Okay, I've been trying for an hour and a half now but there seems to be no way to get the upgrade working properly. I've used the upgrades of the Exodus project for Ultima 2 and 3 and they worked perfectly, but no matter what I do, the Ultima 4 Upgrade from Moongates.com just doesn't work.

So first I tried applying the patch the way that is described in the readme: extract the archive into the Ultima 4 folder, run Setup.bat (from Windows), choose the soundcard for the music, run the game via Ultima.com. No matter whether I run it in Windows (XP) or through DosBox: the music plays but the graphics are the EGA ones and the game does not react to any input. If I run the "switch" file the game does properly return to its original version.

I've also tried everything found in this guide. I've created a character in the unpatched version, saved the game and applied the patch afterwards. I've also tried Pix's Ultima Patcher, I even tried installing the patch through DosBox with the special DOS-version of avpatch.exe and the DPMI files. The results are always exactly the same: music plays, graphics are EGA, game won't react to any input. I've even redownloaded all the files, even from different sources, but nothing changes.

Out of curiosity I've also tried running avatar.exe, in that case I see the prettier VGA graphics but neither music nor the shortcuts from the upgrade (such as ALT+X etc.) work in that case.

I'm really lost here.

That's... weird...

Give me a few minutes to try and test it all out.

EDIT::
I noticed the Codex guide said you have to create and save a character before applying the patch or it'll render the game unplayable. Did you do that? I need to verify that before anything else.

Yup, as stated above. Followed all the steps including the character creation and saving *before* applying the patch.

But dang, something weird happened: it works. It's very weird. I just ran the game in my own DosBox configuration and encountered the error as always. The game reacted to pressing the space bar to skip the intro but then, as before, it wouldn't accept any input. Next time I ran it it did not even react to the space bar. Then I ran it again, tried another key to skip the intro and title (some random letter, 'J' or 'K') which actually brought me to the main menu and then the game did accept other input, I actually got into the game and even the shortcuts from the upgrade (such as ALT+X and ALT+R) work properly. Then I copied my *.sav files over to the GOG installation, applied the patch there and again: it works.

I don't think that I am crazy since another user here also stated that he has input issues, he said that the game stops reacting to input once he presses one of the F-keys or uses an ALT+<letter> combination (something that other users didn't seem to observe for their installations).

The question is what caused the error. I mean, it's not about DosBox since the game showed the same behaviour when running "ultima.com" directly from Windows, it did never occur with the unpatched version or patched versions of Ultima 2 or 3. Also the same instance of DosBox where Ultima 4 would not react to any input would allow playing Ultima 3 first and entering dos prompt commands necessary to run Ultima 4. It also wasn't about capslock or something, I made sure it was off. I have absolutely no idea what causes this problem. I'm wondering whether it will occur again - if it happens again I will post it here and try to include all details that may provide helpful in analyzing the problem.

I have to correct one thing about my previous observation though: there probably wasn't any issues with the sprites not getting changed. I assumed that the version with the VGA patch would already load the VGA sprites for the title screen (as it was the case with the upgrades for Ultima 2 and 3 from the Exodus Project) while in fact I just didn't get far enough to get to see the improved sprites. So the only problem was the issue with input not being recognized.

I ran into this issue a few months back. With the patch installed, if you press a cursor key in the title screen the game stops accepting keyboard input but if you confine yourself to letters it works ok.

This is it! Holy fuck. I can't believe it. Does that mean that each single time I skipped the intro and title screen I used the cursor keys??? It's friggin' impossible! :D But it's true... whether I use letters, enter or the space bar - the game works... in-friggin'-credible... thanks for pointing that out.

Now I really regret that I forgot making this a "question" thread, so I can't mark your post as the solution. Anyway, great thanks!

Btw: You get bonus points for having an avatar that reminds of a show that I loved watching as a kid and haven't seen or heard of ever since. :D No need to test it out anymore. As Pix pointed out: the game does not react to any input when pressing one of the cursor keys before being in-game. I tried all three screens - the intro, the title and the main menu, it's always the same. Once in the game there's no input issues at all.

Reply 1: Oh what the...? I read your post and somehow skipped that... Reply 2: Excellent, getting the game to work properly is what this was all about anyway. So not having to test it doesn't bother me at all. :)

Hmm, I've done the same thing as far as extracting the files and updating to the latest avpatch file and I still get the EGA graphics and no music. One thing I noticed is that I can't run the SETUP.BAT from Windows 7. It says it's not compatible with 64bit. But, it runs fine through DOSBox. It doesn't matter if I run ultima.com or avatar.exe. Both ways it just starts the EGA game. I'm lost as to what to try next.

Any ideas?

Problem is that setup.bat calls avpatch.exe program which is Windows executable, so if you run it under dosbox, it does not work.

To fix this, you must:

1. Install clean Ultima IV installation
2. Extract patch files to the Ultima IV directory, but DO NOT use setup.bat
3. Under dosbox, run setm.exe to set up the soundcard
4. Without using dosbox run avpatch.exe
5. finally, run swtich.bat under dosbox

That should set up it correctly.

Super old post here, but curious if anyone can help.

I got the music and upgraded tileset as well as the various fixes, but the opening cut scene still looks the same. The patch website says that there are upgraded cut scenes. Did I mess a step or are they not included anymore?

This is normal behavior. The intro sequence is a separate executable, and is not changed by the patch. The upgraded cut scenes refers to ingame scenes, such as the scenes during character creation, and visions received from the shrines.

Thanks! I had seen an upgraded intro scene elsewhere (I believe it may be for the C64 version), so I assumed something wasn't working right.

11 years later your post is still as helpful as ever! I was going nuts trying to troubleshoot this problem.