After finding Sierra On-Line to be a less than friendly publisher while creating Ultima II, Richard Garriott eventually decided to move on and form his own company, Origin Systems.  The success of the Ultima games during the 80s led to a number of clones being produced.

One of the more interesting was The Wrath of Denethenor by Sierra On-Line.   While few people will remember this game for the Apple II and Commodore 64, this advertisement from Sierra in 1988 makes it pretty clear which game inspired it.

Denethenor Advertisement - Sierra, 1988

See if you can find the Ultima in this picture. Look closely at the screenshot in the lower left.

Here is a YouTube video showing just how similar this game and Ultima II truly were.

The name is Dungy, and some of you might know me as an editor over at the Codex of Ultima Wisdom.  I also sometimes help out Withstand The Fury by sending him news and updates from the Codex as well as other sites.  I also occasionally wrangle up content for him to post here.  In  my spare time, I’m also a medical student and a fiance, so life is busy.

For the first 20 or so years of the computer industry, one of the main ways software gaming companies advertised their projects was through full page advertisements in software magazines.  Some of the more famous of these were Softline and Computer Gaming World (CGW), and fortunately thanks to the Computer Gaming World Museum, a nearly complete catalog of these publications can be found.  Origin Systems purchased rights to the back page of CGW for over a decade, and a number of beautiful full page Ultima advertisements were released.  As well, magazines like Nintendo Power and foreign language publications also ran advertisements by Origin Systems.

Here for your viewing pleasure is a number of these full page advertisements.

Personally, I love the quirkiness of the NES Power advertisements, especially Ultima III for the NES, where it claims to be the first real roleplaying game for the system.  The Ultima I/II 2-page advertisement shows just how big some of these old ads were.  The Ultima V advertisement is notable for its use of unique artwork, and Ultima VII really stresses the technical merits of the new entry into the Ultima series.  The Ultima IX ads I think are the lowest in quality, telling little about the game, and they stress the importance of combat, while completely ignoring any technical or plot elements about the game.

Anyway, enjoy these ads, and I hope you get as much entertainment out of looking at them that I did collecting them.

Akalaupdate: The patches discussed below for Ultima 1-7 are all covered by and automatically applied (along with necessary fixes — e.g. DPMI) by Pix’s Ultima Patcher (Windows-only). Xarton Dragon’s Portable Ultima Patches are also compatible with the GOG versions of the games.

Original Post: So, you’ve gone and bought and/or downloaded yourself a copy of some Ultima titles from Good Old Games, and you’re wondering: are there any updates for these? Any patches? Anything else I should know?

Well, as it happens, the answer might well be “yes”.

Good Old Games (GOG) is admirably committed to releasing games in as close to their original form as possible; they tend to eschew reworked versions of games which the publishers may have shipped at a later time with graphics updates and whatnot. And to be fair, that’s an entirely commendable position; these games were classics in their unmodified form, and people should understand that and enjoy the games in their original state.

But over the years, Ultima fans and developers alike have taken it upon themselves to publish little improvements to the games, in the form of patches, graphics updates, and suchlike. This article will attempt to outline what can be done to improve, enhance, or in some ways modify your Ultima-playing experience with your newly purchased copies from GOG.

Ultima 1

There isn’t much you need to do — or can do — for Ultima 1; there is only a single graphics patch available for the game, which is recommended as it corrects a known glitch in the original display driver executable.

Ultima 2

There are two updates for Ultima 2 that you should consider applying. The first of these is a maps patch, which corrects for a bug in the original version of the game caused by a file which was overwritten multiple times during the installation process.

Note: It is possible that the Good Old Games version of Ultima 2 has this patch applied already; this has not been verified.

The other thing you may want to consider doing is applying the Ultima 2 Upgrade in whole or in part. This comprehensive update applies some speed tweaks to the game and also improves the graphics.

Note: the upgrade patch requires DPMI, which is not supported natively in DOSbox (which the Good Old Games version of the game uses as a wrapper/launcher). To get DPMI working, extract this file to the root folder of the game.

Ultima 3

There are two updates for Ultima 3, both of which update the graphics of the game. As a result, you can apply one or the other, but not both at the same time.

The first update is the EGA graphics patch, a modified SHAPES.EGA file that incorporates a number of graphics from an enhanced graphics patch for Ultima 4. The second is the Ultima 3 Upgrade, which adds more colourful graphics and improved MIDI music to the game.

