JonGM wrote:

Which games of the Ultima Series will work with the DOSBox?

The ones that are DOS games.

well, at least I'm smart enough to know you're pointing out an obvious that I obviously don't know, thanka!

Anyone have a slightly less snyde response? 😜 I've been looking all over the internet for a good tutorial on how to get all the Ultima games working on the PC, but it's all very scattered. I can't find anything on the entire series, just individual games, and even those are a little choppy.

I don't know much about DOSbox, and I don't know much about the ultima series. My hope is to find an Ultima fan on these forums that might have an answer for me.

dug deaper and found the games list. I gotta say, this thing you guys have created is pretty tootin nifty (yea, i said nifty). Keep up the good work, I bet this thing has brought a lot of people a lot of joy.

What Freddo said above is pretty much the indisputable truth: literally every Ultima game can be run from DOSBox, as long as it's actually a DOS game. The only ones that do not fall under this category are Ascension and the Online series. I've managed to get every one of the Ultima games running in DOSBox (some required a bit of tweaking, especially the first four and Pagan).

It should be stated though that Ultima II and III are meant for a graphics mode that DOSBox does not support (CGA 320x200 mixed-color-and-artifacting composite graphics). So they will look like they would on most newer PCs in native mode, but not the way they were supposed to look when they came out.

Also the PC releases for Ultima I through V are generally not considered the best versions of those games - the PC was not yet a very good gaming platform in those days, so the original Apple releases (and the Commodore ones) are usually more feature complete and less buggy.

DOSBox is ideally suited for playing Ultima VI through VIII though.

TeaRex wrote:

It should be stated though that Ultima II and III are meant for a graphics mode that DOSBox does not support (CGA 320x200 mixed-color-and-artifacting composite graphics). So they will look like they would on most newer PCs in native mode, but not the way they were supposed to look when they came out.

I'm confused - DOSBox is able to emulate CGA composite mode graphics... I'm pretty sure the composite color screenshots on MobyGames for Ultima 2 are from DOSBox.

HunterZ wrote:

I'm confused - DOSBox is able to emulate CGA composite mode graphics... I'm pretty sure the composite color screenshots on MobyGames for Ultima 2 are from DOSBox.

I'm aware that the 640x200 purely artifact based composite color mode is supported with machine=cga. But that's not the mode Ultima II and III use.

How do you turn it on for the 320x200 mixed mode? I have found no way to do it.

Given that straight lines on those screenshots on Moby aren't totally straight, I assume these are real "screen shots" i.e. photgraphs of a real composite monitor.

They look perfectly straight and centered to me, with no glare. *shrug* Hopefully someone can answer your question though, I haven't tried myself and haven't played with CGA composite emulation in DOSBox much yet.

HunterZ wrote:

They look perfectly straight and centered to me, with no glare.

You're right, in fact. My own CRT monitor was playing games with my eyes it seems.

Still I don't know how they did those images, or how to enable that mode in DOSBox as I said.

EDIT: I just saw that those screenshots were done by NewRisingSun. I think he has a private patch to DOSBox for this very purpose. There was some discussion of it on these boards a while ago, but, for some reason that I forgot, ultimately the patch didn't make it into the standard DOSBox releases.

The "code" he did (algorithm) is in dosbox. For a few games it'd be additionally
required to force-select that mode.

wd wrote:

The "code" he did (algorithm) is in dosbox. For a few games it'd be additionally
required to force-select that mode.

Thanks wd. There is currently no option to do this "force-selection" from dosbox.conf. right?

Have you considered maybe splitting machine=cga in two, e.g. machine=cgargb and machine=cgacomposite? I guess you have, and have decided against it, right? I'd love to know the reasons if you mind. Thanks!

There is currently no option to do this "force-selection" from dosbox.conf. right?

Nope.

Have you considered maybe splitting machine=cga in two, e.g. machine=cgargb and machine=cgacomposite?

I don't care about this stuff for several reasons, but of course this would be possible.

How then can the "force-select" be done?

at the time I didn't like the idea of having a lot machines which were almost not going to be used.
Nowadays I might reconsider as we have lots of machines. Still the amount of games that need it is quite small as far as I know

I think it would be fun to toy with, and possibly quite useful with some stubborn games.

I think it's a better idea to allow the user to toggle between RGB and composite with a key combination, if that's possible.

Tsyu wrote:

I think it's a better idea to allow the user to toggle between RGB and composite with a key combination, if that's possible.

Sure, but being able to set a default from dosbox.conf would be good for front-end users; then you could set up every game the way it needs to be.

Maybe machine= wouldn't be the right place, it is already a bit overloaded. Maybe "screen=rgb" and "screen=composite"? "screen=auto" could then represent the present behaviour, where the mode that's only ever used by composite-specific games (640x200 with burst bit set) displays composite, while the others do RGB.

For the "machine=cgacomposite" (or "screen=composite"), this would allow emulating the difference between Modes 0&1, 2&3, and 4&5 respectively; which differ only in whether the burst bit is set.

Of course maybe I should quit talking out of my .... and just implement it?

EDIT: Typo

Showing "color composite graphics" is both a function of the monitor and the adapter. Most CGA games using the 320x200 will show color if connected directly to a color composite monitor, some will show black and white. Same with games using 640x200 or text.

Actually, I think that machine should be split into two or three categories.

The first category is indeed machine type, but this only tells the program the manufacturer of the machine. In these categories we could have "generic", "Tandy", "IBM", "Amstrad" (if support is added) and "IBM PCjr." Optional BIOS support would be nice (for those games that require BASIC in ROM).

Second category would be graphics adapter and we could have:
CGA
HGC
TGA
EGA
VGA
SVGA (varieties)
(IBM PCjr. does not allow selection of an adapter for simplicity's sake)

Third category would be monitor type. Some adapters would not have a choice here, but others would:
MDA/HGC: TTL Mono
CGA/TGA/PCJr.: RGB, Mono Composite, Color Composite
EGA: RGB, TTL Mono
VGA/SVGA: Color, Mono

An auto choice here would select the first listed option for each adapter.
Mono Color: White, Amber, Green

By the way, the later Tandy machines supported CGA, TGA+, and MDA/HGC all in one. I understand the compatibility to be solid. One video adapter could replace many other choices if used with a manufacturer.

If at all then there will be ONE additional option, nothing else.