VW Posted June 2, 2006 Share Posted June 2, 2006 I finally got around to starting Ultima V a mere 18 years late after buying it on Ebay but am having an annoying bug. Every now and then, during saving or at random other disk loading points, the game will ask me to stick in my Player/Underground disk even though it is already inserted. The game seems to lock up at this point as even if other disks are inserted, they are not checked (the disk drive light never comes back on). I am playing this on a 1040STE if that matters. Any help would be appreciated, I am wondering if this is just happening to me or if others have experienced wierdness with this game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted June 3, 2006 Share Posted June 3, 2006 That sounds like it might be a TOS ROM related issue, possibly a media change detection problem... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted June 3, 2006 Share Posted June 3, 2006 I finally got around to starting Ultima V a mere 18 years late after buying it on Ebay but am having an annoying bug. Every now and then, during saving or at random other disk loading points, the game will ask me to stick in my Player/Underground disk even though it is already inserted. The game seems to lock up at this point as even if other disks are inserted, they are not checked (the disk drive light never comes back on). I am playing this on a 1040STE if that matters. Any help would be appreciated, I am wondering if this is just happening to me or if others have experienced wierdness with this game. Hmm, IIRC, the player/underground disk is the one you -can- make a backup copy of? Its been a very long time since I played and beat this game. If so, I'd back it up right away. Another user suggested a TOS problem, maybe media detection. If so, when you change the disk, try hitting <esc> on the keyboard before saving or when it gives that error. Thats how you force TOS to make a media change from the desktop, I just don't know if it will work with a game thats taken over the whole system. HTHs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted June 3, 2006 Share Posted June 3, 2006 Thats how you force TOS to make a media change from the desktop, Ijust don't know if it will work with a game thats taken over the whole system. AFAIK that's not going to help. ESC certainly forces GEM to attempt a media change detect, but I don't think Ultima V is GEM based. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted June 3, 2006 Share Posted June 3, 2006 Thats how you force TOS to make a media change from the desktop, Ijust don't know if it will work with a game thats taken over the whole system. AFAIK that's not going to help. ESC certainly forces GEM to attempt a media change detect, but I don't think Ultima V is GEM based. RIght. Thats why I said, ", I just don't know if it will work with a game thats taken over the whole system." Seriously, I thought it wouldn't hurt to try, but I think you are right... Later... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted June 3, 2006 Share Posted June 3, 2006 (edited) RIght. Thats why I said, ", I just don't know if it will work with a game thats taken over the whole system." Seriously, I thought it wouldn't hurt to try, but I think you are right... Later... Gotcha - it's worth a shot, I just don't recall for sure if it's GEM based or not I'm going to pull out my UV disks here and see if what happens... Edited June 3, 2006 by remowilliams Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted June 3, 2006 Share Posted June 3, 2006 RIght. Thats why I said, ", I just don't know if it will work with a game thats taken over the whole system." Seriously, I thought it wouldn't hurt to try, but I think you are right... Later... Gotcha - it's worth a shot, I just don't recall for sure if it's GEM based or not I'm going to pull out my UV disks here and see if what happens... I can tell you what will happen. You'll start playing it again, drawn in by its wonderful story-line (best of the ST series, IMHO), and we'll not see or hear from you for the next 2-3 months! I always loved that game. I do remember it being disk-access intensive though. In fact, I'm pretty sure I put one of those "cacheing" programs in the AUTO folder of the game. I believe it was "cachennn.prg" where you renamed the "nnn" to whatever size cache you wanted. I think I ran mine at 1/2 meg, 512k...and it made the game much faster. Larger values just seemed to be counter-productive. Of course, this was on an ST that had at least 1 meg of RAM. Have fun, and beware the ShadowLords! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goochman Posted June 4, 2006 Share Posted June 4, 2006 Ult V does have a lockup issue on disk change- You just have to reboot - it shouldnt be 'consistent' and you can finisht the game but it is frustrating. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ijor Posted June 20, 2006 Share Posted June 20, 2006 If somebody can reproduce the behavior under Steem using a Pasti image, I would be interested to check this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted June 20, 2006 Share Posted June 20, 2006 If somebody can reproduce the behavior under Steem using a Pasti image, I would be interested to check this. I'll give it a shot and see what happens. I unfortunately don't have a whole bunch of time (like say to play through it ) at the moment, but I did Pasti image my originals and they did boot correctly under Steem. I'll also now mention again just how cool Pasti is As soon as I can get my hands on an original working Sundog disk (mine sadly has failed ) I'm going to Pasti image that sucker and put an end to this bad crack error nonsense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ijor Posted June 20, 2006 Share Posted June 20, 2006 As soon as I can get my hands on an original working Sundog disk (mine sadly has failed ) I'm going to Pasti image that sucker and put an end to this bad crack error nonsense. Note that Sundog is one of the very few games that you must write to the copy protected disk. So it is a bit tricky to use the Pasti image. In first place, I think you must make a Pasti image of an initiated game (after you entered your name, etc). Then you should (but I didn't test) be able to use the Pasti image without ever writing to it, just use Memory Snapshot to save the game instead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goochman Posted June 20, 2006 Share Posted June 20, 2006 IIRC correctly it is a random event that happened going into or out of towns/castles/dungeons/etc.... I think it cropped up later in the game - I just remember saving alot Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted June 20, 2006 Share Posted June 20, 2006 IIRC correctly it is a random event that happened going into or out of towns/castles/dungeons/etc.... I think it cropped up later in the game - I just remember saving alot Hmm, do you all think this was just a totally random event, or maybe very dependent on hardware? Because I can remember playing this game for literally weeks and months, and I don't remember the problem you're describing. I do remember it was 1 meg 1040 ST and later, a 4 meg 1040 STe that I played it on... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.