Do you know where I might find technical information about how the tile shape data is stored/encoded on Commodore 64 disks? The graphics for the tiles for the C64 version of Ultima 4 are mono-coloured. i.e. a single coloured. Therefore, I suspect the characters do not follow the same encoding format as was is used for the DOS version in shapes.ega.

I recently discovered that the map data is actually stored as 256 chunks of 16×16 data. (the DOS EGA version uses 64 chunks of 32×32 data)

To be honest, I haven’t the first clue about how to answer this question. The C64 predates my first foray into computing by a few years, and I’ve no “hands on” experience with that system, nor with the Ultima 4 version released for it. I had perhaps thought that Nodling Dragon would be a good resource to ask, and have suggested that the reader try and contact him…but any input from the community at large would be much appreciated!

Go me.

Anyhow, good reader: check thou them out!

Anyhow, the Ages of Darkness are now complete, at least in terms of restored download functionality. I still need at make sure that I have the most up-to-date files for each project, but that shouldn’t be a terribly Herculean undertaking.

But…hopefully. Ideally.

Failing that: HELP WANTED.

Of course, getting things to work was something of a task. It ultimately required removing all ATI software and drivers from the system, running a program to clean up any driver “remnants,” and then installing new Catalyst drivers (version 8.7) from a hotfix I managed to unearth from the Sapphire website.

Of course, that was only most of a solution.

Neverwinter Nights isn’t exactly a new game, and so does not require or support some of the newer graphics features that modern video cards can deliver. In most cases, of is easy to correct for this; in the case of an ATI card, using Catalyst’s control center to set all the advanced 3D features to be “application controlled” (where possible — “off” where necessary) will typically do the trick.

So I did this.

Neverwinter Nights started up just fine, loaded the test module just fine (a good sign: the module loading process had been where I’d been having issues) and displayed the scenery graphics just fine. But: no character models were visible.

Frak.

A bit of Googling turned up a solution I wouldn’t have expected, however. It seems that with this video card and driver set, it is the case that the Catalyst A.I. is apparently necessary to run in its advanced mode. That struck me as unusual when I first read it, but making the change worked…the characters were visible during the next test run.

Apparently this also has something to do with a setting in the game concerning environmental mapping onto character models; since I had this mode enabled (it maps “real time” reflections onto metallic surfaces on each character’s armour or clothing), that may also have had something to do with the missing models.

Eh, whatever. It works now, which was the goal. ATI drivers have never really played nice with BioWare titles, so I’ll probably have to monitor the situation like a hawk in the future. And there is this pesky issue with the mouse cursor’s repainting that I still have to sort out.

But it works!

I hate being beaten by a computer problem, so it’s nice to have put this one to rest.

Suspecting that the source of my Windows computer’s instability might be the existing video card (a Radeon 9600 XT), I went and picked up a Sapphire Radeon HD 3850 — pretty much the most powerful AGP graphics card in existence today. (ATI has always been my preferred brand.)

Anyhow, I installed the card and its drivers, and proceeded to test out Neverwinter Nights. That’s where the trouble started: NWN crashed, every time. I did some digging, and found a few hints in various places that the issue may have something to do with ATI’s Catalyst software — certain versions of the control center application evidently conflict with NWN, for example.

Things got worse when I tried to switch Catalyst versions (Sapphire ships the card with what I believe is Catalyst 8.4). Reverting to Catalyst 7.11 (apparently a very stable version) was no help: the driver didn’t support the card. Installing the Omega Drivers — which use Catalyst 7.12 — didn’t work, and for the same reason.

Installing the Catalyst 9.4 update/hotfix from Sapphire didn’t improve things any. And to add insult to injury, the Cayalyst drivers that can be downloaded directly from ATI’s website actually don’t support the card in question (it’s a relatively new card from Sapphire: AGP support and 512 MB of DDR3 memory).

Nothing seems to make NWN work. Which is a pain, as I’d hoped to start work on a new idea that would have greatly benefitted from the enhanced performance the HD 3850 promises.

A bit more searching today furnished me with downloads, from Sapphire, of Catalyst 8.7 through 8.9, and I’m hoping one of these will do the trick. Failing that, I plan to try reinstalling NWN, to see if that could somehow be the issue. I’ve already tried the critical rebuild patch for NWN 1.69.

