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Ultima seriesDOSbox speed(9 posts)solved(9 posts)solved
(9 posts)solved
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Posted July 22, 2013
I'm finding Ultima 5 is running too quickly on my Mac. Is there any way of decreasing the speed? The DOSbox seems embedded in the game program - I don't know how to open it up separately to adjust it.

Thanks.
This question / problem has been solved by HiPhishimage
Posted July 22, 2013
CTRL-F11 to reduce speed, CTRL-F12 to increase speed.
Can also be adjusted by editing the Ultima 5 CONF file.
Posted July 22, 2013
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PetrusOctavianus: CTRL-F11 to reduce speed, CTRL-F12 to increase speed.
Can also be adjusted by editing the Ultima 5 CONF file.
Thanks!
Posted July 22, 2013
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PetrusOctavianus: CTRL-F11 to reduce speed, CTRL-F12 to increase speed.
Can also be adjusted by editing the Ultima 5 CONF file.
On my Mac, Ctrl-F11 just decreases the volume, and does nothing to the speed. How do I edit the Ultima 5 CONF file?
Posted July 22, 2013
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PetrusOctavianus: CTRL-F11 to reduce speed, CTRL-F12 to increase speed.
Can also be adjusted by editing the Ultima 5 CONF file.
avatar
nradke: On my Mac, Ctrl-F11 just decreases the volume, and does nothing to the speed. How do I edit the Ultima 5 CONF file?
Located it in the Ultima 5 folder, same folder as the GOG installaton files. I don't have U5 myself, so I can't be more specific.
Find this part of the CONF file:

[cpu]
# core -- CPU Core used in emulation: normal,simple,dynamic,auto.
# auto switches from normal to dynamic if appropriate.
# cycles -- Amount of instructions DOSBox tries to emulate each millisecond.
# Setting this value too high results in sound dropouts and lags.
# You can also let DOSBox guess the correct value by setting it to max.
# The default setting (auto) switches to max if appropriate.
# cycleup -- Amount of cycles to increase/decrease with keycombo.
# cycledown Setting it lower than 100 will be a percentage.

core=auto
cycles=max
cycleup=500
cycledown=20

You may want to change max to a set amount, like for example 1000 (which is more than enough on a modern PC).

You can also change what keys DosBox uses by hitting F1 (at least on a PC). So you could assign some other keys to adjust the CPU cycles on the fly.
Post edited July 22, 2013 by PetrusOctavianus
Posted July 22, 2013
I don't have the standalone Mac version at hand, so I can't check. the game is runnign in "Boxer Standalone", which is a standalone version of Boxer, meant to create ship-able games rather than a tweakable emulator. The easiest solution (and what I personally do) is to get Boxer and then get the gamebox out of the package.

First of all download Boxer from the official website. Boxer is pretty much DOSBox with a sensible interface:
http://boxerapp.com
Launch it and it should create a folder for yur DOS games (you can change the defualt location). Now right-click Ultima 5.app -> Show Package Contents -> and now you have to find a file that ends with .boxer, I can't remember the exact path anymore. Once you have found it you just need to double-click it and it plays in Boxer. You can copy it to your DOS games folder and throw the rest of ultima 5.app away. In the lower left corner or the window ther eis a magnifying glass that lets you tweak the settings of the gamebox.

There is even a screenshot of Ultima 5 on the website of Boxer:
http://abestor.webfactional.com/static/images/screenshots/ultima5.png?v2
Post edited July 22, 2013 by HiPhish
Posted July 22, 2013
avatar
nradke: On my Mac, Ctrl-F11 just decreases the volume, and does nothing to the speed. How do I edit the Ultima 5 CONF file?
avatar
PetrusOctavianus: Located it in the Ultima 5 folder, same folder as the GOG installaton files. I don't have U5 myself, so I can't be more specific.
Find this part of the CONF file:

[cpu]
# core -- CPU Core used in emulation: normal,simple,dynamic,auto.
# auto switches from normal to dynamic if appropriate.
# cycles -- Amount of instructions DOSBox tries to emulate each millisecond.
# Setting this value too high results in sound dropouts and lags.
# You can also let DOSBox guess the correct value by setting it to max.
# The default setting (auto) switches to max if appropriate.
# cycleup -- Amount of cycles to increase/decrease with keycombo.
# cycledown Setting it lower than 100 will be a percentage.

core=auto
cycles=max
cycleup=500
cycledown=20

You may want to change max to a set amount, like for example 1000 (which is more than enough on a modern PC).

You can also change what keys DosBox uses by hitting F1 (at least on a PC). So you could assign some other keys to adjust the CPU cycles on the fly.
I appreciate the help. On a Mac, I only have one file available to me in the folder - the U5 exe file, which has the DOSbox already embedded in it. That's the problem with user-friendly computers - they limit what you can do yourself. Thanks anyway, though.
Posted July 22, 2013
avatar
HiPhish: I don't have the standalone Mac version at hand, so I can't check. the game is runnign in "Boxer Standalone", which is a standalone version of Boxer, meant to create ship-able games rather than a tweakable emulator. The easiest solution (and what I personally do) is to get Boxer and then get the gamebox out of the package.

First of all download Boxer from the official website. Boxer is pretty much DOSBox with a sensible interface:
http://boxerapp.com
Launch it and it should create a folder for yur DOS games (you can change the defualt location). Now right-click Ultima 5.app -> Show Package Contents -> and now you have to find a file that ends with .boxer, I can't remember the exact path anymore. Once you have found it you just need to double-click it and it plays in Boxer. You can copy it to your DOS games folder and throw the rest of ultima 5.app away. In the lower left corner or the window ther eis a magnifying glass that lets you tweak the settings of the gamebox.

There is even a screenshot of Ultima 5 on the website of Boxer:
http://abestor.webfactional.com/static/images/screenshots/ultima5.png?v2
That worked like a charm - thanks again. I appreciate the time you spent on this.
Posted July 23, 2013
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nradke: ...
I just tried the Mac version and the speed is correct for me. Did you by any chance turn on fast forward? Chack under Emulation, there you can speed up or pause the game and send key commands. Another problem could be if you set the rendering sytyle to smooth or retro, the game can slow down and keyboard presses start accumulating making it look like the game is running too fast, even though it's actually running too slow. At least my machine seems too slow to run those fancy shaders, the ones in plain Boxer work fine. thes same thinghappens in OpenEmu, my Mac can't handle most of the shaders there either.
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Ultima seriesDOSbox speed(9 posts)solved(9 posts)solved
(9 posts)solved