficult to
write a faster access method.
Spalls Hurgenson
wrote:
>In article <PnKDOvEhbaxdET...@4ax.com>,
> there wrote:
>> On Fri, 09 Feb 2001 02:51:22 GMT, sn4...@csun.edu (Dalboz Dragon)
>> wrote:
>>
>> Well, if we're standing in line waiting for miracles, I'd like to put
>> in a vote for Strike Commander, another much-maligned Origin game.
>Never played it... kinda like Wing Commander wasn't it?
Well, it was a flight-sim, as opposed to a space-combat sim (main
difference: you can crash into the ground ;-) but on the whole, it was
fairly similar... fly from waypoint to waypoint shooting down badguys,
then watch the talking-heads debrief you. It required a majorly
high-end system when it came out since it was one of the first games
to texture map the airplanes and terrain. Flight-sim fanatics griped
about it's inaccurate flight-model, but I always liked it for what it
was: a low-end sim / action game. It had a rocking soundtrack, too ;-)
>Played both of these. Shadowcaster was ok, but not one I'd return to
>play again. Crusader... now that I would love to play. Hmmm... perhaps I
>should skip over to the Crusader thread. :)
Shadowcaster was actually a Raven game (e.g., the same people who
later made the Heretic series); I don't think Origin had much to do
with the actual development. It used the Wolfenstein3D engine. It was
rather disappointing, since it couldn't decide if it was an
out-and-out action game (e.g., Doom) or a 3D-roleplaying game (e.g.,
UW). Still, it had some fantastic graphics for the time (I loved that
fogging effect on level 2!), although the story was fairly weak. It
certainly wasn't the best Origin product, but I wouldn't mind
revisiting it...
>> Hey, stop pushing back there! You'll get your turn to ask for your
>> miracle when I'm done! Now, where was I... ? ;-)
>
>LOL! That sounds about right. Just wait til the pies start flying oh
>my. ..
>
>Maybe Dragon Baroque was really Miracle Max in another life?
Heh, if he REALLY could do miracles, I'd be asking for him to
magically produce Lost Vale and BioForge Plus ;-)
Ram Dragon
Crusader No Remorse is a solid action game that came out at a time of
the FPS explosion in the gaming market. It was billed as an alternative
to the FPS genre.
The story is set in an Orwellian future in which you play an elite
soldier betrayed by the powers that be (World Economic Consortium). You
join the resistance and take on your former employer through a series of
missions scripted with FMV (the acting was mostly cheezy tho).
For the time it was one of the most violent games around. Hearing the
screams of someone running around on fire before they fall to the ground
dead was a bit unnerving the first time. You could also blow
up/damage/destroy every object in the game. Taking on soldiers, mechs,
and security systems it was literally and figuratively a blast!
I have no idea what Origin did to the U8 engine, but Tony Zuvorec (sp?)
was lead programmer. The game came out in 1995. To run the game in all
it's glory required at least a p90.Acording to the manual, it runs with
min 6.7 megs of either XMS or EMS. Also says the program requires VCPI
or DPMI in v86 mode.
I thoroughly enjoyed the story, action, and atmosphere. One of my
favourites. Oh, and I just tried the install program in win98... it
halts with an error.
Dragon Baroque
> Isn't that how DOS4GW works anyway? It contains DOS16M which is a 286
> DOS extender, and from there it sets a few bits in CR0 and sets the
> segment limits to beyond 64k..
286|DOS is 16 bits. DOS4G(W) is 32 bits. Are you sure about
DOS16M being 16 bits ? I doubt that WinNT ore even Win9x
would allow it to "set a few bits in CR0" ...
> Clever ;-)
Thanks.
> So they moved ALL the timer code into Spanky?
> I guess that would be a bit faster that way, actually.
> If you're going to do something like THAT, might as well put
> the timer code there too.
No. The timer code is in Kernel. In quite another part of
U8.EXE.
> What debugger did you use for all this?
> SoftICE for windows or something else?
A marvellous disassembler called IDA Pro made by one
extraordinary Ilfak Guilfanov. Not cheap, but fantastic.
The company is located not too far, in Belgium.
(http://www.datarescue.com I am not affiliated, blabla... )
> Have fun, although the Quest of the avatar and saving
> Britannia pales compared to debugging adventures like that. ;-)
Glad to hear that.
Dragon Baroque
"Moscow Dragon" <maxi...@mtu-net.ru> a écrit dans le message news:
962644$f0e$1...@gavrilo.mtu.ru...
