09/01: Worthiness Precedes Reward!
Kindest thanks to a generous lad this New Year, Chris from The Artful Gamer parted with a Nintendo DS Lite in an unmatched show of support for our efforts. What could come of this indeed. :)
Version v2.1.8 20071008
A small update, with much requested inverted run/walk and some bug fixes. :)
Now that I've scoured every nook and cranny of Britannia on the psp, think it'll soon be time to follow the unwitting human female Gwenno to the Serpent Isle?
Enjoy!
You spoke, and phantomfighter listened. The few of you inspired enough to rummage through decades of belongings, hoping that cd rot had not yet claimed your beloved Ultima Collection discs, know the rare joy of Ultima VII on the Sony PSP. You also know the unjoy of trying to pick up a 3x3 pixel ring or trying to trigger a hidden lever two pixels wide. ;)
Priorities shifted a bit, and attention was turned to ensuring everyone was able to best enjoy the experience. The most immediate impediment to that complete experience was the analog control. A great deal of effort went into revamping the controls, and testing the new scheme. I played through the entire Forge of Virtue addon under the light of stars tonight, and it's that much better when the controls aren't an obstacle.
I think you'll much appreciate this build.
My kindest thanks to the two virtuous lads thus far who have contributed donations, and an apology, for having to suffer sponsored ads on the site. We are still quite a long way from being able to get phantomfighter a dedicated psp, something much deserved, but with luck, we'll get there.
Better things to come. What's this about a DS port? ;)
Show ya support! Let us know what ya think!
I am, and ever shall be, thy servant Arcadion.
Note: Default .cfg included in package, be careful not to overwrite your own should it exist.
After reading some concerns on several sites, there are a few points I'd like to address.
ExultPSP is *fully* playable, and your save data will work on updated versions. I played a stretch of 5 hours last night without memory running out. The reason this is a concern to begin with, is twofold.
A) PSP has 32 megs of memory, of which the OS uses 8 megs, but you can temporarily sieze 4 megs, which we do for exultPSP (hence the suspend warning, because if you suspend, the OS takes that 4 megs back and wipes it out clean). So we're looking at 28 useable in total, but this doesnt account for Exult's own footprint, which is about 3 megs, not including the memory it requires for it's variables and such leaving us with maybe ~20 to play with. By the time you start the game, we're probably looking at over 9 megs consumed (not including exults own footprint) after the intial graphics, sounds, maps are loaded, that figure of ~20 is roughly halved.
B) Exult has exorbitant memory usage, something not appreciable until you begin looking under the hood. About cache loading throughout gameplay, memory stick read write time can be dreadfully slow. This is why the initial boot takes quite a deal of time. If you happen to be using a bootleg memory stick or a slow sony brand, expect a deficient experience. Exult was programmed with the comfort of hard drive access speed in mind, so certainly there was little effort in making it efficient. By the time Exult starts, it has already actively opened ~18-20 files. This is something the PSP *cannot* even do from memstick (extremely limited number of file handles) which makes Exult on PSP *impossible*, without the filesystem manager PF put in place.
So really, it's no suprise there hasnt been an Exult port since the inception of PSP homebrew.
Sleep mode. We need all the memory we can get, which is why you don't currently have the luxury of sleep mode. It's a fair trade. This will probably be fixed in a future release, if feasible, but because you can save anywhere and exit, it's not high priority.
Analog control will be improved, it isn't linear, but indeed analog. The next release will likely feature an improvement. :)
I hope this spare insight provides a better means to appreciate the massive effort involved in getting Exult running as well as it does even in the first release, on your PSPs. And I hope, those of you who truly enjoy the experience will consider donating a bit so Phantom Fighter, who is poor as Paws :) , can get his own PSP.
Until next time, listen to thine inner voice,
chemical
ExultPSP is *fully* playable, and your save data will work on updated versions. I played a stretch of 5 hours last night without memory running out. The reason this is a concern to begin with, is twofold.
A) PSP has 32 megs of memory, of which the OS uses 8 megs, but you can temporarily sieze 4 megs, which we do for exultPSP (hence the suspend warning, because if you suspend, the OS takes that 4 megs back and wipes it out clean). So we're looking at 28 useable in total, but this doesnt account for Exult's own footprint, which is about 3 megs, not including the memory it requires for it's variables and such leaving us with maybe ~20 to play with. By the time you start the game, we're probably looking at over 9 megs consumed (not including exults own footprint) after the intial graphics, sounds, maps are loaded, that figure of ~20 is roughly halved.
B) Exult has exorbitant memory usage, something not appreciable until you begin looking under the hood. About cache loading throughout gameplay, memory stick read write time can be dreadfully slow. This is why the initial boot takes quite a deal of time. If you happen to be using a bootleg memory stick or a slow sony brand, expect a deficient experience. Exult was programmed with the comfort of hard drive access speed in mind, so certainly there was little effort in making it efficient. By the time Exult starts, it has already actively opened ~18-20 files. This is something the PSP *cannot* even do from memstick (extremely limited number of file handles) which makes Exult on PSP *impossible*, without the filesystem manager PF put in place.
So really, it's no suprise there hasnt been an Exult port since the inception of PSP homebrew.
Sleep mode. We need all the memory we can get, which is why you don't currently have the luxury of sleep mode. It's a fair trade. This will probably be fixed in a future release, if feasible, but because you can save anywhere and exit, it's not high priority.
Analog control will be improved, it isn't linear, but indeed analog. The next release will likely feature an improvement. :)
I hope this spare insight provides a better means to appreciate the massive effort involved in getting Exult running as well as it does even in the first release, on your PSPs. And I hope, those of you who truly enjoy the experience will consider donating a bit so Phantom Fighter, who is poor as Paws :) , can get his own PSP.
Until next time, listen to thine inner voice,
chemical