Note: the upgrade patch requires DPMI, which is not supported natively in DOSbox (which the Good Old Games version of the game uses as a wrapper/launcher). To get DPMI working, extract this file to the root folder of the game.

Ultima 4

There are a few different updates that can be applied to Ultima 4.

The EGA graphics patch improves the look of the game somewhat, although the more dramatic improvement comes from the Ultima 4 Upgrade package, which adds VGA graphics and the original (and better) musical score from the Apple and Commodore versions of the game.

Note: the upgrade patch requires DPMI, which is not supported natively in DOSbox (which the Good Old Games version of the game uses as a wrapper/launcher). To get DPMI working, extract this file to the root folder of the game.

Additionally, the upgrade can’t be installed under DOS, as one of its files, “avpatch.exe”, is a Windows console application. A patched, DOS-friendly version is available here.

Also, it is critically important that, in Good Old Games’ version of Ultima 4, you create and save a character before applying the upgrade; failure to do so will render the game unplayable.

Patches you may want to apply include this fix for the dungeon of Hythloth, and the runic font replacement patch if you are feeling particularly brave and want all the English-language signage in the game to be presented in a runic font instead.

Finally, if you feel like cheating, there is a character editor for Ultima 4, a cheat program for Ultima 1, Ultima 3, Ultima 4, and Ultima 5, and a savegame editor for the first five Ultima titles.

Ultima 5

There are a number of patches available for Ultima 5, including the comprehensive Ultima 5 Upgrade , a music patch, a patch that lets you use the numeric keypad properly, and (of course) a patch to remove the runic font used at various points in the game.

Note: the upgrade patch presumably requires DPMI, which is not supported natively in DOSbox (which the Good Old Games version of the game uses as a wrapper/launcher). To get DPMI working, extract this file to the root folder of the game.

Ultima 6

There isn’t much in the way of patching needed to play Ultima 6. If you configure it to use the PC speaker, this timing patch might be of use if you are noticing odd sound errors, and there are also patches for MTU-32 and Soundblaster sound, and for AdLib sound.

Use as necessary.

Ultima Underworld & Ultima Underworld 2

The Good Old Games version of Ultima Underworld should already incorporate the official patch for the game, and their version of Ultima Underworld 2 should include the official patch for the second game.

If you want a bit of mood music in the first game, there is a patch which adds a MIDI soundtrack, which I can only assume works with the GOG version of the game as well.

There are also Spanish and Portuguese translation patches available for Ultima Underworld.

As well, the GOG versions of the Underworld games are configured, by default, to use Roland MT-32 sound. If this causes issues for you (and it may), see this forum post at GOG.com for a workaround.

Finally, if you feel like cheating, there is a character editor for Ultima Underworld 2, and a general editor for both games.

That is the sum total of what can be done for the Ultima titles currently available on Good Old Games. If they release the rest of the series or the World of Ultima spinoffs at some point, this post will be updated with information about any other titles that come out.

Ultima 7 & Serpent Isle

A good and easy way to play Ultima 7 and Serpent Isle is with Exult, which is a mature cross-platform engine for the original game data files that incorporates a number of graphical scalers (so you can run the game at higher resolutions), bug fixes, and enhancements. If you use Exult, there’s no need to install any other patches.

If, however, you want to play the games in their pure form, they are well-supported by DOSBox, and the Good Old Games versions of the games come with DOSBox included as the “launcher”.

As far as patching the games goes, you shouldn’t need much in the way of patches to run the game under DOSBox. If, however, you want a bit of additional atmosphere in the game, there is a patch that adds support for MIDI music in Ultima 7 (and a similar patch for Serpent Isle). There is also an official patch from Origin Systems for Ultima 7, which might help if you find that Ultima 7 crashes.

The First Age of Update: Suggestions for Ultima 5 and Ultima 6 have been added. But as Pix’s Ultima Patcher (link above) has been updated as well, it is still recommended that you use it instead. Or Xarton Dragon’s Portable Ultima Patches (link above); those will also work.

Revenge of the Update: Suggestions for Ultima 7 and Serpent Isle have been added. But, again, as Pix’s Ultima Patcher (link above) has been updated as well, it is still recommended that you use it instead. Or, again, Xarton Dragon’s Portable Ultima Patches (link above); those will also work.

Jason “Xarton Dragon” Penney has released a set of patches for Ultima 1 through Ultima 6, 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. 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.

Utilities!

