Exult Forum

To all forum visitor:

Please give me your opinion on the following question. I will assuredly use your input.

If a new game was to be created with Exult Studio, would you like it to run:
1) At the same default resolution than Ultima (320x200), with use of scalers
2) MINIMUM 640x480
3) MINIMUM 800x600


Keep in mind that PDAs usually don't support anything higher than 320x240, but that few people play RPGs on PDAs.

thanks
Artaxerxes

It depends on the graphics. If it used the U7 BG orSI graphics, I would run at 320x240 scaled to x2, since I think everything looks too small at higher resolutions (Especially the text font). If the graphics were bigger, I'd happily run at higher resolutions, however.

I would personally LOVE to see someone make some higher-resolution replacement graphics for U7 and/or SI in order to play the originals in greater graphical detail, and mor importantly for use in creating new games.

If I get far enough with my new game that it's playable and other people are enjoying it, I'd like to eventually recruit others to help create art, etc. for use in the game and to contribute back to the Exult project.


-Karl

Oh, and I'm curious as to why you are interested. Are you planning to make a new game, or just trying to decide how big to make your new font?


-Karl

fun you ask the question.

It is for BOTH reasons!

Artaxerxes

I think you should definitely use a resolution with a 4:3 aspect ratio. This way, the graphics wouldn't look squashed when playing Exult in a window.

I have to agree with Karl. The current graphics look fine at 320x240 scaled to x2. At higher resolutions everything's to small.

But higher resolution graphics would be VERY welcome, and not just for a new game, but as a replacement for the graphics in U7. It would give this timeless game even more life.

Using the current graphics, I think 32x240 is quite ideal - especially if you use the status bar. the only inconvience is the slightly "sqashed" appearance of the graphics, but one can live with this...

I'd say 400x300 (x2) or 800x600.
400x300x2 is the resolution I'm running BG/SI

800x600 is too high. Things will just look far too small. NPCs and the players character can only take up a single tile and at 800x600 the tiles are really small. 640x480 would be the maximum minimum (?!?!?! ) resolution that I think Exult based games should use. As Dominus said 400x300x2 is a nice. I find it a balanced midpoint. Things aren't too small, but there is more on screen.

I prefer running in 400x300x2 mode.

I find the smaller resolutions make me feel like I can't see enough of the area around the avatar. The higher resolutions (especially without the scalers) make everything look far too small.

I'd also love to see higher resolution replacement gfx for Ultima VII...

I prefer 320*240 but 640*480 should do if someon have a fast computer

Achile

I'd also vote for 320x240. Higher resolutions will look too small unless there's a fairly major rewrite of the engine.

800x600, couse nVidia adapters don't support lower in fullscreen

400x300x2 (SaI) is my preferred resolution too. Everything just looks 'right' and you can see lots around the area.

I've never heard of a problem with Nvidia using lower then 800x600 in fullscreen. Diablo and Starcraft seem to work fine, and I don't remember exult having a problem at 320x240. What exactly was the problem Quester?

ups, i wrong... it is minimal desctop resolution
in Exult I use 800x600 point x2

I use 320x240 because my computer can not handle much higher resolution with Exult.

I run exult on 640x480 on my 22inch baby
nothing is too small

I want it in 3d like neverwinter nights. Multiple resolutions, same size...
Oh yeah.

I'd find multiple resolutions, different sizes to be better. I find nothing more frustrating then when a game designer decides that he/she is going to let you view 'this' amount of area, and no more, and you really need to view just a little bit more to play the game properly. See most of the RTSes released recently, along with some of the recent top-down RPGs. *grin*

I prefer 400x300x2

I like 512x384x2.. it's just right for my desktop resolution to allow me to use Exult Studio also.

Just discovered this project today.

Years ago, I actually reversed engineered and modded the U7 sprite files. I always loved the game, but the great bugbear was of course the limited range of hardware specs, which would allow the game to run smoothly and at the right speed, which of course severely limited the games lifetime. Conversely Underworld always worked even as Windows desktop (but I've never tried it on XP).

Back onto the subject my first thoughts were: what about creating a new high-res sprite and tile set?

I've downloaded the code today, but haven't yet had a chance to unzip it (let alone study it). Are there any previous threads on this topic?

As a background, I'm currently developing plugins for 3D graphics applications, and my job touches on artwork (as well as some pretty heavy coding), so in fact creating new high-res sprites and paper doll images would really be no problem at all.

Is the program flexible enough to handle multiple resolution image sets?

Can it be adapted to do so?

Is the program flexible enough (or can it be adapted) to handle variations in animation frames?

Does the code buffer images in an API-firendly format or does it just use the existing file format and translate each time an image is created (this would seem ineffective)?

Is image data stored with true (or resolution specific) colour depth, or is it still paletted 8 bit (which I believe was used to great 'environmental' effect in the games)?

