Ultima Patcher 1.22

Posted on June 18, 2012 by Pix

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s update, I’ve added in support for Martian Dreams and Savage Empire to the Ultima Patcher. If there are any fan patches for either game, I wasn’t able to find them so this just adds the option to use MT-32 emulation in both games (if you have the ROM’s). This was a rush job to get it done today for the GOG release but I’m relatively sure it works. If anyone actually uses this, I’ll look at adding MT-32 emulation support to the rest of the games.

The new version can be downloaded from here.

Ultima Patcher 1.21

Posted on June 17, 2012 by Pix

I’ve been tinkering with my Ultima Patcher today for the first time in months. I always wanted to add support for MT-32 emulation but held off because I didn’t want to supply the ROM’s. I’ve had a change of heart and thought I’d give it a go anyway. I’m still not supplying the ROM’s although finding them on the web should prove far from difficult. The patcher expects them to be named either CM32L_PCM.ROM & CM32L_CONTROL.ROM or MT32_PCM.ROM & MT32_CONTROL.ROM. The CM32 ROM’s are the ones to go for as a rule since they have some extra sounds not included on the original MT32.

Without the ROM’s, I’m not so sure if this is something anyone wants or would use so I’ve only implemented it for Underworld 1 as a test for now. I noticed that I needed to run the game as an administrator after patching in order for it to start up. Also the CPU cycles may need tweaking depending on setup/preferences. GOG originally set it for maximum cycles but this is a bit much with the MT32 emulation running at the same time so I’ve altered it to 30,000.

The new version can be downloaded from here.

VFX1 Reviews – PC Zone, PC Format & PC Answers

Posted on June 14, 2012 by Pix

It’s about time I put something other than magazine scans on here but there is one more batch to finish off 1995. It’s not strictly Origin related but I’ve been running across reviews of the VFX1 and I was curious to see what was made of it at the time. To summarise, they quite liked the hardware but not the price:-

It’s curious how it was assumed this would be first generation VR hardware but it’s more or less as good as it got from a consumer standpoint. I can’t see this sort of tech. ever being mainstream but we are long overdue for a VR resurgence. Speaking of which, I’ve not used my VFX1 since I played Wings Of Glory. It must be time to dig out that copy of Descent.