> Another questions to Baroque:
> - what time have you spent on writing U7Win?
I made a first attempt in 1999 which ended up as being U7DPMI.
Then I started again in 2000 with the idea of using a VXD instead
because I fould that the time to switch from V8086 to Protected
and back via DPMI was not consistent with Intel timings.
> - am I right that most of the time was spent discovering the patch offset
> tables?
Yes. Also a fair bit of time learning how to code a VXD.
Dragon Baroque
"Joseph Morris" <j...@it-he.org> a écrit dans le message news:
3A845934...@it-he.org...
> Okay, so it was being *designed* before DOS4GW became popular ;-)
Popular yes. But I believe the Watcom 32 bits compiler existed then. Even if
its price may have been a brake. Also I am sure that 386|Dos, from PharLap
existed too since I bought a copy while in the US, so before 1992. Also
price
might have been a deterrent. But I suspect that the engine was firmly 16
bits,
possibly inherited from U7 with only local use of 32 bit ... Pity ...
Dragon Baroque
> Well, in principle dosemu supports changing the LDT. This is even
> mentioned in some of the security documents, because it can potentially
> allow modifying another app's memory. See for example
> http://www.dosemu.org/docs/README/0.98/README-3.html
>
More than that. I am not sure because paging may provide additional
security, but if you can build your own LDT descriptors, nothing
prevents you from getting access to shared storage areas that are
for system use only - In Windows, the system arena - and wreaking
havoc to the GDT and the IDT if they reside there.
> Then again, nobody should run dosemu on a machine where security is very
> important anyway.
Because of Dosemu ? Because of Linux itself ? Can you clarify where you
expect the security hole to come from ?
> As I said I didn't have too much time to dwell on the issue, but it could
> very well be that.
>
> I just hope that the DPMI handler is faster under Linux than Win9x, or
> we'll have to write U7Linux or something. It would be very easy to
> install our own hooks into the code, fortunately, because we have the
> source. So even if DPMI is too slow, it shouldn't be very difficult to
> write a faster access method.
A very interesting challenge. And with DosEmu and Linux sources, much
more pleasant that figuring out VMM32.VXD (Win9x) or
NDVDM.EXE (WinNT)
Telemachos
wrote:
>On Thu, 08 Feb 2001 21:22:22 GMT, Tel <te...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>So in other words, 'u8 under windows' will be rather short lived
>>considering that in a year from now hardly anyone will seriously want
>>to use any sort of DOS/Win9x OS...
>>Too bad.
>>
>>--Tel
>
>I've hardly used W9x for anything since '96 but I still have it around
>just to run games. I doubt a few years will make much difference
>other than more people will learn how to dual or multi-boot OSes.
>After all harddrive space is getting cheaper each day - it's no
>hardship to devote a few hundred MB to an archaic OS.
I disagree - what you are saying is exactly the same as everyone was
saying when the change was from DOS to Windows95. I kept a dual-boot
for a long time with DOS and Win95 but eventually I switched to pure
Win98.
I now have Win2k installed and DOS on another harddisk which I can
boot from by changing boot sequence in the BIOS (see, I don't even
have it as a dual boot option).
If one should have win98 installed as a dual boot option just to run
a a simulator of DOS to run Ultima7 or 8 then why not simply have
DOS installed as the second OS? Well, personally I have found that
restarting to switch OS is so irrirtating that one rarely gets around
to do it and thus the old games slowly is forgotten..
So sadly I must agree with Tel that unless someone finds a way to
create versions of u7run and u8run which works with win2k then the
programs will be rather short-lived :(
But hey, almost anything is possible so maybe that will indeed happen.
Telemachos Dragon d-- e- N++ Om+ U1!234!5!6!7!S'!8!9!K!A!L!W!M
-==(UDIC)==- u++ uC uF- uG uLB uA nC nH+ nP+ nI nPT nS+ a23
The Peroxide Homepage : http://www.peroxide.dk
- Home of the PXDTUTS & Free Games
- Home of the Ultima 1 Remake!
- Unspluttable Dragon
Aquamarine Dragon
>
> message news: MPG.14ee79ed8...@server.our.house...
>
> > important anyway.
>
> Because of Dosemu ? Because of Linux itself ? Can you clarify where you
> expect the security hole to come from ?
Because Dosemu is an inherent security risk. It can be configured such
that it isn't, but in that state it wouldn't be very useful, because too
many DOS programs depend on doing nasty stuff.
