tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post4448694494840938783..comments2024-03-29T02:34:55.592-04:00Comments on The CRPG Addict: The Black Gate: Clearing OutCRPG Addicthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01238237377918550322noreply@blogger.comBlogger55125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-63842482443270902942021-01-05T08:26:28.225-05:002021-01-05T08:26:28.225-05:00I remember when playing this back in the days on m...I remember when playing this back in the days on my 486 SX-25 with 4MB, LB castle would always start dropping objects when I was about halfway through my playthrough. Although not enough to game break and I never saw it spread to the rest of the gameworld, but then I never tried to clean up Lock Lake! Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02276908622984433604noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-51717735887178182182020-05-23T19:12:21.701-04:002020-05-23T19:12:21.701-04:00Why does the game run at ZX Spectrum-like speeds a...Why does the game run at ZX Spectrum-like speeds and scrolling if it can use all the memory it wants?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-82126514811182459462020-05-23T15:34:32.730-04:002020-05-23T15:34:32.730-04:00Yeah, sadly this game is still a bugfest. I tried ...Yeah, sadly this game is still a bugfest. I tried using the GOG version a few years back and I kept getting a main quest halting bug in Minoc. Loveblankethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04045420258404373634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-25306448970572021492020-05-22T02:20:40.683-04:002020-05-22T02:20:40.683-04:00About the vomit: You ate bad foodAbout the vomit: You ate bad foodBobnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-50112113355598139342020-05-21T12:33:04.712-04:002020-05-21T12:33:04.712-04:00I successfully played U7 (for the first time) a fe...I successfully played U7 (for the first time) a few years ago using the GoG version of the game without any noticeable glitches. So anecdotally its possible to play the game as is.Inebrushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06034088229996129697noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-42939803265067491322020-05-20T22:47:34.218-04:002020-05-20T22:47:34.218-04:00The funny thing is that most other games that used...The funny thing is that most other games that used an extender were almost painless to run, and the rise of DOS 4/GW pretty much brought the memory battles to an end (IIRC, you still needed a decent amount of conventional memory to start the extender, but it didn't require the same amount of min-maxing, and was the same for all games). There's a reason that only Ultima VII ever tried to use "unreal" memory despite it being faster.Gnomanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13920812227941556716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-16193281081737633122020-05-20T22:22:06.227-04:002020-05-20T22:22:06.227-04:00I wonder if you can avoid these issues if you use ...I wonder if you can avoid these issues if you use Exult? I am guessing you have decided not to use it on purpose, but perhaps reconsider?Urashima Joehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07633068920166435701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-46460794021445806022020-05-20T18:11:41.529-04:002020-05-20T18:11:41.529-04:00No it’s a wouldn’t. Windows 10 doesn’t run dosbox ...No it’s a wouldn’t. Windows 10 doesn’t run dosbox any differently to Windows 8 or 7. The only issues you could run into are display or audio drivers being buggy in windows 10 which could then affect dosbox (but also every other game you play). Nothing will affect the memory or saves since this is entirely abstracted in the emulator. <br /><br />However, there are quite probably bugs in these games. That they happened whilst running Dosbox in Win10 however is irrelevant - they would also happen in other windows versions, Macs and Linux. Deanohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17030651394605861730noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-24039049837539571072020-05-20T12:12:02.631-04:002020-05-20T12:12:02.631-04:00Regarding the Firedoom Staff, it might work to hav...Regarding the Firedoom Staff, it might work to have the Avatar equip it and you can manually use it to start a fight with one blast before everyone else closes in, then switch to something else. But yeah, it's too bad this aspect wasn't very well designed.asimpkinsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-50089484715620583092020-05-20T11:53:39.888-04:002020-05-20T11:53:39.888-04:00I remember how happy I was when one of the DOS ver...I remember how happy I was when one of the DOS versions (6?) added a boot menu to the autoexec.bat so that you could use just one file.<br /><br />For those who weren't around or don't remember, many games had very finicky and peculiar requirements for memory allocation to run. So you would need either multiple boot disks, or you would have to save files like "aeultima7.bat" which you then rename to "autoexec.bat" when you want to play Ultima 7.<br /><br />I think the boot disk I was using eventually had 5 or 6 options in the menu.Kurisuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00132568197501054206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-1685242602695006502020-05-20T11:18:41.996-04:002020-05-20T11:18:41.996-04:00"So the OS wouldn't have any effect."..."So the OS wouldn't have any effect."<br /><br />The correct wording is "shouldn't". But then again, this kind of behavior shouldn't happen in the game, right? So there's one bug (anywhere, for all we know), and there can be more bugs in other places. Chances are, there are.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09732118198866131876noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-42473536046099375812020-05-20T11:00:38.724-04:002020-05-20T11:00:38.724-04:00What a weird bug, but I sort of appreciate its sur...What a weird bug, but I sort of appreciate its surreal nature. In another notoriously buggy game, Quest for Glory IV, you just either get booted back to the DOS prompt, or certain key events don't happen. This . . . this is almost beautiful in just how bizarre it is.Alexhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16946742995687817751noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-63704461247353658622020-05-20T10:40:32.640-04:002020-05-20T10:40:32.640-04:00Sorry, Risingson, hard disagree on that one. The h...Sorry, Risingson, hard disagree on that one. The harsh sounding FM soundtrack is WAAAY behind the much more athmosperic original Hippel tunes. (And while even the relatively basic FM synthesis of the OPL2 certainly profits from the lack of low sample rate issues in certain musical styles, its inflexibility really shows in this specific case.)