Hi, people ! Tried that game on a 486DX-2/66 and on a 286-16. To tell the truth I don't have any setup in between, eceptt 386SX (IBM model 40sx on which I soon wil try it too) But anyway all times I try that game it has speed issues... On which setup anybody suceed to run it ok ?
A 286-16 is already fast enough. Speed issues come from the hard drive access when you wander around, since it constantly loads new tiles. Try loading smartdrv, it should run better then.
thanks for the advice ! But amartdrv was loaded in dos booting at the machine
When Ultima VI came out, a good friend of mine bought it. His father had a 286-12 with 1MB RAM. Being a penniless teenager I copied it and installed it on my mother's PS/2 Model 70, with 386-16 and 4MB RAM. Both had VGA adapters, neither had sound cards, so used PC speaker. It ran perfectly on mine, but was noticeably slow on the 286-12. Can't be sure exactly where the bottleneck was, but given its low reqirements I'd guess it was just CPU clock, in which case the 286-16 should perform at least as well as that 386-16.
Have you optimized RAM settings on the 286? Wait states might just matter here...
From what I understand, it doesn't even run "fast" on his 486DX-2/66. Maybe he's just expecting too much. The game will never run smooth (i.e. fluid scrolling etc.) because the underlying engine simply isn't able to. It's a tile-based engine with one huge world and tiles are loaded on demand while you walk. Only this made it possible to realize the game on the hardware back then.
The system recommendations for Ultima VI are modest: 640k memory, MCGA/VGA, and "10+ mhz". I had a 386sx-16 when this came out and don't remember any speed issues; it was certainly playable and should be perfect on any 386. If anything the DX2/66 should be too fast, though it being a turn-based game that's not too big a deal.
Re 'too fast' - Ultima 6 has trouble with faster systems, it will run on my Cx5x86-100, but audio is messed up to the point of being absent (regardless of sound device chosen - AdLib is just as bad as MT-32). Sweet spot seems to be somewhere around 386DX-40/486SX or DX (no FPU support anyway) 33.
My 286-12 with 4MB of RAM runs it at perfect as intended speed, but I actually prefer the slight overspeed of a 486 DX2 or DX4 personally for those long Brittanian walks.
Heck, it runs barely well enough to barely tolerate on my 4.77 MHz Tandy 1000A - Origin Systems made quite a masterpiece of an engine for Ultima VI.
~The Creeping Network~
My Youtube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/creepingnet
Creepingnet's World - https://creepingnet.neocities.org/
The Creeping Network Repo - https://www.geocities.ws/creepingnet2019/
If you're after smoother gameplay, the Nuvie engine might do it: https://github.com/nuvie/nuvie
FM Towns audio as well!
Yeah, it's not the original code running on circa-1990 hardware, but it sounds like the game and its gameplay are what you're after, as opposed to reproducing the historically-accurate experience (nothing wrong with that; that's the definition of vogons 😀
thanks for notes ! I tried it on a 286-16 and it runs... maybe as it should)
