Exult Forum

Looks interesting:
http://xu4.sourceforge.net/

Claims to be a project to make a Exult for Ultima 4. Shouldn't be overly difficuly really.

Nice idea I guess. I'd much rather see someone convert the data files for Ultima IV to work under Exult. Being able to play Ultima IV with U7-style gfx and world-detail level would be great.

Ultima V and VI would be good too.

Why are they doing it? U4 runs fine on my modern machine.

The only thing missing is the music. I miss that tune while you walk through Britannia.

Yeah, the music is missing, and runs too fast on modern machines. Plus, this project would allow the game to run on other platforms like Linux and maye Macs (assuming they are using SDL).


-Karl

This is in reply to Tim:

why ?
- because, as Karl said, there are other operating systems in the world apart from Windows.
- because the developers want to prove to themselves that they can do it
- for fun
- because maybe someone wants to create a xu4 studio to create new games

and to have the music you like so much!

Artaxerxes

As the author of xu4, I think I'll chime in here.

All the reasons Nadir Dragon gave are valid, but first and foremost, I'm doing it for fun. U4 fascinated way back when and reimplementing just seemed like a cool thing to do.

FWIW, U4 for DOS works great in dosemu -- I use it all the time for testing.

Anyway, if you have fond memories of U4, download xu4 and give a try. Better still, lend a hand and help with the code!

Andrew

Well, it seems some people don't know about the music and graphics patch for U4 found at ...
*Dominus looks for the link....

http://www.moongates.com/u4/upgrade/Upgrade.htm

Enjoy

P.S.: As I read the xu4 project plans to support those patches as well.

Ok, I was also kind of wondering if anything new was to be added to the game.

Thanks.

I just looked at the U4 upgrade Dominus listed. I've downloaded that before. I wasn't very fond of it. The music wasn't the same as the original, the graphic improvements weren't all that great, and it didn't like MoSlo, so it ran super fast on my machine.

Just my 2 cents.

I haven't had much luck with U4 in DosEMU. The intro works fine, but when I try to start or resume a game, it says "packed file is corrupt". It may have to do witht he fact that I am using FreeDOS as my DOS instead of a "real" DOS, however.

I'm personally quite excited by this project. I tried out the preliminary version, and it seems to run quite smoothly.


-Karl

I was complaining about another U4 upgrade. There's a link to it in Doiminus' post.

I think you can get around that 'corrupt' bug by looking for one or more installed files that end with a '.', and renaming them without the ending '.'.

I would love an Ultima 4/5 construction engine! My two favorites were Adventure Construction Kit by Chris Hopkins, and Dragon Engine by Litmus Dragon. Unfortunately nobody knows how to contact Chris, but the program is available on the Net. Dragon Engine was open source and you may still be able to find it on the net.

If I remember correctly, the Dragon Engine was written in pure C.
I've been wondering if that may be the reason why the Litmus Dragon abandoned the project. It's probably hard to maintain a project of this size without using Object-Oriented Progamming.

DrCode: Is that the reason why Exult is written in C++, as opposed to pure C?

I just happen to like C++ better:-) But you're right; it's because (IMO) C++ makes larger projects easier to maintain.

I don't think someone would abandon an excellent project, no matter how large, because of the language it is written in. They would just have used that language from the start if they didn't like it.

That is, if they are using C, which is a fine language.

xu4 is written in pure C as well, which is cool since I know C but not C++.


-Karl

Here's an option;

Download STeem. (An Atari STe Emulator)
Download Ultima III, IV, V at www.atari.st.

Now you have the correct speed, corret music, and original games. That's how I play all the old Ultimas. Don't have to worry about MoSlo, music cards and anything like that.

-Matt

I have U4 for a C64 emulator. It has the music. Do do do do dododododo do do do do dododo. But, it loads so slowly.

I have played the old Ultima's on an Apple II emulator. How do those versions compare to the Atart STe versions?

Oh, FYI, I noticed that this project has its own discussion forum now:

http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=169401


-Karl

Version 0.02 of xu4 is out -- check it out at xu4.sourceforge.net/.

Karl: I had the same problem with Dosemu/freedos -- I think it went away when I upgraded to the latest version.

Andrew

I had to use "loadfix" from MSDOS to get it to run, and that worked. I'm using the latest stable version of DosEMU: 1.02. None of the files in the directory had trailing "." characters.

A Usenet search on the Ultima newsgroups revealed that it has something to do with "packed" executables, which can be worked-around with loadfix, by not loading DOS into high memory, or by "unpacking" all executables in the directory with a utility. Loadfix worked for me, but I'll probably try the utility to unpack the executables so I don't have to use it to load the game everytime.


-Karl

The Atari STe version is good. It runs at the normal speed. I'd reccomend that type of emulator over the rest.

-Matt