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UBIK - anybody played this oldie?

PostPosted: Mon Jun 06, 2005 3:35 am
by BR796164
I have discovered a copy of UBIK game few days back in a game store, for like, $2. Because I'm a PKD fan, and I've read a good review on it long years back, I decided to give it a try.

Basically, it's a tactical squad-based RTS with amazing cinematics (for it's time - 1998, anyways).

Mega-corporations. Cryonics, Colonies in space. And an ongoing war of industrial espionage surrounding a mysterious project... Set in a 3D universe of decline and decadence, this game place you face-to-face with gangs of greedy agents who are fighting a vicious battle for information, power and money.
All in real-time 3D, these agents use a startling array of weapons and even psychic powers. You are in charge. Put together the right team, lead your squad and balance mindpower with firepower.
Act fast. In the world of Ubik, trouble knows where you are!


I think this is a must play for every hard core PKD fan, because it really reflects the feeling of the book and gives very nice shapes to author's visions.

I am quite disturbed over the fact that, as it usually is with oldies, it doesn't run as it should. I tried it on Win XP, under which it runs using Win 95 compatibility mode. But not too well. Cinematics are playing fine, but after they finish, the graphics get corrupted - image will fall apart to stripes. I have to minimize it to taskbar, then maximize and everything is okay for a while - until another cinematic overlays the 3D game scene and corrupts it again.
There are many FMVs in the game, so minimizing every 5-10 minutes becomes quite annoying duty. I tried the game on another computer with Windows ME, with the same graphic errors. The game requires Direct X 5. I have DX9. probably the game doesn't cooperate with higher DX versions than 5.
Readme isn't very helpful with troubleshooting. I have turned off Direct Draw acceleration, but, meheheheh...

I wonder if anyone has played this game. Did you encounter the same problem, if yes, did you manage to solve it? I'm not sure if there is a patch somewhere. I don't think so - Cryo no longer exists...

PostPosted: Tue Aug 09, 2005 10:49 pm
by kyle1
I have similar problems with this game. But I'm unable even to start it, cos it crashes immediatelly on WinXP. The only chance to play it is to install my copy of Win98 on second HDD. Well, maybe I'll do it someday.

PostPosted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 12:01 am
by BR796164
I think I found a solution... well at least it works for me.

First, try to set compatibility mode of the main UBIK executable to Windows 95 mode. (right click on the file, select Compatibility tab, check the "Run in compatibility with..." box, select Windows 95.

That SHOULD make the game launch like it is supposed to. But you may experience the same graphical corruption in the game.

I managed to prevent it by disabling Direct Draw in DX Diag tab. Click Start, Run and type "dxdiag". Having DXdiag opened, select the Display tab and click on Disable Direct Draw Acceleration.

Try launching the game again. I tried this under Win ME, so I dunno what result it will have in XP. There still were some minor graphical glitches in the loading screen, but at least the game screen didn't fall apart after every video played.

PostPosted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 10:19 am
by THX1138
if it's a DOS games, shouldnt the DOS emulators (DOSemu and there's a few others that run in windows) work? here's linux and mac os X ports, but i never took the time to see if there was a windows port. try that maybe.

PostPosted: Thu Aug 11, 2005 3:00 am
by BR796164
Nope, it was made for Win 95...

PostPosted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 9:52 pm
by photek
i cant sem to find this bad-boy anywhere (much less for 2 bucks...i cant believe you had to think about it! :shock:).

any possibility of a torrent, share, or trade?

thanks all