Produced by: Jason “Xarton Dragon” Penney
Website: JCZorkmid
Releases:
* Portable Ultima 1-6 Patches (PDAR) (1.8 MiB, 394 hits)
* Portable Ultima 7 Patches (PDAR) (21.7 KiB, 237 hits)
* Portable Serpent Isle Patches (PDAR) (51.2 KiB, 182 hits)
* PDAR for Windows (2.4 MiB, 246 hits)
* PDAR Source Code (ZIP) (24.3 KiB, 154 hits)
* PDAR Source Code (TAR.GZ) (17.1 KiB, 147 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.

Courtesy of Pix and Natreg Dragon, Ultima Aiera is pleased to present over 120 images of the pages for the manual, quickstart guide, reference guide, and maps shipped with the Ultima Trilogy, a compilation of the first three Ultima games released for DOS.

The Ultima 1 portion of the documentation, not unlike…say…the Compendium that shipped with Ultima 6, does not delve into the actual mechanics of playing the game at all; it is entirely comprised of descriptions of the game world and what inhabits it (friend and foe alike). All of the artwork therein is hand-drawn (probably by Denis Loubet; it looks like his work).

The Ultima 2 and Ultima 3 manuals, meanwhile, have a similar look and feel to the Ultima 1 manual, but balance the descriptions of in-game things and hand-drawn art with gameplay screenshots and information about how to actually play the games.

Anyhow, enjoy! Pull up the images, download the documents, and pore over them. Search out every little detail. Ultima Aiera is indebted to Pix for collecting all these documents, to Richard Garriott and Mary Taylor Rollo, and to anyone else who worked on the original documents at Origin Systems.

Courtesy of Pix and Natreg Dragon, Ultima Aiera is pleased to present over 30 images of the pages for the manuals two separate Apple II versions of Ultima 2: the original, and the “grey box” version. As you can well imagine, Dragons and Dragonettes, the manuals for each version of the game were a bit different from each other, owing in no small part to the fact that each was authored by a different person,

The differences between the two versions of the manual here are not as stark as was the case with Ultima 1; both focus on the same basic material (the game, its controls, and some additional gameplay details) and present it in roughly the same order. The art differs somewhat, although that is to be expected. The original manual was penned by Richard Garriott himself, whereas the “grey box” manual was written by one Mary Taylor Rollo.

Also: someone please tell me I’m not the only one who mistook the Ultima 2 logo on the cover of both manuals for the Batsymbol?

Anyhow, enjoy! Pull up the images, download the documents, and pore over them. Search out every little detail. Ultima Aiera is indebted to Pix for collecting all these documents, to Richard Garriott and Mary Taylor Rollo, and to anyone else who worked on the original documents at Sierra.

With the release of Ultima 1-3, Ultima 4, and now Ultima 4-6 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 patcher now covers all of the Ultima games available through GOG. 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.

Naturally, I have updated the available download at the project entry for the utility.

On the Ultima Dragons Facebook Chapter, Dee DæGraaffe linked to a bit.ly article bundle (maintained by Aiera commenter xyzzy/Lady D.D. Dragon) containing links to a most interesting study done by students at the University of Texas.

As xyzzy puts it:

Students at the University of Texas used Ultima II for an interesting study on game preservation, looking into both the technical hurdles (difficulties copying disks, finding adequate emulators, etc.) and the impacts of using original hardware to play the game vs. an emulator. One link is to a blog entry that acts as an overview of the project, the other is to the detailed final report.

You can find the final report by the three students who worked on the project here; it’s a worthwhile read.

There is also a blog entry at Continuous Play (the blog of the University of Texas/ Videogame Archive, which I believe is located in Austin), which summarizes the project’s scopeand findings.

Utilities!

Produced by: Pix
Website: Pix’s Origin Adventures
Releases:
* Pix's Ultima Patcher (5.4 MiB, 783 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.

Thanks to a little help from Dungy at the Codex of Ultima Wisdom, Ultima Aiera is pleased to present a (mostly) comprehensive comparison of title screens from the known ports of Ultima 2.

The Apple II Original

The Commodore 64 Port

The Atari 8-bit Port

The PC DOS Port

The PC8801 Port

The FM Towns Port

As you can see, there is quite a range in terms of quality and interface design between different ports of the game. The Commodore 64 port, in particular, stands out as being of substantially lower quality.

For complete details about the different versions of the game — and the differences between — be sure to check out the Codex article on the subject.

Thanks to a little help from Dungy at the Codex of Ultima Wisdom, Ultima Aiera is pleased to present a (mostly) comprehensive comparison of gameplay graphics from the known ports of Ultima 2.

