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Ultima Patcher 1.2

Jan 19
Posted by Pix in Ultima Patcher

ultima_002

Voyager Dragon has just released the Ultima 3 Upgrade Patch 3.0. This adds VGA & Composite CGA modes to the previous version and I’ve incorporated this into a new version of the patcher. It’s not recommended to install this over the old patch although it worked ok for me. The new version is available here.

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Ultima Patcher 1.11

Jan 01
Posted by Pix in Ultima 4, Ultima Patcher

I’ve uploaded a new version of the Ultima patcher. This fixes the issue when applying the music only patch for the Second Ultima Trilogy version of Ultima 4 and can be downloaded from here.

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Ultima Patcher 1.1

Nov 29
Posted by Pix in Ultima 7, Ultima 7 - Forge Of Virtue, Ultima 7 Part 2 - Serpent Isle, Ultima 7 Part 2 - The Silver Seed, Ultima Patcher

Today saw the long awaited release of the complete Ultima 7 on GOG and I’ve updated my GOG Ultima patcher to support both games. It adds general MIDI patches for both Ultima 7 & Serpent Isle which should offer an improvement over the default Soundblaster.

As ever if there are any other patches I should include or any problems please let me know.

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Ultima Patcher – Fixes

Sep 10
Posted by Pix in Ultima 5, Ultima 6, Ultima Patcher

I’ve had chance to test the patcher more thoroughly and sorted out a few issues:-

  • There were problems with Ultima 4 and both Underworlds when the games weren’t installed in the usual directories. It would ask you to choose the directory but then not open the form for that game. This is now fixed.
  • I’ve tidied up the player transfer substantially for Ultima 5. It would previously never find the correct Ultima 4 directory automatically unless you happened to have the same username as me. To make this simpler, you now just need to specify where you installed Ultima 4 and it does the searching in virtualstore automatically if required. It probably isn’t needed but I’ve made the same changes for Ultima 6 also.
  • I’ve added links to the websites of the various patches, where I could find them.
  • It shouldn’t crash any more if expected files are missing.
  • I’ve added an about page + a version number. I’ve nominally called this version 1.0.

To the best of my knowledge it’s working correctly now. It’s still ugly but I’ll leave it as is unless anyone runs into problems with it, or has good ideas for things I should change. If GOG releases any more Ultima’s, I’ll add them in as well. I think there is just the one more release due in this batch from EA. We’ve had far more Ultima games than I expected already but I’ve still got some hope we might see the Worlds Of Ultima games next week.

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Ultima Patcher Update

Sep 08
Posted by Pix in Ultima 4, Ultima 5, Ultima 6, Ultima Patcher, Ultima Underworld, Ultima Underworld 2

I’ve acquired a copy of UW 1 + 2 from GOG, thanks to the generosity of Loaf, and have added both games onto the patcher. Apart from the various patches, I added in a toggle for sound devices. I’ve also included a couple more Ultima 4 patches. The U4 form is looking a little crowded so hopefully that’s all of them.

I’d just about got that ready when GOG surprised me with more Ultima games in the form of the second trilogy. This time I’ve bought them myself and although there aren’t as many patches available for these, what there is I’ve added into the patcher. GOG aren’t supporting character transfer at the moment which isn’t any fun, so I’ve included an option to mount your savegame directory for the previous game to allow the in-game character transfer to work correctly.

There are a few things to note:-

  • The Spanish translation patch for Underworld included a replacement .exe. This has been altered to give loads of experience so you are level 8 by the time you walk down the first corridor. As far as I can tell, the .exe isn’t needed for the translation and only affects the messages during start-up so I’ve not included it.
  • The Ultima 4 Music Patch has some serious slowdown in-game, so I tell Dosbox to run with maximum cycles to improve it. This isn’t exactly ideal and even then it slows down when playing PC speaker sound. I don’t know if there is a later version available which would improve this, or possibly some alternative DOSBox settings. The VGA version certainly doesn’t have this problem. As it stands, I’m tempted to remove this patch.
  • For character transfers in Ultima 5, the PARTY.SAV in the game’s directory is not the one that is used when you save your game. It will no doubt be different on XP but on Windows 7 it uses the directory “C:UsersRichardAppDataLocalVirtualStoreProgram Files (x86)GOG.comUltima 4″ or a close equivalent depending on where the game is installed. When asked to choose your save game directory, you need to make sure you get the right one although the patcher will probably select it for you if it’s in the default location. If you have the free Utlima 4 and the one in the trilogy, then you have two lots of savegames. These are never deleted when uninstalling, no matter what you select when asked.
  • Finally, these latest additions are a rush job to get it done before I head out to watch the rugby tonight, so there may be problems. If it all works then I just need to plug the holes and possibly improve the interface next. Please let me know if something doesn’t work, or you have any suggestions.
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