Utilities!

Produced by: Jason “Xarton Dragon” Penney
Website: JCZorkmid
Releases:
* Portable Ultima 1-6 Patches (PDAR) (1.8 MiB, 234 hits)
* Portable Ultima 7 Patches (PDAR) (21.7 KiB, 108 hits)
* Portable Serpent Isle Patches (PDAR) (51.2 KiB, 79 hits)
* PDAR for Windows (2.4 MiB, 142 hits)
* PDAR Source Code (ZIP) (24.3 KiB, 69 hits)
* PDAR Source Code (TAR.GZ) (17.1 KiB, 62 hits)

A set of patches for Ultima 1 through Ultima 6, developed by Xarton Dragon, which should theoretically be applicable to most installations of the games, inside or outside of DOSBox. The patches are distributed in the PDAR (Portable Delta ARchive) format, and contain only the differences between the patched files and the unpatched files. This should streamline and speed the process of patch application, and also removes much of the hassle of the actual installation process that other patching utilities utilize.

Most of the major patches for each game are included, and a complete listing (as well as installation instructions) can be found in the main download. Also available for download are a Windows PDAR application and the PDAR source code.

These have been tested against the GOG versions of the games and are confirmed to work thereupon. The newly released the Ultima 7 box set is also supported. Xarton will soon be testing them against the Ultima Collection CD installations, and it is expected that the patches will prove effective for those versions of the games as well.

Note: the Ultima 7 patches are supplied as ZIP files, and each archive contains a pair of files: a General MIDI patch and a “GOG Extra” patch. Here are his instructions for applying these patches:

Ultima7.General_MIDI-1.1.pdar or Ultima7p2.General_MIDI-1.0.pdar

Modifies necessary files in place. No need to run batch installer. After applying simply run INSTALL.EXE to change your music device to MT-32 to activate.

Ultima7.General_MIDI-1.1-GOG_Extra.pdar or Ultima7p2.General_MIDI-1.0-GOG_Extra.pdar

Run the General MIDI patch first. This patch modifies the U7.CFG supplied with the GOG distribution to activate the GM/GS patch without the need to run INSTALL.EXE.

Utilities!

Produced by: Pix
Website: Pix’s Origin Adventures
Releases:
* Pix's Ultima Patcher (5.4 MiB, 676 hits)

With the release of Ultimas 1-3 and Ultima 4 on Good Old Games, Ultima Aiera published an article containing information about patching and updating those Ultima titles that have been re-released for sale thus far. Ultima fan Pix (whose repositories of scans of Ultima documentation are really worth checking out, by the way) took it upon himself to collect all of the various patches and updates discussed in that article into a single, easier-to-use application.

The utility should now cover all Ultima titles available on GOG, including the Underworld games and the Ultima 7 box set.

Pix cautions that while the Patcher should work on clean installations from Good Old Games, installations that have been modified in any way already could cause strange results. It includes DPMI and other necessary files as well, so that the graphical upgrade patches for each game work properly.

Presumably, this utility will continue to be expanded to cover additional Ultima titles should they be released on Good Old Games.

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Produced by: Mike Marcelais
Releases:
* Maps Patch (16.7 KiB, 423 hits)

A patch that corrects the maps in Ultima 2 and restores them to their originally intended format and appearence.

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Produced by: Exodus Project
Website: The Exodus Project
Releases:
* Moonstone's Galactic Patch (21.2 KiB, 397 hits)
* Micro's Speed Fix (2.6 KiB, 411 hits)
* Upgrade Package (223.3 KiB, 500 hits)

A team effort to upgrade Ultima 2 by the Exodus Project team, it includes a number of improvements to the original game, including EGA graphics (an improvement over the 4 color original), full-color tiles, lower-case text, better save game support, and hotkey support.

Additional files included here are Moonstone Dragon’s Galactic Patch (which adds maps for some of the inner planets) and Micro Dragon’s Speed Patch (which corrects the all-too-familiar divide-by-zero error).