Release Pentagram Ultima 8

[sirtobi]

Hi!


Just a little proove of concept....


Ultima8 is running with pentagram (http://pentagram.sourceforge.net) on my pandora.


Pentagram is a project to play Ultima8 on modern Systems. You'll need the original Ultima8 Files anywhere on the Pandora.


I've remove the arrow keys (needed for debugging, worse for playing) and put the mouse buttons to A/B/X/Y. So you can play with left nubs and right buttons. Please refer to the readme for all other shortcuts.


The readme is included under "Documentation".


The main problems are:


* touch screen gets out of sync (anyone who can fix it?)


* cheat mode always on (problem with pentagram)


* pentagram is not yet finished (and needs developers....), but Ultima8 should be finishable


The configuration is under {APPDATA}/pentagram/.pentagram/pentagram.ini if someone wants to fiddle around. It is rewritten on resolution changes.


So, take it as a short test for now. Would be great if someone could fix the sync problems (and perhaps check in to the official sources).


I've tried the "scumm"fix but without luck, so the game is compiled directly from the unmodified sources yesterday evening.


Have Fun!


greetings,


sirtobi

pentagram.pnd

 

[FaeMinx]

Awesome! Thanks for working on this...

 

[Emnasut]

Wow this looks cool, thanks! I gotta try it if I can find my Ultima VIII files...


Also, on the pentagramm homepage under screenshots it shows Crusader: No Remorse and Crusader: No Regret, will those games also work? I'm longing to play them on the Pandora (Dosbox is tooooo slow and PSX version was ok for a time but I couldn't figure out how to drop weapons to pick up new ones and it looks a lot worse)...

 

[sirtobi]

Hi!

Also, on the pentagramm homepage under screenshots it shows Crusader: No Remorse and Crusader: No Regret, will those games also work? I'm longing to play them on the Pandora (Dosbox is tooooo slow and PSX version was ok for a time but I couldn't figure out how to drop weapons to pick up new ones and it looks a lot worse)...

I think no, this is from the docs:

You may also override most settings under [pentagram] by writing them under [u8]. Except for defaultgame all can be overriden.


Right now this is not necessary as we only support U8 but if we start to support other games it might come in handy.

So it is planned if Ultima8 would ever be some kind of finished...

 

[Emnasut]

Ah ok, too bad though. Oh well maybe someone will come along and do this "statically recompile" magic which worked for other games like X-COM.

 

[BAFelton]

Thanx for this great game, the CD version works fine with the speech pack too.


The text is quite hard to read, maybe it would be possible to make it a little bigger ?

 

[sirtobi]

Hi!

The text is quite hard to read, maybe it would be possible to make it a little bigger ?

It's hard to find in the code but I think its better now?

pentagram.pnd

 

[Caine]

Can you finish the game with pentagram? Last time I tried it on my PC, the graphics got all messed up and the game became unplayable when I was in the catacombs taking the Necromancy trials.

 

[sirtobi]

Can you finish the game with pentagram? Last time I tried it on my PC, the graphics got all messed up and the game became unplayable when I was in the catacombs taking the Necromancy trials.

I have never tried myself, but regarding to the latest news entry it is:

Thanks to people over on the Exult forum pushing us to fix more bugs, work on Pentagram has continued recently. Special thanks go to Gruck for playing through all of Ultima 8 in Pentagram (confirming the game can still be successfully finished) and reporting any bugs he encountered, a number of which have been fixed now.

 

[skeezix]

You're using SDL? Touchscreen drift is a relativley known thing and can be worked around.


I forget offhand, but I think the issue was a bug in SDL -- rather than dogn 'hide mouse', do 'set mouse to artwork' and use a 0x0 artwork, and same effect, but everything works.


jeff

 

[WizardStan]

It's not a bug, it's a feature. I don't know why it's a feature, but that's how it was designed.

 

[skeezix]

Sure, its a feature in the same way Intel had that screwed up math in the old Pentiums... by design


jeff

 

[WizardStan]

No, I'm pretty sure the Pentium bug was officially labeled a bug. That's why they fixed it in future processors.


The way an invisible mouse pointer works in SDL is by design for some reason: they've said they have no intention of fixing it because that's how they want it to run.

 

[padoro]

Hello. I've just discovered this game and would like to play it on Pandora.


Has anyone played it till the end? Is it possible or are there many crash or bugs?


Thanks