bbking67 Posted March 30, 2015 Share Posted March 30, 2015 (edited) Well this happened... http://magervalp.github.io/2015/03/30/u4-remastered.html And I for one would love to see an enhanced Atari version with improved graphics, support for HDD installation, 128K+ support, etc. I suppose the same goes for any Ultima game really... Game Changes Graphics Overhaul Character creation intro has new graphics drawn by Vanja ‘Mermaid’ Utne. The tileset has been updated with new and more colorful tiles, mainly backported from Ultima V. When peering at a gem or casting view the map is now in color. The dungeon renderer has been sped up, and items and monsters are drawn in color. Text Overhaul NPC dialogue and game text now uses mixed case. Many dialogue bugs have been fixed: Fixed broken question trigger and added missing dialogue for Thevel in Britain. Added missing dialogue for Serpent’s Hold gate guards. Changed keyword for Michelle to avoid conflict with health in Serpent’s Hold. Fixed broken message trigger for Water in Castle British. Fixed misspelled keyword for Estro in the Lycaeum. Fixed misspelled keyword for a poor beggar in Yew. Fixed broken message trigger for Alkerion in Minoc. Fixed broken message trigger for Shamino in Skara Brae. Fixed broken message trigger for Charm in Cove. Dozens of minor fixes to spelling, grammar, and formatting. New Game Features Select active character in combat with 1-8, 0 returns to party mode. You can quit and save in dungeons. If you move outside the border of a towne, castle, or keep, the game asks if you want to exit to Britannia. Joystick control. Dungeons get darker when a torch is close to burning out. Bug Fixes Meditating at shrines now gives different hints for 1, 2, and 3 cycles. Hythloth dungeon rooms on level 6 are now accessible. Character creation no longer suffers from random hangs. Loading a saved game restores balloon flying mode. Allow backspace when giving gold or using stones. Don’t enter locations when flying in balloon. Technical Enhancements Fastloader with support for 1541, 1571, 1581, CMD FD, and CMD HD. Runs from a single disk, no disk swapping when playing. EasyFlash cartridge version. Music is not interrupted when data is loaded from disk. SuperCPU support. Game Cheats A save game editor is bundled with the game. Unlimited magic. Unlimited food. Unlimited torches. Unlimited keys. Unlimited gems. Avoid combat. Control balloon. Idle without pass. Teleportation system, press T in Britannia and then (T)owne, (D)ungeon, (S)hrine, (L)ocation, or ©oordinate. Create transport if you try to (B)oard an empty tile, select (H)orse, (S)hip, or (B)alloon. Additional Changes Since Ultima IV Gold Disk drive no longer spins when there is no disk activity, and the game loads faster. Balloon cheat has several bugs fixed. Swapped lat/long for teleport cheat. Added unlimited gems and idle cheats. Fixed reagent editing in save game editor. Known Bugs If you’re playing the 1541 version and answer a question wrong during the ending the game is supposed to throw you out to Britannia, but instead it hangs. Play the 1571, 1581, or EasyFlash version instead to avoid this issue, or just make sure you get all the answers right. The crack intro is out of sync and glitches a bit on NTSC, but should otherwise work fine. Blue border doesn’t get redrawn properly around wind status after you exit a dungeon. If you die and teleport back to Lord British the wrong music plays in Castle Britannia, until you klimb down the ladder or talk to Lord British. If the savegame editor is started from cartridge and has problems accessing the flash saves you get an error asking you to insert a disk in device #239. Edited March 30, 2015 by bbking67 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted March 30, 2015 Share Posted March 30, 2015 You know, this is ATARIage... Not C64age? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted March 30, 2015 Share Posted March 30, 2015 As a huge Ultima and Atari 8-bit fan, I'd love to see such a thing happen. ..Al 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted March 30, 2015 Share Posted March 30, 2015 You know, this is ATARIage... Not C64age? Commodore 8-bit Forum ..Al 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bbking67 Posted March 30, 2015 Author Share Posted March 30, 2015 You know, this is ATARIage... Not C64age? Sure I know... I'm just hopeful some skilled Atari fanatic will give U4 the same treatment (actually, better) for Ataris. But mostly I'm just jealous. And bitter over the U5 snubbing Atari got. :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Almost Rice Posted March 30, 2015 Share Posted March 30, 2015 Yes, lack of U5 for A8 really annoyed me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted March 30, 2015 Share Posted March 30, 2015 Wow, and there is an Easyflash cart version too. Very cool 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
high voltage Posted March 30, 2015 Share Posted March 30, 2015 When I played Pool of Radiance on my C128 I decided to copy all discs onto 3 1/2 to play on my 1581 for eliminating disc swapping all the time. I managed to copy all POR data onto one 3 1/2 but the access time was even slower than disc swapping. It was worth a try. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 Sure I know... I'm just hopeful some skilled Atari fanatic will give U4 the same treatment (actually, better) for Ataris. G2F for creating the best Title graphics. Popmilo's solution for "Hires colour tiles scrolling" And "Project M" Type Dungeon Crawler... Well, there is much space left for enhancements on those games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
José Pereira Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 (edited) Looking on the C64 pictures with scanlines (tv display) I think that it would go well using a similar method as in Assembloids XE, here mixing GR.8 and 15. It will look great with PAL Blending and not all that bad on NTSC. Edited March 31, 2015 by José Pereira Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
