I'm starting to just give up on this game and go for the improvements with running it on modern machines. What the hell were they thinking when programming this game back in 1992? Even then it had problems with speed.

Everyone uses this on playthroughs on Youtube. It just improves scrolling, speed and graphics in all aspects.

^ I can totally relate.... I just gave up on it long ago.
too bad there was no 3td party DOS engine or patch for the game...

vetz wrote:

I'm starting to just give up on this game and go for the improvements with running it on modern machines. What the hell were they thinking when programming this game back in 1992? Even then it had problems with speed.

Everyone uses this on playthroughs on Youtube. It just improves scrolling, speed and graphics in all aspects.

It is a pretty bad engine; using your own memory manager which requires your users to mess around with boot disks / dual boots is bad enough, but coding the thing for a specific CPU speed is inexcusable in 1992. The rapid advancement of computing power was well under way by then, so allowing it to be speed sensitive was just lazy.

I completely agree with u guys but what an amazing vision for the future this game was. It was the 1992 version of Skyrim 😀

I don't think you can compare the two. Skyrim is more of an action game than an RPG.

I get what you're saying though. I think Ultima 7 is more impressive than Skyrim when you consider the technical limitations and the scope of the game.

Wonder whether will it run acceptably on an 486 SX-25?

bristlehog wrote:

Wonder whether will it run acceptably on an 486 SX-25?

I don't see why not!

Should run quite well 😀

I just bought a copy of The Complete Ultima VII that I'm waiting on to arrive. I had all the Ultimas on their original releases but my copies all got worn out from use a long time ago. Since I'm shifting my focus from hardware to games for a while, I thought it would be a good time to try to get some of those back.

bristlehog wrote:

Wonder whether will it run acceptably on an 486 SX-25?

It will probably run about as well as the 386DX40 video Mau1wurf1977 posted on Youtube.

badmojo wrote:

It is a pretty bad engine; using your own memory manager which requires your users to mess around with boot disks / dual boots is bad enough, but coding the thing for a specific CPU speed is inexcusable in 1992. The rapid advancement of computing power was well under way by then, so allowing it to be speed sensitive was just lazy.

For the time, the engine itself was amazing. The technical implementation of it is what you are really seem to be criticizing. When they were developing this game in 1990 and 1991, 486 CPU were barely affordable. They may have been a little short-sighted, but that is a fault they shared with many other companies. In a perfect world, Origin should have used a DOS extender that would not have conflicted with Windows and Virtual Mode, which EMM386 and all the other UMB providing memory managers at the time used. DOS Extenders tend to be performance hogs, however and weren't popular until DOOM.

Did someone say 486SX 25 MHz? 🤣

Ultima 7 on a 486SX 25 MHz with Sound Blaster Pro 2 and Roland MT-32

Doesn't seem to run significantly better.

486DX 33 MHz video is currently uploading.

But even on that I wouldn't mind faster / smoother scrolling. The Biostar board I'm using seems to be a bit slow. The VLB graphics cards I have aren't any faster than the ISA TSENG ET4000.

I know that my Acer OEM (onboard VLB or PCI Mach 32) and Biostar PCI boards are quite a bit faster with the 486 SX, but who would take such good boards and use a 486DX 33 MHz in it?

I believe it's worth looking at the 486DX2 50 MHz. With an ISA card it might be perfect?

I see your using an ISA tseng 4000 card with no issues at all so the fault me and mojo had must not be with the video card.

soviet conscript wrote:

I see your using an ISA tseng 4000 card with no issues at all so the fault me and mojo had must not be with the video card.

But mojo only had issues with the VLB card, not ISA 😕

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

soviet conscript wrote:

I see your using an ISA tseng 4000 card with no issues at all so the fault me and mojo had must not be with the video card.

But mojo only had issues with the VLB card, not ISA 😕

hmmm, I'm thinking the fault with mine may be the motherboard itself then. I had an issues where using the tseng labs card would give me all kind of garbled images. I replaced the CD drive and the issue corrected itself.

I have no idea why my CD-Rom drive would effect my video cards output or how i discovered this (pit was awhile ago and I was probibly just testing diffrent cd drives with it). using a Diamond speedster I've had no issues regardless of the CD drive.

its a Packard Bell so its a fickle system.

Ultima 7 on a 486DX 33 MHz with Sound Blaster Pro 2 and Roland MT-32

both 486SX/25 and 486DX/33 results are disappointing... personally I can't get used to it.

keropi wrote:

both 486SX/25 and 486DX/33 results are disappointing... personally I can't get used to it.

More videos underway 😀

Mau1wurf: Could you perhaps try and find the ultimate settings with a socket 7 machine for this game? Put in a S3 or Matrox PCI video card and then find the best CPU (either K6, MMX or non-MMX) with FSB/multiplier and cache settings.

vetz wrote:

Mau1wurf: Could you perhaps try and find the ultimate settings with a socket 7 machine for this game? Put in a S3 or Matrox PCI video card and then find the best CPU (either K6, MMX or non-MMX) with FSB/multiplier and cache settings.

Ultima 7 is, so far, the only game incompatible with super socket 7 time-machines because it turns on L1 cache when you start the game.

If someone could hack the game to not do this, then my experienced guess 😀 would be either a K6 or non-MMX Pentium with L1 disabled, but L2 enabled 😀 66 MHz FSB should be enough, raise it for more speed.

I'm uploading my latest Ultima 7 videos having moved to a 486 PCI system.

Personally I find it the "best" on a 486DX2 40 MHz with PCI graphics or 486DX2 50 MHz with an average ISA video card like a Trident. a Full DX2 50 MHz is a little bit too fast.

I also found no difference between a 486DX 40 MHz and a 486DX2 40 MHz. Intel was clearly onto something with the clock doubling 😀

Here come the PCI based 486 videos:

Ultima 7 on a PCI 486SX 25MHz with Sound Blaster Pro 2 and Roland MT-32

I think it plays quite ok, I don't really mind the scrolling, although I can maybe see why it would bother some people too much.
Anyone care to do a 486DX/40 or DX2/40?
Honestly, that's how some old games are, either get used to them or don't play them 😢 .