The Apple II Original

The Commodore 64 Port

The Atari 8-bit Port

The PC DOS Port

The Atari ST Port

The PC8801 Port

As you can see, there is quite a range in terms of quality and interface design between different ports of the game. The Commodore 64 port, in particular, stands out as being of substantially lower quality.

For complete details about the different versions of the game — and the differences between — be sure to check out the Codex article on the subject.

Sergorn Dragon discovered these videos on YouTube, and…well…I watched them, so you can watch them too. I shouldn’t have to suffer alone.

That said: these three short movies are an interesting take on the story of Ultima 2, and I have to wonder what aspired the young stars thereof to make a home movie based on that game. And at the same time, it seems fitting to highlight their work on the day that Ultima 2 becomes available for purchase on Good Old Games:

A big hat tip to Sergorn Dragon for the find!

It seems fitting, on the day that the first four Ultima games are released for sale on Good Old Games, to take a look at some of the different ways that Ultima 2 has been presented to game players over the years.

Here, for example, is the introductory sequence and title screen to the FM Towns port of the game:

I’ve always enjoyed the graphical quality of the FM Towns versions of various Ultima titles.

(hat tip: Sergorn Dragon & Fenyx4)

We all knew it was coming, and the day has finally arrived. The first trilogy in the Ultima series, the Ages of Darkness (comprising Ultima 1, Ultima 2, and Ultima 3) are available for purchase at Good Old Games, for a mere $5.99.

Ultima fans have waited a long time for this, and I for one am confident that we will see more releases from the series in the near future. Today, though, you should totally head on over to GOG.com and grab yourselves copes of these classic RPG titles, all of which have been helpfully DOSboxed in advance so you can just grab them and start playing.

I am hereby declaring this do be Ultima Day, Part the First; keep checking back during the day, as there will be a bunch of updates celebrating the Ultima series and the first four games therein. Also be sure to check in with the fandom on handy web-based client!) as the day rolls on; you can also follow Ultima Aiera on Twitter.

I have a bunch of research and article preparation to do over the next few days, and I am going to be devoting as much of my time as I possibly can to that. What that means, in practical terms, is that I won’t be updating the site as much — if at all — over the weekend and into next week. What I will be doing, however, is frantically scouring every dark corner of Google, YouTube, Flickr, and every other major content aggregation site I can think of looking for material related to certain Ultima games.

Because, yes, I want to have a dozen different things to post about the first four Ultima games ready to go for next Tuesday.

To be honest, I could certainly use any help, both in terms of researching content and drafting articles. If you’d like to assist, drop me a line and I’ll see if I can come up with an assignment for you.

In the mean time, I’m going to leave this up as an open thread, with a few hastily-researched-but-hopefully-interesting articles for you to mull over and discuss.

How do you like the new open thread graphic, by the way?

Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google, condemns British education system

He laments what he views as the UK’s failure to “capitalise on its record of innovation in science and engineering” in favour of “a drift to the humanities”; he encourages them to “look back to glory days of Victorian era”.

By 2016, all smartphones will feature touchscreens.

Or, well, nearly all of them. At least that’s what a broup of analysts thinks.

Full Disk Image of Earth Captured August 26, 2011.

Hurricane Irene is fully visible in the image, and is bloody massive.

Speaking of hurricanes…

..there is a particular bird who may have survived flying through Irene.

Coordinated, global ATM heist nets millions for its perpetrators.

Stolen pre-paid debit cards, it seems, were the catalyst here; the attackers obtained a couple dozen cards and managed to increase or remove the withdrawal limits on them before using them at ATMs around the world.

Anyone else curious about the Amazon tablet?

I know I am.

Razer’s “future of PC gaming”: the Blade laptop!

This 17″, $2800 powerhouse does boast some impressive specs, a keen design, and a fantastic UI.

But does the gaming PC need saving, as Razer’s marketing campaign boasted. Gizmodo, at least, argues “yes, and then some!”

PC gamers will have to wait for Skyrim DLC.

As if to prove Gizmodo’s point…

BioWare’s “Dr. Ray” on The Old Republic and Dragon Age 3.

Essentially, BioWare is testing the living crap out of their upcoming MMORPG.

Torchlight 2 will cost just $20!

If it’s anywhere near as enjoyable as the last one…it’ll be money well spent.

Apple has hired — as an intern — another iPhone jailbreaker.

This time, it’s Nicholas “Comex” Allerga.

