It should run good on a fast DX4/100. If I remember correctly a Pentium 60 was recommended, and the DX4/100 is very close to that in performance.

I remember playing it on a 486 DX4 100 with 16MB RAM and wishing I had a Pentium 75 and 32MB RAM.

I remember this game throttling the walk speed on a DX2/66, and I didn't think there was anything slow about it, but it's been forever so maybe I'm not remembering well. I think the recommendation was a DX33.
Of course, people's expectations for smoothness weren't as high back then.

Some period correct reviews that talk about performance:
http://www.pixsoriginadventures.co.uk/wp-cont … iewPCZPage5.jpg
http://www.ibiblio.org/GameBytes/issue18/grev … gan/pagan1.html
http://www.ibiblio.org/GameBytes/issue18/grev … gan/pagan2.html
http://www.ibiblio.org/GameBytes/issue18/grev … gan/pagan3.html
http://www.ibiblio.org/GameBytes/issue18/grev … gan/pagan4.html

Of course, these reviews would recommend a fast 486 because almost no one could afford a Pentium in 1994. But take it for what it's worth.

clueless1 wrote:

Some period correct reviews that talk about performance: http://www.pixsoriginadventures.co.uk/wp-cont … iewPCZPage5.jpg http:// […]
Show full quote

Some period correct reviews that talk about performance:
http://www.pixsoriginadventures.co.uk/wp-cont … iewPCZPage5.jpg
http://www.ibiblio.org/GameBytes/issue18/grev … gan/pagan1.html
http://www.ibiblio.org/GameBytes/issue18/grev … gan/pagan2.html
http://www.ibiblio.org/GameBytes/issue18/grev … gan/pagan3.html
http://www.ibiblio.org/GameBytes/issue18/grev … gan/pagan4.html

Of course, these reviews would recommend a fast 486 because almost no one could afford a Pentium in 1994. But take it for what it's worth.

Interesting to read the opinions from back then.
The article in the first link mentioned that the scrolling "still jerked" with a Pentium. I think that reviewer misunderstood what was going on. Ultima 8 has a really crude way of controlling the speed. If your character is moving too fast, then it inserts pauses every second. In effect, I think his Pentium was jerking because it was too fast (same thing happens on fast 486s though).
This effect should go away if the speed limiter is disabled in the game options.
But I imagine there are situations in the game (intense combat maybe) where that same Pentium might have slowdown.
There might not be any perfect CPU speed for this game, because it doesn't have a smooth way of handling fast movement, yet you might need more speed in some other situations.

This thread reminds me I never played finished Ultima VII or Pagan.. VII is a tall order for a working guy with kids but Pagan I can rectify.

Never played U7? Heresy...

appiah4 wrote:

This tgread reminds me I never played Ultima VII or Pagan.. VII is a tall order for a working guy with kids but Pagan I can rectify.

I managed it (married with one middle schooler). Well, Serpent Isle, not the Black Gate. But SI is even longer I believe. It took around 2-3 months, but I finished it, and it was a great experience. Give it a shot!

I finished U8 back then on a 486/66 with a VLB cirus card, it was never smooth. Even on my p233mmx nowdays it's not smooth and speed fluctuates lots... I wish someone made a patch to fix that , it's a good game - maybe not the best in the series but it's not that bad...
I haven't touched U7s either because of their erratic scrolling - it tires me for some reason.

Dominus wrote:

Never played U7? Heresy...

Never finished U7.. Of course I played it, for years actually. Without the internet or a clue book, good luck finishing it though.

No idea why I typed played earlier, posting on Vogons while pushing a baby stroller is hard. 😒

😀
With Exult it is lovely to play U7 (http://exult.sf.net)!

And Pentagram makes it easy and nice to play U8 with (http://pentagram.sf.net). It‘s not as polished as Exult but you can finish U8 nicely.
(I‘m heavily biased in both cases as I have been part of the development teams of both since almost always 😀)

^ oh yes I know of them, I should have rephrased my post - a patch for a DOS machine 🤣 🤣 🤣

Dominus wrote:

:) With Exult it is lovely to play U7 (http://exult.sf.net)! […]
Show full quote

😀
With Exult it is lovely to play U7 (http://exult.sf.net)!