Failing THAT, I’m thinking of maybe trading the card in for an eVGA nVidia GeForce 6200 LE and another 1GB stick of DDR RAM (this doubling what the system is currently equipped with).

nVidia cards apparently play nicer with BioWare games in general, although the 6200 is not as powerful, by a fair bit, as the HD 3850.

In the end, though, raw power is less important to me than that NWN runs, preferably at a frame rate in excess of 30 at a resolution with at least 600 pixels vertically (720 preferred) on a 16:9 monitor.

Thoughts? Should I even waste time on the HD 3850, or should I just swap it for the 6600 and the RAM? Has anyone else had this issue before and resolved it successfully?

It’s been brought to our attention that there is a bug present in the M6 Milestone that makes the game unplayable at a certain point in the plot. We have posted a patch for this here:

http://www.u6project.com/download/m6patch/u6p_npc.dsres

Just copy this file into your Resources folder of the U6 installation. You will not have to restart your game.

If you have not encountered this problem, then you don’t need the patch. I can’t tell you what the problem IS because that would be a spoiler. Sorry!

Don’t play your copy of this Ultima 6 remake for Dungeon Siege without it!

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So if I don’t get around to fixing the downloads, I apologize. Hopefully next week will be calmer.

By the way: a few sundry things need to be mentioned.

1) In the comments below, please leave your thoughts as to whether I should convert the image-handling aspect of the site over to Flickr, as I have been doing with my other websites. There’s any number of Wordpress plugins that make it easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy to bring images over into articles here at Aiera, and using the external site also makes it easier to restore images to proper function in the event of my needing to switch ISPs again.

2) I’m in the process of building a redundant backup of all uploaded files using my Windows Live Skydrive account; I’ll start adding links to existing downloads next week.

3) I could really use some assistance with downloads, as they are restored; it would be swell if one or two people could, where possible, check the developer homepages for site content and make sure that Aiera has the most current copy of each remake, patch, and utility.

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Crispy Gamer: Ultima VII is one of my favorites in the series because it’s so immersive, interactive and easy on the eyes, but it is also very dark. To me it felt like you were tearing down what you created in the first six games. Would that be a fair statement?

Garriott: Ah, yes. Here’s how I would frame it. The first three Ultimas were really when I was, frankly, learning how to create a game. Ultima I was written in basic, Ultima II was the first assembly language program I ever wrote, and Ultima III was really the first time I felt that I had succeeded at creating a game, despite its level of sophistication. Ultima VI, V and VI were created at a time when I was learning the process of being a storyteller. They introduced things like the Virtues, etc. I began to pay much more attention to the craft of storytelling.

Frankly, Ultima I, II and III weren’t related to each other at all, in the sense that their stories weren’t connected. Ultima IV, V and VI were only related to each other in that I kind of realized that the series was going to go on for awhile, so I tried to pick up where I left off with each game.

Ultima VII (for me, the most important moment for the series since Ultima IV) was the first time I really sat down and said, “OK, what am I really trying to accomplish with this game?” I was trying to do things like set up stories and characters that would survive for more than one product. I had seen how people were reading into the philosophy I had put together with Ultima IV, V and VI, and so I was trying to — what you describe as “tearing down” — open it up, and say there are lots of other forms of thought that are either just as good or positive, or that might also seem good or positive but are actually quite dark. So I was trying to drive what I call alternatives.

Ultima IV, Ultima VII and Ultima Online are my favorites. And for me, the reason why VII that was true for was because it was a game where I most completely realized the virtual world I was trying to create. In other words, the depth of interaction and responsiveness of the world it played in.

As the bloggers say, read the whole thing!

And while you’re there, don’t forget to check out another interesting Ultima-themed feature currently underway at CrispyGamer: The Black Gate Murders — an “alternative” play-through of Ultima 7 in which the object is to a) kill everyone apart from respawning characters, and to b) pass the game. At the very least, this implies a rather careful methodology in regard to the order in which NPCs are dispatched, and I for one would be curious as to whether the blogger can pull it off.

He’s already done Trinsic, the Road to Paws, and Paws proper…

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