Ultima 2 Upgrade

Overview

The Ultima 2 Upgrade is a patch for Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress that adds the following features:

  • The ability to switch between three video modes with new tile sets:
    • CGA 4-color mode
    • CGA Composite 16-color mode (emulated)
    • EGA 16-color mode
  • Additional custom EGA tilesets including:
    • A Commodore 64 tileset
    • Wiltshire Dragon’s EGA tileset for Ultima 4
  • Improvements to character creation:
    • Ability to start a new game
    • No more “player disk” messages
  • Improvements to saved games:
    • Ability to save your game while on board a vehicle & on galactic maps
    • Ability to disable the AutoSave feature
    • Saved games stored separately in PLAYER.U2 folder
  • New hotkeys: Restore (ALT-R), Exit (ALT-X), and Main Menu (ALT-M)
  • A Frame Limiter that ensures the game runs at a reasonable rate on today’s processors
  • Complete conversion of text to lower-case
  • Includes other common fan patches:
    • Moonstone Dragon‘s Map Patch (release 10/3/97)
    • Micro Dragon’s Speed Fix (release 2)
  • Several bugfixes in the original:
    • A bug where attributes would roll beyond 99 (and back to 00)
    • A bug where time gates could corrupt the terrain
    • A bug where high stats would reset vendor prices

Future enhancements might entail adding support for VGA (256-color) graphics, improving sound effect timing, and/or enhancing the interface to resemble the Apple II Enhanced release.

Installation

U2 Upgrade Installation – v2.1

Unpack the zip file into the Ultima 2 directory on your hard drive.

  1. Run the following program to patch the game, depending on your O/S:
    • Windows: u2upw (Can be launched directly from explorer)
    • DOS: u2up
  2. Edit dosbox.conf (dosboxULTIMA2.conf for GOG) and change these values:
    • cycles=10000 (or greater)
    • cputype=auto
  3. Run ULTIMA2.COM in DOSBOX to start the game.
    • For GOG, edit dosboxULTIMA2_single.conf and change the line that
      reads ‘ultimaII.exe’ to ‘ULTIMA2.COM’.

Optional Steps:

  • Run the following program to change the default configuration:
    • Windows: u2cfgw (Can be launched directly from explorer)
    • DOS: u2cfg

If upgrading from U2 Upgrade v1.1:

  • Do NOT use ‘u2reset’, ‘rengal’, ‘cgapatch’ or ‘dngpatch’ from v1.1. These tools are now obsolete and incompatible with the Upgrade patch.
  • DPMI is no longer needed to run the Upgrade tools.
  • The install may fail from v1.1 if not all patches (cgapatch, dngpatch) were applied. If so you will need to apply them or reinstall the game.

If upgrading from floppy releases:

  • Please copy only the Program Master to the hard drive. The Upgrade will add any/all needed data files from the Player and Galactic disks.
  • The Ultima Trilogy I-II-III (1989) is currently the only supported floppy release.

Media

U2 Upgrade Media

Screenshots

Below is an images gallery of the CGA and EGA video modes. There are 20 images total in the gallery.

Release Log

U2 Upgrade Release Log

Release 2.1 – 2018-06-15

This is a feature release of the U2 Upgrade, which includes the following:

  • CGA Composite mode emulation (read more)
  • An EGA theme that resembles the Commodore 64 tileset (read more)
  • The ability for the player to choose which stat to boost (read more)
  • Ability to apply upgrade to Ultima Trilogy 1-2-3 1989 floppy release. See the install instructions to upgrade from a floppy release.

And two bugfixes concerning stat boosts:

  • A bug where high stats would adversely impact on shop prices (read more)
  • A 0-gold exploit to boost stats (read more)

 

Full Release Log…

Credits

U2 Upgrade Credits

  • Thanks to those before me who have contributed to Ultima II: Micro Dragon for his U2 Speed Fix, Moonstone Dragon for supplying us with the U2 Galaxy Maps, and John Alderson for adding comments to much of the assembly code in his U2 for Windows project. Their work has saved me a lot of time.
  • Thanks to the Ultima Dragons for just being the outspoken group that they are.
  • And thanks especially to Richard Garriott for creating Ultima II & III in CGA and forcing us to play it on RGB monitors, thus inspiring me to learn assembly. 😉

Download

Downloads of all patches are available on the Downloads page.

Please note that Ultima is a registered trademark of Electronic Arts (EA). This project is not affiliated with nor endorsed by EA. You must own a legal copy of Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress in order to apply this patch.