Having write access to the LDT is only one way to compromise a system,
there are others too. And they are open to anyone who can login to the
system.
> > As I said I didn't have too much time to dwell on the issue, but it could
> > very well be that.
> >
> > I just hope that the DPMI handler is faster under Linux than Win9x, or
> > we'll have to write U7Linux or something. It would be very easy to
> > install our own hooks into the code, fortunately, because we have the
> > source. So even if DPMI is too slow, it shouldn't be very difficult to
> > write a faster access method.
>
> A very interesting challenge. And with DosEmu and Linux sources, much
> more pleasant that figuring out VMM32.VXD (Win9x) or
> NDVDM.EXE (WinNT)
At least one would hope so...
--
Josef Drexler, Aquamarine Dragon (UDIC)| http://publish.uwo.ca/~jdrexler/
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Aquamarine Dragon
I second that!
> Thanks.
>
> > What debugger did you use for all this?
> > SoftICE for windows or something else?
>
> A marvellous disassembler called IDA Pro made by one
> extraordinary Ilfak Guilfanov. Not cheap, but fantastic.
> The company is located not too far, in Belgium.
> (http://www.datarescue.com I am not affiliated, blabla... )
There is also an older freeware version, just do a search for "idafw" and
you'll find it. It has some problems with older DOS extenders but loads
U7.exe and U8.exe without problem.
And even the freeware version is quite powerful, doing automatic cross
references and everything. It forms an ever more powerful tools when
combined with Softice.
--
Josef Drexler, Aquamarine Dragon (UDIC)| http://publish.uwo.ca/~jdrexler/
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Joseph Morris
Don't forget that before Doom, which was basically the 'killer-app' of the
386, almost all software worked on 286s. The 286 was the entry level
machine, in many cases the only PC that was affordable at the time.
One of the reasons I didn't buy Ultima 7 when it came out.
>
> Dragon Baroque
> === UDIC ===
--
Joseph Morris
>
> "Joseph Morris" <j...@it-he.org> a écrit dans le message news:
> 3A8458C9...@it-he.org...
>
> > Isn't that how DOS4GW works anyway? It contains DOS16M which is a 286
> > DOS extender, and from there it sets a few bits in CR0 and sets the
> > segment limits to beyond 64k..
>
> 286|DOS is 16 bits. DOS4G(W) is 32 bits. Are you sure about
> DOS16M being 16 bits ? I doubt that WinNT ore even Win9x
> would allow it to "set a few bits in CR0" ...
Well obviously it asks permission first. Even Borland C 2.0,
which had a VERY strange extender knew to look for VCPI first.
DOS16M was Rational Systems 16-bit DOS extender, for 286
programs. From what I recall, the differences between 286
and 386 protected mode weren't all that great. Isn't 32-bit
protected mode just 16-bit protected mode with paging set and
the segments extended to 4 gig?
>
> Dragon Baroque
> === UDIC ===
--
Dalboz Dragon
wrote:
>So sadly I must agree with Tel that unless someone finds a way to
>create versions of u7run and u8run which works with win2k then the
>programs will be rather short-lived :(
That's what I'm afraid of, but I would expect that when Windows XP is
released, I would give it at least a year before the old Win9x shows
signs of disappearing. Hell, there are still systems out there that
use DOS and Win 3.1.
>But hey, almost anything is possible so maybe that will indeed happen.
Agreed. Until Dragon Baroque's sudden patches, most of us had given
up on being able to run U7 and U8 in Win9x, believing it to be
impossible without rewriting the engine. So, the same thing could
eventually happen with the new generation of Windows.
--
Dalboz Dragon -=(UDIC and Member of CLOUDS)=-
AIM: BeerStud362
ICQ: 14285834
Maos earned: 1
--------------
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--------------
"I would rather die than forsake any one of them."
- Tenchi Muyo!
Samurai
Quoth Tel <te...@hotmail.com>:
[munch]
>So in other words, 'u8 under windows' will be rather short lived
>considering that in a year from now hardly anyone will seriously
>want to use any sort of DOS/Win9x OS... Too bad.
Well, I'm one of those who will. :) Considering I upgraded from W95
to W98 last month, I think I'll probably have a few more years' use
from it. Especially since W2000 really doesn't look as though it's
particuarly great. MS had better do some improving before the next
major release if they want to even tempt me...
