Basic Starting Issues

[Talroth]

Ok, I haven't seen anything like this in the FAQ (Or I missed it when I was half asleep last night) and I don't see anything in the forums.

so, when I try to run Exult, I get the intro and that, and then get to the part where I can start character/game and that, try either of them and then I get to this screen that looks like really old attemps to look like explosions (red, black dots in fairly ramdom look) these sorta shift/pulsate for a bit, slow down, and then stops altogether.

I'm running 100mhz, win 95, tried in nearly all my resolutions/color and that. ( I have like 60mb ram, unsure of most of the rest)

so, this is really stopping me from playing the game, it not working beyond intro.

Also, I found an error with full screen and my mouse, where it would keep clicking the introduction botton on its own when exult was run at full screen, but found the way around that,... run it in windowed.

thanks.

[wjp]

> Also, I found an error with full screen and my mouse, where it would keep
> clicking the introduction botton on its own when exult was run at full screen,
> but found the way around that,... run it in windowed.

This sounds as if the enter key is 'stuck'. A quick search of the SDL mailing list shows that this is a bug in some recent versions of SDL.


As for the crash: what are the contents of the generated stderr.txt?

[Talroth]

ok, odd, I can't find an "stderr.txt" file (Maybe there was something wrong with the download? which download file should I have used for a win95 computer?)

I can find a "stdout.txt" file in the exult folder
*Contents of Stout.txt:

Exult version 1.00
Built at: Nov 5 2002 00:12:01
Compile-time options: NO_SDL_PARACHUTE, HAVE_ZIP_SUPPORT
Compiler: Microsoft C/C++ Compiler, version: 12.0.8804

Platform: Windows 95 B Version 4.0 Build 1111
Data path = data/
2 Midi Devices Detected
Listing midi devices:
-1: MIDI Mapper
0: Soundscape MIDI Synth (330)
1: Soundscape MIDI Out (330)
Using device -1: MIDI Mapper
Internal Win32 Midiout Midi Player for Exult and Pentagram.
is_installed: 'D:\games\Ultima\ULTIMA7\static\endgame.dat': no
is_installed: '.\static\sispeech.spc' : no

*end

I'm starting to think I either misread something on the main page/s and downloaded the wrong thing, or someone has the wrong files set for downloading maybe,...

any help?

(where should stderr.txt be anyway?)

[wjp]

"the generated stderr.txt" <-- stderr.txt is generated by Exult, so you didn't (and shouldn't have) download(ed) it.

Try the following:
delete stdout.txt and stderr.txt if they exist.
run exult and make it crash.
see if stdout.txt/stderr.txt exist. (and list the contents of stderr.txt here)

[Talroth]

ok, tried that, (Thanks for the help so far by the way)

Game auto-quit with: Runtime Error: Program:D:\games\ultima\exult.exe Abnormal program termination

**thats where I have it installed, so I know thats working atleast,...

now it spit out:

stderr.txt:
*
Exception attempting to load Serpent Isle 'paperdol.vga', 'gumps.vga' or 'shapes.vga'
Do you have Serpent Isle and is the correct path set in the config for Serpent Isle?
Support for 'Serpent Isle' Paperdolls and Multiracial Avatars in 'Black Gate' DISABLED.
Digital SFX's file specified: jmsfx.flx... but file not found
*end

and

stdout.txt:
*
Exult version 1.00
Built at: Nov 5 2002 00:12:01
Compile-time options: NO_SDL_PARACHUTE, HAVE_ZIP_SUPPORT
Compiler: Microsoft C/C++ Compiler, version: 12.0.8804

Platform: Windows 95 B Version 4.0 Build 1111
Data path = data/
2 Midi Devices Detected
Listing midi devices:
-1: MIDI Mapper
0: Soundscape MIDI Synth (330)
1: Soundscape MIDI Out (330)
Using device -1: MIDI Mapper
Internal Win32 Midiout Midi Player for Exult and Pentagram.
is_installed: 'D:\ULTIMA7\static\endgame.dat': yes
is_installed: '.\static\sispeech.spc' : no
Starting a BLACK GATE game
Current path settings:
Static : D:\ULTIMA7\static
Gamedat : D:\ULTIMA7\gamedat
Savegame: D:\ULTIMA7
Patch : none

Gamedat identity ULTIMA7
Loading exult.flx...
Loading /exult_bg.flx...
Loading default keybindings
*end

I'm thinking I have something set for that serpent Isle game (what is the difference anyway? I just came accross this game by chance here awhile ago) so what do I have to edit to get it to not try to load serpent Isle? (I think I know, so I'll play with it, but I would still like someone who knows what they are actually doing,... oddly I have made my own C++ games, but not really sure WHY they work yet)

Thanks.

[Talroth]

Ok, got it to play the game last night, but its running slow, and mouse control is very choppy. So, is 100hmz fast enough to run it, or am I wasteing my time?

What settings would be best for a very low in computer? (I'm not playing it with sound or music, as they are not working on my computer at the moment anyway) How do you disable the scaler?

(found it very interesting playing at full screen,... wouldn't center on my guy but would keep the screen moving around the world,... very nice detail that they added, some things I saw there that you don't even see in new games. *Like tides that don't always come to the same lenght each time they come in, and that*)

Also, I found I can't pick up anything, (I can look in a bag in the stables, and flip a coin, but he puts it right back,...)

Thanks,

[nadir]

in the game, press ESC, select video options and set the scaling to x1

[DirtyHairy]

Thats somehow OT, but: wjp, you say thak some sort of key-jamming bug is mentioned in the SDL-mailinglist. Does this just apply to the enter-key, or to all keys? I'm having trouble with key-jamming when pressing multiple keys in the starcontrol 2 remake "ur-quan masters", and after some messing around with the source and signing a bug report, I've got the impression this might be a SDL-bug...

[wjp]

This was enter-specific, I think. (And specifically with enter being stuck on startup)

As for UQM, their input code was overly complex (IMHO) last time I looked (several months ago). My guess would be it's one of their bugs and not SDL's, but to make sure you could try using SDL_GetKeyState() to see if SDL thinks a key is up or down.

[Dirty Hairy]

Well, I already replaced the original input code with something that uses SDL_GetKeyState() to check if one of the keys is up or down, and it didn"t help. Still, it may be the bug is hiding somewhere deeper within their control system, I didn't have the time to look deeper into the bowels of their code. Time to give up, sit back and hope that it eventually fixes itself, I think...