		NICER COLORS FOR ULTIMA 2 AND 3
		===============================


Most people who play Ultima 2 and 3 from the Ultima Encore CD today probably
don't have CGA or EGA graphic adapters installed, they will usually have at
least a standard VGA adapter.
Most people probably also dislike the ugly colors both games are using.
They are from the standard CGA Palette #1, containing cyan, magenta and white.
Nearly all CGA games use this palette, since Palette #0, while containing 
the saner colors red and green, does not include white and has an ugly brown
instead.
On a VGA, however, we are still stuck to 4 colors for CGA modes (or 3 not
counting the background), but not to cyan and magneta. By simply reprogramming
the video DAC registers of the VGA via standard INT 10h calls, function 10h,
subfunction 10h, we can use whatever color we want of the 2^18 possible in
standard VGA modes. Then we use INT 10h, function 12h, subfunction 31h to tell
the adapter we want to keep the palette and DAC registers over mode changes.
This method can be used for all CGA games.
Here I employed it for Ultima 2 and 3. I think it gives both a much better
appeareance and should make emulators less necessary. Just run the right
program before starting the game, or put both in a batch file. You'll still
need moslo!

Hint to Origin Systems: If you ever release the games again, maybe in a new
collection 1-9, here's your chance to make them a bit prettier without messing
around in old code. U2 looks ok I guess, U3 also took a few changes in block
colors (most of the graphical blocks were made white to avoid the ugly CGA
colors, but now, as we have red, why shouldn't lava be red? ) For this reason
I have also included an updated Ultima-3 SHAPES.ULT file.
This should just be copied over your old U3\SHAPES.ULT file. Note that to do so
you have to have the game installed on the Hard Disk, you can't use it directly
off the CD. It's not perfect but IMHO improves apperance quite a bit.
Also there's two small batch files to start the games, note the moslo values
are from a DX2/66, you might want to use lower or higher values.
Don't forget to apply Moonstone Dragons Ultima 2 galactic patch as well,
otherwise the maps will be partially screwed up later in the game. 


Have fun, and mail me for bug reports or comments.

Linards Ticmanis

-=UDIC=-

Finire Dragon.

mailto:ticmani@reze-1.rz.rwth-aachen.de

<bribe> me. I'll leave.
