OT: ultima 5 data format

[suraimu]

Does anyone know of any page with information about the format of data files in ultima 5? I haven't had much luck looking, and figured someone here might know.

[Armchair_Avatar]

One thing I know is that some of the Ultima 5 data files are compressed (LZW compression). You can find the source code for a decompression utility here:
http://www.geocities.com/nodling/

The utility was originally written for Ultima 6, but it also works with the compressed Ultima 5 data files.

May I ask why you want this information? Are you planning to write an Exult for Ultima 5?

[gruck]

Voyager Dragon might have useful information for you. You can find his page at exodus.voyd.net He seems to have extensively looked at the file structure.

[suraimu]

Not an exult, but I was looking at the source to the GBC Ultima 3 and wanted to see how difficult it would be to make a port of 5. Just in the exploratory phase at the moment.

Thanks for the help.

[Armchair_Avatar]

If you do decide to port Ultima 5 ot the GBC, please document the Ultima 5 file formats. The xu4 project is doing the same with the Ultima 4 data files:
http://xu4.sourceforge.net/
(click on FileFormats.txt)

[suraimu]

Sure, no problem.