One first thought I had would be to scale up the character sprites by a factor of two and the tiles by a factor of three. This would give approximate map size of 960x720 (allowing for an aspect ratio change), but the figures would be somewhat smaller, giving an impression of greater scale all round. Some adjustments would have to be made, most specifically, the game could be slowed and more steps could be added in the animation cycle.

Your thoughts, please.

Bill

I think for one thing, 400x300 would be good if the same size graphics were used, or 640x480 if you were redoing them. The thing I would like to see is not increased graphics size, but rather, an increased framerate to a minimum of 8 frames per second. Even 12 or 16 would be wonderful.

If the graphics could be exported to a standard 3d package, it would make scaling them alot easier. I've done a considerable amount of scaling different graphics over the years, and to make something double the size should be no problem, especially for scenery.

I'd be more concerned over rescaling and animating people in the games. That could be more difficult. Sure, there's only eight directions, and that's ok, but like I said, might as well double the framerate too, it would reduce the utter jerkiness of the program.

At least with rescaling, people could work as a team. You could delegate that so and so should do A-B, so and so C-D, etc until everything was done. However, it would take a considerable amount of time...

You would need to make a platform that could double the size of non-rescaled images so both could be viewed at once during the conversion process...

"Conversely Underworld always worked even as Windows desktop (but I've never tried it on XP)."

It does work on XP, but you have to change one hexidecimal to get it to work. There is a program that can be downloaded that will do it for you.
It works for both Underworld 1 and 2.

The program is uw2wnt.exe and the text file (in case you want to do it the hard way, manually.) reads as followed:

" --------------------- begin of news entry -------------------------------
From : Moscow Dragon (maxim__s@mtu-net.ru)
Subject : UW2 on NT: looks like solved!
Newsgroups : rec.games.computer.ultima.series
Date : 2001-12-23 15:06:51 PST

Patching :
- make a copy of the original UW2.EXE, for a case if something will go
wrong.
- open UW2.EXE in your favourite hex editor like HIEW (or use some UNIX
tool).
- go to offset 0x24719
- you will see the bytes of:

FA 52 BA 03 00 E4 64 A8 02

If you see some other bytes, do not proceed. Looks like you have some
other build of UW2 then me.
- patch the FA byte to C3
- save and exit

Technical details:
- UW2 has a function which sends "set LED indicators" command to the
keyboard ports, bypassing BIOS.
- this way of accessing ports is incompatible with NTVDM and hangs it.
NTVDM waits forever on some Win32 event as a result of the DOS app
reading the port.
- the patch switches the function away at all, C3 is RETN
- I do not know whether the function is vital for UW2. Probably not.
- for now, I also do not know whether the function called many times from
UW2 or only during the introduction.

Max

--------------------- end of news entry -----------------------------------"

Since that was such a long post because of the readme file, moderators feel free to delete this post and the post before, just please give it time to be read.

Thank you.

400x300X2 seems to look good with full screen exult.

If you used all new graphics, and the graphics were a new (higher) resolution, I'd say 640x480 would be a good start.

400x300 seems to be the most prefered way.
Thank you to all who participated. You can still post comments if you wish.

Message for Skutarth:
That was EXACTLY the kind of message I would love you to post more often. Excellent job! Keep doing that kind of research!

Artaxerxes

About high-res sprites:

> Can it be adapted to do so?

It could be, but might be a fair amount of work.

>Is the program flexible enough (or can it be adapted) to handle variations in animation frames?

The sequences of frames aren't terribly hard to change. However, it would be some work to change the 'one-frame-per-tile' rule that's followed as NPC's move around.

>Does the code buffer images in an API-firendly format or does it just use the existing file format and translate each time an image is created (this would seem ineffective)?

They're stored in the same format as in the file, as scan-line fragments with simple RLE.

>Is image data stored with true (or resolution specific) colour depth, or is it still paletted 8 bit (which I believe was used to great 'environmental' effect in the games)?

Yes, the engine is entirely 8-bit up to the point where the graphics are scaled or blitted to the hardware.

Default 320 is fine with usual scalable options (still makes me feel like I am cheating when I try out the larger resolutions).

2) MINIMUM 640x480

IMHO. Makes better use of detail. 800x600 would be better for me, but on a wider spectrum probably 640x480.

320

320x200: The original resolution all the way!

3333 222 000 X X 222 000 000
3 2 2 0 0 X X 2 2 0 0 0 0
33 2 0 0 XX 2 0 0 0 0
3 2 0 0 X X 2 0 0 0 0
3333 22222 000 X X 22222 000 000

To the mods: You can delete the ASCII art if you want to.

Grr, the forum took out the spaces. Delete this and the art. Don't leave an edited by. Leave it like I never made the ASCII art.

in HTML any amount of consecutive whitespace is treated as a single space. It's not the forum that did that.

Delete it either way. I didn't realize until I checked.