Uncharacteristically for Good Old Games, who usually are quite jealous in guarding the names of titles they are about to release, news has broken and/or leaked out (I’m not sure which) that the next releases at GOG.com will be Ultima 1 through Ultima 4.

iPhone screenshot of the PC Gamer article, just in case.

That’s right, Dragons and Dragonettes: come Tuesday, August 30th, Good Old Games will release the first three Ultima games as a bundled trilogy priced at $5.99. Ultima 4, meanwhile, will be released for free! (EA must have really gone to bat for Ultima fans in order to make that happen, methinks.)

So…Wing Commander fans had their day, and now we Ultima fans shall have ours! Mark your calendars, Ultima fans; the Ages of Darkness begin anew next Tuesday!

A few people have brought it to my attention that well-known old-school gaming blogger The CRPG Addict has started his playthrough of Ultima 5 recently.

Just for the record: yes, I have in fact heard of the Addict and his one-man mission to play through “every PC role-playing game ever released”. I’ve been following him since he did his Ultima 4 playthrough a little over a year ago. For those unfamiliar with the scope of his undertaking, see his post explaining the rules he operates by in determining which games to play, and how to play them.

Anyhow…it’s true; the Addict is playing through Ultima 5 now. He didn’t get very far into the game (I gather it’s his first playthrough); his party was mauled by pirates and then wiped out by an encounter with a band of skeletons. Still, he seems very much sold on the games, and his thoughts on both his joy at returning to the Ultima world (“It feels like coming home.”) and his praise of the fact that the core of the series was set in Britannia (“You would think that it would be boring to play a series of four games (Ultimas IV-VII) in the same game world, but instead I find it enormously rewarding.”) will resonate with every Ultima fan.

So, take a moment, check his site out, and bookmark it; he’ll be posting a lot of Ultima 5-related content over the coming days and weeks!

(You might also want to check out the Addict’s playthroughs of other great — and not so great — Origin Systems games, including: Ultima 3, Ultima 2, Ultima 1, and Times of Lore. He skipped Akalabeth, for the most part.)

Dungy, from the Codex of Ultima Wisdom, sent me this scan of an Infomania article from March, 1983, the primary focus of which is a bug in Ultima 2.

What? Bugs in an Ultima game? Never...

Apparently, when engaged in ship combat, you can board the attacking ship. This will stop it from attacking, but will also cause another ship to spawn beneath it, to take its place (presumably as the combatant). This is evidently a repeatable trick, meaning that with some careful work it is possible to create artificial bridges of ships between continents in the game.

The article ends with a summary of a brief interview with Garriott, and also features an inset of an interview that the National Enquirer did with a young Lord British. It’s quite a neat little piece of history, overall.

Andrew writes in, asking a question that realistically I should have already published an answer to:

I want to play the Ultima games from beginning to end, but I have no clue how to apply the upgrade patches!

I’m not an expert or even a novice code writer, so please excuse me if I ask you to tell me what to do step by step.

If it helps, can you start with just Ultima 2?

I’m going to put my reply in an article, because that way I can add it to the FAQ as a link. If any of you have suggestions which you feel are better than mine, by all means give them in the comments.

Note: For the purposes of this write-up, I am assuming that everyone is trying to run the PC/DOS versions of the earlier games.

Akalabeth

Your best bet for playing Akalabeth (or Ultima 0) is Paul Robson’s remake of it. Or you can grab the iPhone version of the game.

Alternatively, if you want to run the original game in DOSBox, you should grab this patched executable which will enable the Ultima Collection version of the game to run smoothly under the DOS emulation software.

Ultima 1

There isn’t much you need to do — or can do — for Ultima 1; there is only a single graphics patch available for the game, which is recommended as it corrects a known glitch in the original display driver executable.

It is best to run Ultima 1 in DOSBox.

Ultima 2

There are two different approaches you can take to get Ultima 2 up and running. One method would be to use Ultima 2 for Windows, which is a front-end for the original game data files. As such, it should work with the various patches that comprise the Ultima 2 Upgrade (but that is untested). And realistically, I’m not 100% sure that the Windows front-end works under modern Windows environments, or on 64-bit systems.

So, the other option is to run Ultima 2 in DOSBox, and just apply the Ultima 2 Upgrade.

Ultima 3

There are two different approaches you can take to get Ultima 3 up and running. One method would be to use Ultima 3 for Windows, which is a front-end for the original game data files. As such, it should work with the various patches that comprise the Ultima 3 Upgrade (but that is untested). And realistically, I’m not 100% sure that the Windows front-end works under modern Windows environments, or on 64-bit systems.