And Pentagram makes it easy and nice to play U8 with (http://pentagram.sf.net). It‘s not as polished as Exult but you can finish U8 nicely.
(I‘m heavily biased in both cases as I have been part of the development teams of both since almost always 😀)

Sorry for high-jacking the thread, but I've been meaning to play the Ultima games ever since I saw Ultima V's eerie box art and reading about what's going on in the game world. I have a decent understanding of the Ultima franchise mythos and stories for each trilogy and I don't know if I should play all of them or skip some of them.
I have never really played a game like Ultima 1-5 for extended periods of time, so I don't know how I will like it. I'm also keen on playing Ultima VII, but I don't want to start with it (Exult looks awesome honestly).

Should I play all of them? Should I start with 5?

It‘s hard to say. I think you should start with 4 and then work your way up to 8. Take the Underworlds as well. And maybe then do 9, 3, maybe 2 and/or 1.
4 kicks Ultima/Avatar off for real and takes the rpg genre on a different level. 5 corrupts it and six makes it better. 7 is just awesome and 8 has its own charme even though people tend to dislike it. I hated 9 but over the years I appreciated its own uniqueness and beauty.
The Underworlds are nice to play and a good showcase of what could be done with 1st person view other than just shoot‘em up.

I started with 5 and found 4 to be boring, 5-6-7-8 is what I would recommend though a lot of people think 4 has a certain charm of its own..

Thank you guys for the suggestions. The Underworld games are definitely in the books, especially the first one. I've become a huge Looking Glass Studios fan these last few years and recently beat System Shock for the first time and had an absolute blast, so I think I will feel right at home with that game.

So, I think I'll try going 4-9 then! Is there any recommended way of playing these? For example, any engine recreations ala Exult for 4,5 and 6? I like to keep things authentic for the most part, so I don't really find something like the Lazarus mod appealing in the slightest (old Dungeon Siege mod that brings Ultima V in the game). Any material I should keep around like maps or guides? In general, I don't want to be hand-holded, but I like some help when possible.

Again, massive thanks for the suggestions, I feel kind of bad for going off-topic, so here's something slightly on-topic. I believe bad mojo created a thread a few years back on building the ideal Ultima 7 PC. The aim was to remove the jerkiness as much as possible and not have the game running too fast and I believe he finally settled for a 486DX-40 with SmartDrive, but my memory might be failing me. I'm guessing that if Ultima VIII is running slightly jerky on your 486/100, it might be perfect on an AMD 5x86 133MHz, which I believe also has more L1 cache. If you have one of these around, it'd be cool to try out. Also, what video card are you using on your Compaq?

F2bnp wrote:

Is there any recommended way of playing these? For example, any engine recreations ala Exult for 4,5 and 6? I like to keep things authentic for the most part, so I don't really find something like the Lazarus mod appealing in the slightest (old Dungeon Siege mod that brings Ultima V in the game).

http://reconstruction.voyd.net/index.php?even … eyword=upgrades
I've tried these, but not played through them. They give slight upgrades to the graphics and add MIDI music to the otherwise music-less PC versions! They are awesome. What I like is the music works through FM as well, so if you don't have a MIDI device, you can still enjoy the music over your FM sound card.

There is xu4 http://xu4.sf.net for u4 which can be used. But it seems to be best to grab an emulator and play the Sega Nastersystem version. The best looking version.

For 5 someone recommended using the Atari ST version.

For 6 there is Nuvie (http://nuvie.sf.net) which is similar to Exult and can be used to play the game using the whole screen (window or fullscreen) for the game map. Otiginally you only have a part of the screen for the game, the other part is item management and buttons, etc. But you can also play with Nuvie looking like the original

Thank you very much guys!