Of course, I realise I'm not really the target market. But hey, if I
can still play U7 and U8 (which, as Lumina says, isn't as bad as
people generally make it out to be, IMHO) on my PC without having to
reboot, so I'm happy enough. :)
--
___________________________________________________________
\^\^//
,^ ( ..) Samurai Dragon d++e+N T--Om+U146MA7'L8u-uC++
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ksj ^--^ ___________________________________________________________
Linards Ticmanis
> > Then again, nobody should run dosemu on a machine where security is very
> > important anyway.
>
> Because of Dosemu ? Because of Linux itself ? Can you clarify where you
> expect the security hole to come from ?
Dosemu has become much more secure, lately. "Back then" it was really
bad, now it allows you to do many things without compromising
security.
--
Linards Ticmanis
The Master said, "The business of laying on the colors follows the
preparation of the plain ground."
Linards Ticmanis
> > What debugger did you use for all this?
> > SoftICE for windows or something else?
>
> A marvellous disassembler called IDA Pro made by one
> extraordinary Ilfak Guilfanov. Not cheap, but fantastic.
> The company is located not too far, in Belgium.
> (http://www.datarescue.com I am not affiliated, blabla... )
There is a freeware version too, if you want to try it first. It's
still very good and very versatile (can disassemble Z80 and some other
processors as well). Do a web search for "IDAFW" (IDA Freeware). It
should be on simtel.net.
Generally if you want software that's really algortihmically and
mathematically ingenious, the Russian stuff is the way to go... in my
experience. TETRIS, IDA, Abbyy FineReader, ACB compressor, PTS DOS....
Michael McIntyre
>up on being able to run U7 and U8 in Win9x, believing it to be
>impossible without rewriting the engine. So, the same thing could
>eventually happen with the new generation of Windows.
What about U6? I have all the old games on CD, but have never gotten
around to running any of them.
Has anyone taken the time to patch it to use GM/GS synths? I tried it
via my SC-33 (no MT-32 emulation) and it sounded pretty hokie...
I found the MT-32 drivers but nothing for GS...
I'd really like to play U6 again. Now that I think about it, I never
did play it with VGA. I played the whole thing in EGA and never have
gone back to play it again. (These things do take scads of time,
after all...)
---
D. Michael McIntyre | mmci...@swva.net | USDA zone 6a in sw VA
Vote for America's National Tree: http://arborday.org
Ram Dragon
It's really too bad more companies don't release the source code for
these older games. It's not as if a U8 clone would be a real competitor
in the RPG market place. On the other hand, doing add-ons and porting to
Linux would be easier for peole like Jeff Freedman and the Exult team.
I'd like to see a reasonable interpretation of The Lost Vale some day.
Ram Dragon.
Holtzmann
>> - am I right that most of the time was spent discovering the patch
>> offset tables?
>
> Yes. Also a fair bit of time learning how to code a VXD.
Can you recommend any good books on the subject?
--
Ibrahim Holtzmann
Moscow Dragon
> there are others too. And they are open to anyone who can login to the
> system.
Are you sure? In NT, LDT is used for NTVDM _only_ (Win32 does not use LDT)
and no LDT manipulations can compromise the OS (the OS is protected by
"disable user mode access" page attribute).
Is it not so in Linux?
Max
Moscow Dragon
> 386, almost all software worked on 286s. The 286 was the entry level
Doom I appeared in 93 - in that time, 386 was a standard machine and 486 was
a super-machine. 286 was already obsolete when Doom appeared.
Max
Moscow Dragon
> existed too since I bought a copy while in the US, so before 1992.
I saw this software (RUN386.EXE etc) in 1990. It is very old.
Max
Moscow Dragon
> protected mode just 16-bit protected mode with paging set and
> the segments extended to 4 gig?
Yes.
Nevertheless, the 286 and 386 DOS extenders differ a lot - 386 extender
usually does not use segments - it uses the flat 32bit address space - and
thus similar to Win32 or Linux.
286 extender must use the segment:offset thing - and thus more similar to
Win3.x
Max
Aquamarine Dragon
I'm not entirely sure, this is just from what I heard. But as far as I
understand, access to the LDT would make it possible to access the whole
physical memory space, including the memory occupied by other processes.
The kernel itself would probably be protected, but I'm not so sure about
other program.
But as I said I haven't thought too much about this to be sure.
--
Josef Drexler, Aquamarine Dragon (UDIC)| http://publish.uwo.ca/~jdrexler/
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Voyd
"Goldenflame Dragon" <mad...@well.com> wrote in message
news:3a8398ce...@news.pacbell.net...
