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Exult is a Free Software reimplementation of the Ultima VII game engine. It enables play of Ultima VII: The Black Gate and Ultima VII Part 2: Serpent Isle, and their corresponding expansion disks Forge of Virtue and Silver Seed, on modern machines. In order to play these games, data files from the original games are needed. Exult itself is distributed under GNU General Public License. Image File history File links Exult-titlescreen. ...
In software engineering, software maintenance is the process of enhancing and optimizing deployed software (software release), as well as remedying defects. ...
A software release refers to the creation and availability of a new version of a computer software product. ...
June 17 is the 168th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (169th in leap years), with 197 days remaining. ...
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A game engine is the core software component of a computer or video game or other interactive application with real-time graphics. ...
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Ultima VII is the seventh part of the computer role-playing game series Ultima. ...
A game engine is the core software component of a computer or video game or other interactive application with real-time graphics. ...
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History Exult originally started as Ultima VII map viewer for the X Window System, but later, as the reverse engineering efforts became more fruitful in finding explanation on the Ultima VII scripting files, the project expanded to become a complete reimplementation of the Ultima VII runtime engine. KDE 3. ...
Before the project came to fruition, there was a demand for an implementation of Ultima VII. Original Ultima VII executables started to show their age: they were rather difficult to get working on the systems of even their own era due to their memory management configuration, and nowadays, the MS-DOS support in general is getting less and less viable. Reportedly, Origin Systems has also lost the source code to the games, and is not planning on any kinds of rewrites for modern systems. Yet, even today, the game has many fans who would like to play the game on their current systems. Microsofts disk operating system, MS-DOS, was Microsofts implementation of DOS, which was the first popular operating system for the IBM PC, and until recently, was widely used on the PC compatible platform. ...
Origin Systems, Inc. ...
Source code (commonly just source or code) is any series of statements written in some human-readable computer programming language. ...
Operating system support Exult has, over time, grown to be almost exact reimplementation of Ultima VII engine, with some notable improvements. The system has been written in C++ with 32-bit architectures in mind. The graphics code these days uses SDL library, which has led to Exult being ported for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, Sharp Zaurus and other operating systems aside from the original "free *NIX" platforms (such as GNU/Linux and FreeBSD). Formerly, Exult was also supported on BeOS. Unofficial ports exist for Xbox and the GP2X. Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL) is a cross-platform multimedia library that creates an abstraction over various platforms graphics, sound, and input APIs, allowing a developer to write a computer game or other multimedia application once and run it on GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac OS Classic, Mac OS X, BeOS, FreeBSD...
Microsoft Windows is a family of operating systems by Microsoft for use on personal computers, although versions of Windows designed for servers, embedded devices, and other platforms also exist. ...
Mac OS, which stands for Macintosh Operating System, is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Computer for their Macintosh line of computer systems. ...
Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 running OpenZaurus and OPIE, with docking cradle and stylus The Sharp Zaurus is the name of a series of Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) made by Sharp Corporation. ...
Linux (also known as GNU/Linux) is a Unix-like computer operating system. ...
FreeBSD is a Unix-like free operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) branch through 386BSD and 4. ...
BeOS is an operating system for personal computers which began development by Be Incorporated in 1991. ...
The Microsoft Xbox is a sixth generation era video game console first released on November 15, 2001 in North America, then released on February 22, 2002 in Japan, and on March 14, 2002 in Europe. ...
The GP2X is an open-source, Linux-based handheld game console and media player created and sold by GamePark Holdings of South Korea. ...
Enhancements over original games Aside of portability and ability to run on modern operating systems, there are also number of enhancements over original games, such as - unlimited number of savegame slots,
- many usability fixes, including numerous new key shortcuts,
- ability to use Serpent Isle portraits and character paper dolls in Black Gate,
- optional statusbar that displays party member health,
- In-game notebook (in upcoming version),
- Support for increased display resolutions (not necessarily recommended, as it may lead to unexpected problems in game), with high-quality display scalers (2xSaI family and others),
- ability to use digital samples instead of MIDI sounds, and digital music in Ogg Vorbis format instead of MIDI music (Hardware MIDI is supported in Win32; upcoming version also supports ALSA), and support for MIDI software synthesis (through TiMidity; Upcoming version also supports OPL3 emulation and Fluidsynth).
