Ultima VII Speed Limiting Solutions Compared
0Ultima VII - The Black Gate is a classic RPG, one of the best ever made, but it can be rather difficult to get running on original hardware. The game was released in 1992 for PC-compatible computers running DOS. It did not run in Windows. For its release the game demanded high-end hardware of the time, a 486 and a decent graphics card, to run at anything more than a snail's pace.
However, Ultima VII has no speed-limiting capabilities. It will run faster and faster as the CPU speed and capabilities increase. By the time the very popular 486DX2/66MHz became a mainstream CPU, the CPU was pushing Ultima VII into unplayable territory. The ideal CPU to use with Ultima VII is supposedly a 486DX/33MHz, but even that CPU can suffer slowdown when a lot of action is occurring on the screen.
I begin with my MS-DOS machine a 486DX2/66 with 16MB of RAM and a Diamond Stealth 24 VLB card. The hard drive is a compact flash card and the sound card uses the YMF-719 chip. I have recorded "a lap around the Trinsic Fellowship Hall" three times with this machine :
0:00 - The first is with the fastest memory timings available (this machine does not have L2 cache).
0:25 - The second is with the slowest memory timings available.
0:57 - The third is with a frame-limiting patch by NewRisingSun.
Next, I have pressed my Windows 98SE machine into service. This machine has a Coppermine Pentium III 600/100MHz, an ASUS P3B-F and 512MB of SDRAM. It's graphics card is a Voodoo 3 3000 PCI and its sound card is a Diamond Monster Sound MX300 (which butchers the Adlib music at times). I have also recorded the "lap" three times here :
1:23 - The first (fourth sequence in this video) is with no speed adjustment in real-mode DOS.
1:48 - The second is using the U7WIN9X patch that was devised to allow Ultima VII to run in Windows 9x.
2:14 - The third is NewRisingSun's frame limiting patch in real-mode DOS.
Each time I recorded the "lap" video, I recorded for approximately 25 seconds.
These are not the only speed limiting solutions for Ultima VII - The Black Gate. For the 486 you can cut down on the animations by using a slower ISA-based graphics card. You can also reduce the speed of the FSB from 33MHz to 20MHz, thereby giving a DX2 a CPU clock of 40MHz. For a very fast (1GHz or better) Pentium III, disabling the CPU cache can make the speed playable, but you will need a community patch called U7DCP to prevent Ultima VII from inadvertently re-enabling the cache when it loads. Disabling the cache on the Pentium III 600 will slow the system down so much the game will barely be able to load.
Ultima VII - Part Two: The Serpent Isle has a frame limiter built into its original code, so speed issues like these do not appear in that game.
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