> In the beginning was the Word, and then mad...@well.com (Goldenflame
> Dragon) wrote:
>
> >Just tried the game with sharing turned off and the emulation on IRQ 5.
> >Same problem. :(
> >
>
> Aha! Having looked more closely at the Sound Blaster settings, at your
> request, I had noticed that it has a setting for MPU 401 midi emulation.
> So, I tried that, and this time _didn't_ reset its port to 220 like I
> did last time I tried it. :P And, lo and behold, I got midi music and no
> slowdown or other adverse effects. Kick ass, rock on, and woohoo. :>
Now that I have the opportunity to go back and look at what you did to get
it to work, I cannot find this setting (MPU 401 MIDI Emulation) anywhere.
Where did you bring it up?
--
- Michael C. Maggio
Voyager Dragon, -=(UDIC)=-
Homepage http://www.voyd.net/
Exodus Project http://exodus.voyd.net/
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d++ e+ N++ T- Om+ UK1!2!3!4!5!6!A!7'!L!S'!8!9!W!M!O u++ uC+++
uF- uG++ uLB uA+ nC+ nR nH+ nP nI nPT nS+ nT- wM- o+ oA+ oE y a23
Michael McIntyre
>can still play U7 and U8 (which, as Lumina says, isn't as bad as
>people generally make it out to be, IMHO) on my PC without having to
>reboot, so I'm happy enough. :)
What's it like with the new patches and such? I have an unopened box
I got somewhere. It's the Publisher's Choice edition I think. I
never actually got around to re-playing it, but I wanted to get the
game on CD.
Back when I played I didn't have the patience to put up with all the
stupid jumping challenges. I used some kind of developer cheat mode
that let me drag sprites around, and I just made myself bridges out
of random bits of scenery to get myself across all the little stones.
:)
All in all it wasn't a bad game, but the physical challenges were
annoying. It just didn't have the kind of hand-on interface that
would allow timing all those jumps to be a natural thing.
Guesstimate, click, fall in water, reload two three four five six
seven eight nine ten... eleven... twelve.... Guesstimate, click,
fall in water, search the internet for cheat codes... Ah, that's
better... :)
Paulon
>>Of course, I realise I'm not really the target market. But hey, if I
>>can still play U7 and U8 (which, as Lumina says, isn't as bad as
>>people generally make it out to be, IMHO) on my PC without having to
>>reboot, so I'm happy enough. :)
>
>What's it like with the new patches and such? I have an unopened box
>I got somewhere. It's the Publisher's Choice edition I think. I
>never actually got around to re-playing it, but I wanted to get the
>game on CD.
<SniP>
>All in all it wasn't a bad game, but the physical challenges were
>annoying. It just didn't have the kind of hand-on interface that
>would allow timing all those jumps to be a natural thing.
>Guesstimate, click, fall in water, reload two three four five six
>seven eight nine ten... eleven... twelve.... Guesstimate, click,
>fall in water, search the internet for cheat codes... Ah, that's
>better... :)
The best thing added by the patch was the targeted jumping. You jumped to
where the cursor was. If you couldn't jump there the Avatar shook his head.
And the most unpleasant moving platforms got locked in place.
Much better game afterwards. Pity OSI didn't learn from their mistakes with
U8 when making U9. :-(
--
Paulon Dragon d++ e- N T+ Om U1!23!4!5!6!7'!S'!8!9K!A!L!W!M!
-==(UDIC)==- u++ uC+ uF uG uLB+ uA+ nC nH+ nI nPT nS+ nT+ y?
The Other Codex http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~paulryan/Ultima/
Settle for what you can get, but first ask for the World
Ka'a Orto'o, Gnomic Utterances, C IV
Negate the Spell to Wish me Well...
Goldenflame Dragon
<voy...@NO.SPAM.voyd.net> wrote:
>"Goldenflame Dragon" <mad...@well.com> wrote in message
>news:3a8398ce...@news.pacbell.net...
>> request, I had noticed that it has a setting for MPU 401 midi emulation.
>> So, I tried that, and this time _didn't_ reset its port to 220 like I
>> did last time I tried it. :P And, lo and behold, I got midi music and no
>> slowdown or other adverse effects. Kick ass, rock on, and woohoo. :>
>
>Now that I have the opportunity to go back and look at what you did to get
>it to work, I cannot find this setting (MPU 401 MIDI Emulation) anywhere.
>Where did you bring it up?
