Ultima 9 and G400: A good match?

[jediphoenix]

I am thinking of getting ultima 9 (since i own 1-8 I have to finish the series hehe ) I have a K6-2 450, 128 sdram and G400 32 SH non-max with the 5ns SGRAM. I was wondering if anyone knows the best settings for the G400 with Ultima 9? Thx
Http://jediphoenix.iscool.net

[This message has been edited by jediphoenix (edited 15 January 2000).]

[Allan2]

I assume you know all about the technical issues with this game and you're under no illusions that it will magically work better because your system can "handle it". Good

In my opinion the game will be immersive and playable when the sound stops looping and stuttering, the screen stops freezing, or the game stops kicking me back to the desktop for no reason after 30 minutes of gametime. And that's after the 2nd patch and tuning my system using every tweak found on the Ultima Ascension forums ( http://boards.owo.com/)

After lots of experimentation I've found that on MY system I use 16bit Non compressed textures and a resolution of 800x600x32. I set the performance slider to one below the highese and view distance and detail slider to medium. I also use the medium level of mip-mapping.

In case you're wondering I'm running a PIII 500@560 with 256MB of Ram, G400 OC to Max settings, SBlive Value, an IBM ATA66 13.5GB 7200RPM drive and a whole bunch of other stuff...

Hope this helps you out. *rant* I won't run this game again until the 3rd patch because the bugs are ruining my experience. IF it worked properly it's the type of game you could play for hours. Now, everytime I start the game I'm wondering how I can make it run smoother or that I should be saving every 5 minutes. That's no way to enjoy a game. *rant mode off*

[jediphoenix]

hehe thx for the advice. yeah I heard of the problems. with origin im used to it Np I love the ultima series so much (i have 1-8 already) that i am willing to go through problems to eventually get to the awesome game I believe U9 to be I wonder if it would run any better on win2k? I already checked and it is compatible.

[Allan2]

I've heard Win 2000 will work better with U9 but that's because of lousy memory management in the game. Win98 will be back on par (or better) with Win 2000 with the release of the 3rd patch.

If you're a gamer I'd wait 5 or 6 months before installing Win 2000 because graphics drivers are not mature yet and you will actually lose performance in most games. Check this out: http://www.rivastation.com/index_e.htm

[Strider]

I played a few Ultima games, but never actually managed to finish them. Nevertheless I was eagerly awaiting U9, but the performance problems stopped me from buying it.

Allan2 (and anyone else witht the game), please keep the forum informed on how the fixes are progressing. I really don't want to miss out on the game, but if never runs properly...

[Allan2]

I'll let you know if it's playable after they release patch 3. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

[exG-man]

Well, I'll say this...nothing is a good match for Ultima Ascension except a match (or blowtorch)! I've got a 32 mb Max and 2 Voodoo2's in SLI and the Max SMOKES the 3dfx cards in framerates. I tried every set-up....8 bit and 16 bit textures, 16 and 32 bit depth, STILL the Max wins. 1024x768x32 on the Max versus 1024x768x16 on the SLI, and it's REALLY not even close! I wouldn't have believed it unless I saw it with my own two eyes, and it had nothing to do with the patches. I have my systems specs listed on the USAF thread if you want to compare notes. And what's better is once they get it patched to the point of being release quality (rather than beta...alpha?!) it should favor the Max even more! Of course God only knows what Max will be out in the year 2010 but hey...it'll be GREAT!

[Delany]

The thing you need to ask yourself is if you need to have framerates like a 1st person shooter or not.

If the answer is yes, then don't bother with UA at the moment. If no, then it can be playable with the right setup.

Insofar as the bugs are concerned, I didn't come accross any of the major ones that people talk about, only one where i had to choose an option with the keyboard instead of the mouse. (that's not to say others wont have problems though.)

Overall, i'm glad i bought the game. It would have seemed weird to have finished the other 8 and not this one. The ending was a bit "different" though.

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Gigabyte GA686BX, 128MB PC100 Ram, Millenium G400 MAX, Creative Labs SBLive!, Netgear FA310TX, Sony 32X CD-Rom, Imation LS120, 5.2 & 12.7GB Quantum HD's, Everything being driven by Win98...or occassionally Redhat Linux 6.0

Bored Yet?

[exG-man]

Personally I don't need the framerate to be as fast as it would be in say, UT. The thing that kills the immersive quality for me is that even moving the mouse around slowly causes stuttering that's so bad that often by the time it has caught up with real-time, the Avatar is in an entirely different position. Kind of like he "warped" there. I don't expect miracles but we're talking BOTH a Matrox Max AND an SLI configuration having framerates in 9-13 fps range. I WILL play through this game, it'll just be "back-burner" until a patch comes along that fixes the problems for good.