Technical Support

This page is for some of the technical problems of the game that really don't have anything to do with gameplay itself. Most of these were issues with the original version of the game for MS-DOS and trying to run it on Win95/98. If you're trying to play this on a more modern system, please check out the version sold by gog.com - https://www.gog.com/game/ultima_8_gold_edition. They also provide a support page for common issues (https://www.gog.com/support/ultima_8_gold_edition) as well as a forum for discussing issues with the game (https://www.gog.com/forum/ultima_series).

Q: What does the patch do for the game anyway?

A: Since this is a rather lengthy answer, please click here for a complete list of all the fixes to the game. This is a copy of the text file that comes with the patch.

Q: How long is the Ritual of Internment with Vividos and Lothian supposed to last? The screen shakes for hours!

A: First make sure the settings on your sound card are correct (ie: I/O, IRQ, DMA). If they are, this is an incompatibility with your sound card. Temporarily disable your sound card, and play this part of the game again. It should play through normally. The ritual is only supposed to last a few minutes. As soon as you regain control, save your game, exit, re-enable your soundcard, and continue playing. This is the only part of the game that's been reported to have this happen. If anyone finds another place where this happens, please let me know ASAP, as I've never had this problem.

Q:I keep getting the error, "you must have a Microsoft compatible mouse installed"

A: This is a problem that seems to be mostly with running the game in Win95/98's MS-DOS mode. The reason this is happening is because Windows automatically detects your mouse driver, and therefore doesn't need a startup line for it in your autoexec.bat, but DOS does. The solution to this can be done by adding your mouse startup line to a file in the Windows directory called dosstart.bat. The startup line for all mouses is generally the same, following the example below:

LH C:\mouse\mouse.exe

The pathname or execution file may be different, so look in your computer's directory for the appropriate ones and replace them. If you don't have a mouse driver, try looking on it's manufacturer's webpage for the latest one.

Q:Even though you say that the answers to Xavier's questions are in the Monstary, I can't find the books with them anywhere!

A: The patch adds these books to the game. Like I said at the beginning of my webpage, I assume that you have the patch installed, and wrote the cluebook accordingly.

Q:Why doesn't Korick acknowledge that I have the silver ore when I know I got the right kind from Argentrock Isle?

A:One known fix for this reported to me (thanks to Rodrigo) is to remove every item from your inventory EXCEPT the silver ore. Just place everything else on the ground temporarily and try talking to him. If this isn't working, make sure you have the patched version of the game installed. Otherwise, you may have just missed something.

Q:Why do I keep getting the a "Files=40" error message with my boot disk, even though I have the Files=40 line in the boot disks config.sys?

A:While this may seem strange, make sure that the config.sys on your harddrive that's used for normal bootup has the Files=40 line also. Although the computer is supposed to ignore the config.sys on your harddrive when using a bootdisk, Win98 doesn't seem to want to (at least for this game).