<br /><br />Oh, and the graphics are pretty much identical. In fact, one of the DOS version criticisms was that it didn't make use of extended capabilities of VGA...:) dahaunshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02098585704891226776noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-74684606195213843552020-05-20T10:30:28.391-04:002020-05-20T10:30:28.391-04:00As far as I know, the Amiga and ST version are ide...As far as I know, the Amiga and ST version are identical, while the PC version has a bug where you can wear only 1 ring. Could be wrong there.<br /><br />There is another bug (overland map damage) on a PC version from some CD bundle, but that has a bug fix.<br /><br />The dead ends are both avoidable, save states aren't really required.sucinumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-48774919582989778982020-05-20T10:04:12.325-04:002020-05-20T10:04:12.325-04:00I had a lot of faith in memmaker.exe, most of it u...I had a lot of faith in memmaker.exe, most of it undeserved. But for folks that knew nothing of autoexec.bat or config.sys the program was nothing short of magical.<br /><br />The true answer was usually a boot disk, but those floppies weren't cheap back then...or so I was told at the time. Maybe it was a subtle hint that I should've been playing outside.Raifieldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08478524519453417677noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-40103553653190730682020-05-20T09:28:04.796-04:002020-05-20T09:28:04.796-04:00Use the pc version. The opl2 music is as good as t...Use the pc version. The opl2 music is as good as the tracker based on Amiga (I still cannot understand why a 4 instrument tracker with an extremely low nitrate is still considered the better music of the era) and you will save a lot of time on loading screens. Moreover, VGA graphics were better than the ones in Amiga. Risingson Carloshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08915480026187953569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-83386051168348598242020-05-20T08:07:41.973-04:002020-05-20T08:07:41.973-04:00The Voodoo Memory Management was aptly named...
...The Voodoo Memory Management was aptly named... <br /><br />The joys of getting your DOS memory management worked out in the early 90s! arthurdawghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15045699163846794998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-36548975742467286182020-05-20T07:58:54.610-04:002020-05-20T07:58:54.610-04:00Is that bug fixed in Exult now Adamantyr?Is that bug fixed in Exult now Adamantyr?arthurdawghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15045699163846794998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-30809552586375723502020-05-20T06:19:21.680-04:002020-05-20T06:19:21.680-04:00Ultima VII uses a DOS extender. Conventional memor...Ultima VII uses a DOS extender. Conventional memory doesn't really apply to it, because it can access all the RAM.<br /><br />The reason it is so infamously difficult to run is that it uses a very unusual form of extender that is incompatible with almost everything.Gnomanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13920812227941556716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-64027373905439419592020-05-20T05:51:23.673-04:002020-05-20T05:51:23.673-04:00DOS memory management and especially for Ultima 7 ...DOS memory management and especially for Ultima 7 was a hassle back then. It wanted as much of the conventional memory (the first 640kb) for itself as possible, not much caring if you had 4Mb or 24MB of expanded/extended RAM.Borothnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-10396467100770891292020-05-20T05:20:47.107-04:002020-05-20T05:20:47.107-04:00Yes, one of the funniest metaphysical things is th...Yes, one of the funniest metaphysical things is that in Ultima 7 the answer to "where do people go when they die" is "a small crappy room in the mountains". At least in Serpent Isle the room is a little bigger.Chevhttp://twitter.com/chevluhnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-76865245417144753462020-05-20T03:35:30.191-04:002020-05-20T03:35:30.191-04:00Also all of these are DOS games, which means you&#...Also all of these are DOS games, which means you're running them in DOSBox (assuming you're not playing other versions). This totally isolates the OS from the game since you're basically emulating an old PC. So the OS wouldn't have any effect.Deanohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17030651394605861730noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-74105939305982888222020-05-20T03:33:52.866-04:002020-05-20T03:33:52.866-04:00The word "Should" must never be used whe...The word "Should" must never be used when talking about the Ultima VII memory manager... It's something which has always been incredibly buggy. <br /><br />The main problem here is that it seems to have a memory leak, and when it overflows instead of crashing the game, it just removes objects in the world. Which is a terrible failure state as it's just so subtle until it's too late. As it stays when you restart/reload, that means it's probably clobbered the save file - which I guess must list the positions of every object in the world (including furniture). If some attributes are set to a wrong number (like 0 or 0xFF) then boom - they vanish. <br /><br />In theory, if you know the structure of the save file then you could find the region which deals with the furniture and merge in the right bytes from an uncorrupted save. However, that doesn't resolve the problem as you'll need to sort out the bit which figures out where the next 'free' object in memory is. <br /><br />It's really a thing where if Ultima VII isn't as good as it is (and as unique for its time) then these bugs would have caused it to be quickly forgotten in the mists of time.Deanohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17030651394605861730noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-21500746289529486522020-05-20T02:59:49.596-04:002020-05-20T02:59:49.596-04:00It has to be unrelated to whatever is happening in...It has to be unrelated to whatever is happening in U5 and U6, because those are completely different game engines.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-13196710026649320682020-05-20T02:58:33.336-04:002020-05-20T02:58:33.336-04:00It's not the computer (or emulated computer, i...It's not the computer (or emulated computer, i.e. DOSbox) running out of memory; because of what Adamantyr said, and because games usually crash entirely when running out of actual memory. There's probably some internal table that's not dynamically resizing, and that's full.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com