Exult also includes a comprehensive cheat system, similar to the original Ultima VII. In computer and console role-playing games, a paper doll is a way of representing a characters inventory and currently used equipment. ...
2xSaI is a digital image processing algorithm for computer graphics. ...
Musical Instrument Digital Interface, or MIDI, is a system designed to transmit information between electronic musical instruments. ...
This page is about the audio compression codec. ...
Musical Instrument Digital Interface, or MIDI, is a system designed to transmit information between electronic musical instruments. ...
A screenshot of alsamixer ALSA (an acronym for Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) is a Linux kernel component intended to replace the original Open Sound System for providing drivers for sound cards. ...
A software synthesizer, also known as a softsynth or virtual instrument is a computer program for digital audio generation. ...
Timidity is a MIDI and KAR to WAVE converter and player distributed under the terms of GNU general public license. ...
The Yamaha YMF262 also known as the OPL3 (OPL is an acronym for FM Operator Type-L), is an improved version of the sound chip Yamaha YM3812 (OPL2). ...
Exult team members have contributed a large number of custom artwork for the game, primarily to make it possible to use all of the items in Black Gate in a consistent way with the Serpent Isle paper doll graphics.
The upcoming release may also include gameplay fixes to the game usecode itself; effort is underway to fix some of the most troublesome originally unimplemented things in Serpent Isle. Usecode is the common name for the scripting language used in some of the latter Ultima series games, particularly Ultima VII, Ultima VIII and their descendants and spin-offs. ...
Exult 3D There has also been an effort to turn Exult into a 3D game. This code fork is called Exult 3D, and is currently alpha quality software. Exult 3D primarily uses the actual data from the game. All objects in Ultima VII, while generally having a 2D appearance, actually also include height data from which it's possible to create a bounding box. The rewrite of this article is being devised at Talk:3D computer graphics/Temp. ...
In software, a project fork or branch happens when a developer (or a group of them) takes code from a project and starts to develop independently of the rest. ...
In computer graphics and computational geometry, a bounding volume for a set of objects is a closed volume that completely contains the set. ...
Additionally, this version also uses custom 3D models for many things, such as all living things - since these are small and the sprites lack the details - and mountain ranges.
Exult Studio Exult also optionally includes Exult Studio, which is slowly growing into a very complete and complex tool for modifying the game - even while the game is running. Also included are many command-line tools for manipulating game files.
The editor is built as a separate program that can interface with a running instance of Exult. Changing data files is done in Exult Studio window, while the game world - everything from terrain to objects, creatures and their schedules - can be changed directly through game view.
Also included are compiler, assembler and disassembler (the latter is not built by default) for the "usecode" script file. This file drives the actual game logic. There are also tools that can be used to 'rip' data sections from the file; this is particularly of interest for people who wish to change the name and dialogue sections of the game. A diagram of the operation of a typical multi-language compiler. ...
It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Assembly language. ...
It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Disassembly. ...
Usecode is the common name for the scripting language used in some of the latter Ultima series games, particularly Ultima VII, Ultima VIII and their descendants and spin-offs. ...
Scripting programming languages (commonly called scripting languages or script languages) are computer programming languages designed for scripting the operation of a computer. ...
Fan projects based on Exult There are projects to translate Ultima VII to other languages (A Spanish and a Korean fan translation of Black Gate is underway, while a fan translation project to translate Serpent Isle to French is virtually completed).
In theory, it would be possible to create, from scratch, a new game based on Exult engine; however, it is not entirely practical yet. It is quite possible, however, to create a game that is at least in large part based on original Ultima VII data files.
There are currently two such 'modifications' in development by the Exult community. The first is the Keyring modification by Marzo Sette Torres Jr., which adds a new quest to the main storyline, many new characters, and a slew of new features to the game, including NPC spellcasting. The second is The Feudal Lands, a much more ambitious mod based on the Keyring Mod which seeks to merge Ultima VII: The Black Gate and its sequel Serpent Isle, as well as adding a whole new world to the game. Neither mod is at a full release state yet, but the Keyring mod has a public beta release available on the Exult Forum.
See also Pentagram is a Free software project to create a game engine that is capable of running Origin Systems computer role-playing game Ultima VIII: Pagan. ...
Ultima VIII: Pagan (1994) is the eighth part of the computer role-playing game series Ultima. ...
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