So, the other option is to run Ultima 3 in DOSBox, and just apply the Ultima 3 Upgrade.

A third option, which Sergorn Dragon recommends, is to pay $5 to LairWare and grab their OS X port of Ultima 3. If you can get a good Mac emulator up and running (or an OS X virtual machine), or if you have an Apple computer already, this is easily the best way to go, as LairWare’s version of the game is easily the best out there.

Ultima 4

The best way to play Ultima 4 is using xu4. There is really no better way to do it. You might also want to grab this fix for Hythloth.

I believe that xu4 also renders moot the need for the Ultima 4 Upgrade patch.

Ultima 5

It is best to run Ultima 5 in DOSBox. There are a number of patches available for the game as well, including the comprehensive Ultima 5 Upgrade , a music patch, a patch that lets you use the numeric keypad properly, and (of course) a patch to remove the runic font used at various points in the game.

Alternatively, if you have an advanced TI calculator, there’s a faithful port of the game for that platform as well.

Ultima 6

I’m not 100% sure, but I don’t think you can yet complete the game using Nuvie. As such, it is probably best to run Ultima 6 in DOSBox.

There isn’t much in the way of patching needed to play Ultima 6. If you configure it to use the PC speaker, this timing patch might be of use if you are noticing odd sound errors, and there are also patches for MTU-32 and Soundblaster sound, and for AdLib sound. Use as necessary.

Savage Empire & Martian Dreams

Since Nuvie does not yet support these two games fully, it is best to run Savage Empire and Martian Dreams in DOSBox. There are no patches needed for either game.

Ultima Underworld & Ultima Underworld 2

The best way to play the two Underworld games is to just buy them from Good Old Games; they will run under pretty much any modern version of Windows. The GOG version should already incorporate the official patch for the first game and the second game. If you want a bit of mood music in the first game, there is a patch which adds a MIDI soundtrack, which I can only assume works with the GOG versions of the game.

If, on the other hand, you don’t want to buy the games off of Good Old Games, it is best to run Ultima Underworld and Ultima Underworld 2 in DOSBox. If you’re playing the CD-based versions of the games, you shouldn’t need the official patches; if you’ve got the game on ancient 3.5″ diskettes, you may need those patches.

Ultima 7 & Serpent Isle

A good and easy way to play Ultima 7 and Serpent Isle is with Exult, which is a mature cross-platform engine for the original game data files that incorporates a number of graphical scalers (so you can run the game at higher resolutions), bug fixes, and enhancements. If you use Exult, there’s no need to install any other patches.

If, however, you want to play the games in their pure form, they are well-supported by DOSBox.

As far as patching the games goes, you shouldn’t need much in the way of patches to run the game under DOSBox. If, however, you want a bit of additional atmosphere in the game, there is a patch that adds support for MIDI music in Ultima 7 (and a similar patch for Serpent Isle). There is also an official patch from Origin Systems for Ultima 7, which might help if you find that Ultima 7 crashes.

Ultima 8

A good and easy way to play Ultima 8 is with Pentagram, which is a cross-platform engine for the original game data files that incorporates a number of graphical scalers (so you can run the game at higher resolutions) and bug fixes. If you use Pentagram, there’s no need to install any other patches.

If you have a version of Ultima 8 that is on 3.5″ diskettes, however, you may want to install the official patch for the game from Origin, before firing up Pentagram.

And if you want to play the game in its pure form, they are well-supported by DOSBox. If you want to go this route, you may find the official patches from Origin Systems that add AdLib support and fix a few bugs and improve gameplay to be of use.

Ultima 9

Ultima 9, interestingly, will run even under Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit). To get it working, you just need to install the official v1.18 patch and the unofficial v1.19f patch. You may also want to install the Forgotten World v1.19g patch, which corrects a couple more bugs in the game.

And if you want to improve the look and feel of Ultima 9 somewhat, there is also the Beautiful Britannia R1 patch.

Be mindful of the fact that when you have the game fully patched, it will run pretty darn well for the most part…but you will encounter bugs in Moonglow, possibly in Yew, and possibly when trying to manually sail the boat around. You will also want to enable the flying cheat, because on most modern systems you will encounter the “floating runes and sigils” bug after cleansing each shrine.

One final note: Keep your eyes on Good Old Games as the summer progresses; it has been confirmed that more Ultima titles (beyond the two Underworld games) will be released through that service over the coming months. Which games, exactly, I am not yet sure of.