José Pereira Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 (edited) Emkay the gfxs similar to the blending text in your old demo . Edited March 31, 2015 by José Pereira Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 How did they get it all onto one disk? Even the Apple version is on two disks (four sides) and I think Apple disks can store more than C64. I'm a die hard Apple II fan, but I may have to try this. I wonder if they can get the music into the 64K port of U5 next? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 "Remastered" ... One Picture really looks better... But, why do they think that weird colourization of the other pictures look "useful"? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 How did they get it all onto one disk? Even the Apple version is on two disks (four sides) and I think Apple disks can store more than C64. Apple disks (about 140k with DOS 3, about 114k for earlier versions) actually store less than Commodore disks (about 174k). Back to the C-64 Ultima IV update for a moment. That's the type of thing that we always wished when games were ported to whatever computer we had at the time, that instead of leaving the audio-visuals mostly the same, it would take actual advantage of the target platform's capabilities rather than the original platform's capabilities. C-64 and Atari users in particular suffered quite a bit from audio-visually poor Apple II ports. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 Apple disks (about 140k with DOS 3, about 114k for earlier versions) actually store less than Commodore disks (about 174k). Ah ok. But still, how did they cram it all onto one disk? I wish they could use this same method on the Apple version . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 Ah ok. But still, how did they cram it all onto one disk? I wish they could use this same method on the Apple version . It's absolutely impressive and I have no clue either, though I must say with the relative ease with which we can have multiple disk drives and flash drives these days, that's probably less important of a "fix" as cleaning up the bugs and audio-visuals. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMR Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 Ah ok. But still, how did they cram it all onto one disk? I wish they could use this same method on the Apple version . Most of the C64 disk fastloaders available for use as source code have optional on-the-fly decompression baked in for cross crunchers like Pucrunch or what appears in this case to be Exomizer. Ultima 4 Remastered is also using an IFFL system, so all of the files which were leaving disk blocks only partially used are now crammed next to each other into one 528 block called "gam" (or two files for the D64 version which are 564 blocks in total, presumably because some common files are stored twice to cut down disk changes) with no gaps, using the disk space more efficiently. In theory at least, most of that could be applied to the Apple version or indeed any disk-based system, but it really isn't a trivial job to convert a game like this and comes down to someone really wanting it enough to do a bucketload of work. I must say with the relative ease with which we can have multiple disk drives and flash drives these days, that's probably less important of a "fix" as cleaning up the bugs and audio-visuals. On the C64 it's a bit more of an issue since the most common way to use the various SD-based solutions is with D64 files. The way this one has been done means that it runs from a just handful of files from an IDE64 or, presumably, an SD2IEC variant as well so it covers all the bases. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alfred Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 It's a good job, but by the time you disassembled and understood the whole game, I wonder if it wouldn't be quicker just to write a new version from scratch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 Soemone has the "real C64 Bitmaps" of the images? Not those softwashed ones? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesD Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 "Remastered" ... One Picture really looks better... ... But, why do they think that weird colourization of the other pictures look "useful"? I think all the new images look better, but they are a bit heavy on the purple. I've noticed that a lot with some of the modern C64 art. The Plus/4 would actually be better for this title IMHO. Ah ok. But still, how did they cram it all onto one disk? I wish they could use this same method on the Apple version . As previously suggested, I'm guessing compression was involved. The question is whether it's a loader or a custom compression in the game. Apple disks (about 140k with DOS 3, about 114k for earlier versions) actually store less than Commodore disks (about 174k). Back to the C-64 Ultima IV update for a moment. That's the type of thing that we always wished when games were ported to whatever computer we had at the time, that instead of leaving the audio-visuals mostly the same, it would take actual advantage of the target platform's capabilities rather than the original platform's capabilities. C-64 and Atari users in particular suffered quite a bit from audio-visually poor Apple II ports. Even the Apple ports could have been better. Graphics tools back in the day were pretty simple for the most part. I also have to wonder if the artwork was often left up to the programmers instead of hiring artists for most titles. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 Even the Apple ports could have been better. Graphics tools back in the day were pretty simple for the most part. I also have to wonder if the artwork was often left up to the programmers instead of hiring artists for most titles. I generally agree. However, things like multi-color in-game sprites (like in the C-64 Ultima IV update), for example, should have been a given with no extra art tools or skills needed. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 I think all the new images look better, but they are a bit heavy on the purple. I've noticed that a lot with some of the modern C64 art. I think the new cut scenes look fantastic as well. While the images obviously make arguably over-usage of colors/color effects, I think the watercolor/painterly-type look is quite effective. I can't really envision how it could be done much better on a low resolution vintage platform. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 The images do certainly skew towards the purple, but I'd agree that the watercolor type look is especially effective here. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 "Remastered" ... One Picture really looks better... u4gold-02.pngu4remastered-02.png But, why do they think that weird colourization of the other pictures look "useful"? I think the remastered screens look awesome! Probably looks much better on a real CRT with its natural pixel blending too. Really nice use of colors and the detail is excellent for the commie. At first blush, some of those frames looked like Amiga or ST screenshots! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 (edited) I generally agree. However, things like multi-color in-game sprites (like in the C-64 Ultima IV update), for example, should have been a given with no extra art tools or skills needed. Similar with the A8 ... fluent animations in every aspect could have been given. It's so annoying that such games don't use the A8 by a fair amount. Particular ego view stuff is underusing the A8 ... just like a Truck is used to drive without a Tender Edited March 31, 2015 by emkay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.