Ultima IX: Ascension

Hi!

I'm currently playing Ultima IX with wine-devel (7.21 I think... from winehq ubuntu packages) and the only thing that does not work is movies. (They are just skipped.)

Also there's a plot hole if you re-enter despise after already leaving it once and talking to Raven, in that case she will stay at the exit of descpise and never be at the docks. This makes it impossible to complete the game. (To avoid the plot hole, you should not re-enter despise, at least not until you've been to Buccaneer's Den, I guess.) I seem to remember that this plot hole also exists in 1.18f on windows and is not related to wine.

This may be fixed in the fan-made dialog patch, which I didn't apply this time.

This runs fine at full 2k laptop resolution and the farthest rendering distance (remote objects look really great... close ones not so much).

Will update my old review after I've played the whole game (which I think will work).

Forgot to mention chroma key = 0 is still necessary but books are completely readable.

Holding the X key will cause a tool tip to display for whatever item the cursor is pointing at. So, you'll know where the cursor is if you recognize the item (just a bit of practice to differentiate one bag from an adjacent bag, for example, will be required). The cursor can be moved while holding X. This should be sufficient for normal inventory management.

Any item you can pick up, temporarily acts as a cursor until you drop it. This is the most useful if you grab the wrong item in your inventory; just move it over the item you wanted to grab and let go of the item you didn't want. The item wil return but the invisible cursor will remain stationary.

As suggested by others, open the Journal/Spellbook/Book to the item you need to point at. Point at it with your finger (your real finger, on the screen). Close the journal (ESC key). The screen may move just a bit, note the direction if it does. Still keeping your finger on the screen, press Q to enter u9's cursor mode. Now move the cursor under your finger slightly adjusting to account for any movement that occurred just after closing the book. Open the book again, your cursor should be on the item that was under you finger.

Setting MultiPassChromakey to "2" will show the cursor on some systems, but of course then you can't see text. But, this is still useful to buy and sell items from shopkeepers (when your real finger won't help. See previous suggestion above). With text readable, Note the Shopkeepers dialog and which one you'll want to select. Quit, change the Options.ini (MultiPassChromakey to "2"). Run u9 and used number keys to select the unreadable dialogs that you remembered (pressing 1 selects the top dialog choice, 2 for the 2nd down, etc). Quit and change MultiPassChromakey back to to "0" to continue play with readable text.

Play on a touchscreen device.

VNC or another desktop sharing service can be used from a touchscreen device (another PC or Android) to effectively play u9 using touchscreen during inventory management and shopping (where low frame rate on the client shouldn't be much of a problem).

VNC or another desktop sharing service can be used from another device with a cursor interface if the client has a "show local cursor" option. This can help during inventory management and shopping (where low frame rate on the client shouldn't be much of a problem).

A screen magnifier application that "follows the cursor" may effectively reveal cursor position when running u9. If it does not work when u9 is running in fullscreen (as default), use winecfg. Add u9.exe to the list of applications. Select u9.exe and in the graphics tab, check "[x] Emulate a virtual desktop" and set it to the same resolution that u9 is running at ("GameScreenWidth=####" and "GameScreenHeight=####" in the Options.ini). Note, this will run u9 in a window. To switch to full screen, use F11 (this undecorates/unframes and resizes a window to 'full screen'. But it is still a window). If you are planing to play continuously this way (as opposed to using this workaround for shops on occasion) you'll probably want to change your desktop resolution to match.
The Compiz magnifier works for some systems.
I prefer Virtual Magnifying Glass (low resource reqs) magnifier.sourceforge.net/