In the Ultima8 directory, in a DOS prompt, I typed "INSTALL". (Just to
give as much detail as possible.) I selected "music options", and the
last one on the list was something like "MIDI MPU 401 compatible". I'd
check, but I just went to a command line and typed "install" and had it
just sit there for 5 minutes, so I suspect I need to reboot. I'll let
you know if I had the option named incorrectly.
Goldenflame Dragon
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-=<UDIC>=- Goldenflame Dragon http://www.tumbolia.org/golden.html
d++ e++ N++ T-- Om++ UK1!2!3!4!5!6!7'!S'!8!9!A u++ uC++ uF- uG++ uLB++
uA(+) nC+ nR nH+ nP+ nI nPT+(++) nS++ nTo++ oA++ oE oy++ a25
In the beginning was the Word.
In the end... past honor, past life, past caring...
In the end will be the Word.
Goldenflame Dragon
Dragon) wrote:
>In the Ultima8 directory, in a DOS prompt, I typed "INSTALL". (Just to
>give as much detail as possible.) I selected "music options", and the
>last one on the list was something like "MIDI MPU 401 compatible". I'd
>check, but I just went to a command line and typed "install" and had it
>just sit there for 5 minutes, so I suspect I need to reboot. I'll let
>you know if I had the option named incorrectly.
Ok, the specifics: I went to Music Configuration, and selected "General
MIDI MPU-401 Compatible", and selected the default port, 330, which
matches the port that my properties of the SB Emulation claims MPU 401
is on.
Joseph Morris
In 1992 there was a fledgeling PC games industry, at least in the UK, because
no-one had PCs, they had Amigas and STs. That was where the money was.
(It was a similar position for PC games to Linux now. A bit better though.)
New PCs were mainly 386SX machines, but since all PCs were targeted at
running spreadsheets and WordPerfect, most companies still had one or two
lines of 286 machines for the entry level.
I built my first 286 in 1992 (my Dad had one as well. He went 386 just before I
did)
and there was no compelling reason to upgrade until DOOM came out. And even
that didn't
spur me to upgrade until later (I wanted to run Borland C 4 to make 286 DPMI
programs ;-)
Now I don't have many magazines from 1993, but in the ones I do have,
all the games they reviewed run on a 286.
However, by December of that 1993, there were enough games that needed a 386
for the magazines to have a column for the minimum processor required.
Upgrades to 386s were selling briskly but there were still companies offering
286s.
The memory crisis was around this time, so many machines didn't have enough
memory to run DOOM..
>
> Max
Voyd
"Goldenflame Dragon" <mad...@well.com> wrote in message
news:3a865c3...@news.pacbell.net...
> In the beginning was the Word, and then mad...@well.com (Goldenflame
> Dragon) wrote:
>
> >In the Ultima8 directory, in a DOS prompt, I typed "INSTALL". (Just to
> >give as much detail as possible.) I selected "music options", and the
> >last one on the list was something like "MIDI MPU 401 compatible". I'd
> >check, but I just went to a command line and typed "install" and had it
> >just sit there for 5 minutes, so I suspect I need to reboot. I'll let
> >you know if I had the option named incorrectly.
>
> Ok, the specifics: I went to Music Configuration, and selected "General
> MIDI MPU-401 Compatible", and selected the default port, 330, which
> matches the port that my properties of the SB Emulation claims MPU 401
> is on.
Ah, okay... I was looking throught the device settings for it. Thanks. :)
Bateau
<ticm...@coli.uni-sb.de> wrote:
>Dragon Baroque wrote:
>> > What debugger did you use for all this?
>> > SoftICE for windows or something else?
>>
>> A marvellous disassembler called IDA Pro made by one
>> extraordinary Ilfak Guilfanov. Not cheap, but fantastic.
>> The company is located not too far, in Belgium.
>> (http://www.datarescue.com I am not affiliated, blabla... )
>
>There is a freeware version too, if you want to try it first. It's
>still very good and very versatile (can disassemble Z80 and some other
>processors as well). Do a web search for "IDAFW" (IDA Freeware). It
>should be on simtel.net.
>
>Generally if you want software that's really algortihmically and
>mathematically ingenious, the Russian stuff is the way to go... in my
>experience. TETRIS, IDA, Abbyy FineReader, ACB compressor, PTS DOS....
ABBYY Finereader is horrible. Textbridge Millenium Pro is the way to
go :P
--
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Goldenflame Dragon
<voy...@NO.SPAM.voyd.net> wrote:
>
>Ah, okay... I was looking throught the device settings for it. Thanks. :)
>
Ah. Did it work? :>