Technical Differences in Ultima Underworld on the PSX

There are numerous technical differences between the PC version and PSX-port of Ultima Underworld which are listed below.

Notes

• PS1 stands for Playstation 1, PSX was the codename for the PS1 while it was in development, and some have continued to use this name for the PS1 even after it was released. The terms PS1 and PSX refer to the same thing, and can be used interchangably.
• These differences were observed while playing the game with the English patch on the Duckstation emulator. It is unconfirmed if all of these differences are present in the original version on actual hardware or if they are artifacts of the patch and/or emulator.

Graphics

Screen Rendering

• The PS1 version is rendered at a higher resolution and color depth than the PC version.
  • The PC version renders on a VGA screen, that is 320 by 200 pixels at 8-bit palette color depth (256 unique colors on screen) from an 18-bit (262,144 colors) selection.
  • The PS1 version renders (accorinding to DuckStation) at 320 by 224 pixels, and the color depth isn't clear but various PS1 spec sheets report the PS1 is capable of displaying 57,344 to 153,600 unique colors, orders of magnitude greater than the PC's 256.
  • The dithering and color banding of the PC version is not seen in the PS1 version, probably because of the increased color depth.
  • The PS1 version internally stores its graphics in an 8-bit paletted mode so each graphic may only have 256 unique colors but each graphic can have its own set of 256 unique colors. So for example two graphics set next to each other could theoritically be bringing 512 unique colors to the renderer. So even before shading is applied the PS1 version can have much more than 256 colors on the screen at once.
• The PS1 viewport is full screen, rendered at 320x224 resolution. The PC version viewport is much smaller, rendered in a 172x112 display space. However the PC version actually has a wider field of view, and more of the world can be seen there.

• 

  Standing in the same place and facing the same direction, the PC version has a wider field of view than PS1 version

• 

  Standing in the same place and facing the same direction, the PS1 version has a narrower field of view than PC version

• There are no palette rotation animations in the PS1 version. This means the water and fire/lava textures are not animated. Waterfall and lavafall animations are done by scrolling the texture.
• PS1 version doesn't render fire/lava at full bright like PC version does.

Texture Rendering

• Textures and decals seem to be rendered with certain rows and columns of pixels compressed at a different rate than the rest of the graphic.

• 

  Notice the unusual but systematic lines of pixel compression

• The PC version seems to take each 64x64 wall section and divide it into two triangles to be textured. The PS1 version seems to take each 64x64 wall section and first divide it into a 2x4 set of 32x16 rectangles before diving those into triangles to be textured. The borders of these rectangles seem to be where the "compression" happens as noticed in the previous point. The combination of these two effects is most noticable in the flowing waterfall and lavafall walls.
• The PC version skews the textures on the walls that are attached to inclined floors. This is apparent all over the game. The PS1 version does not appear to do this, but a closer look shows that while it doesn't skew the entire wall as the PC version does, it does indeed skew the individual 32x16 subsections of the wall. This isn't very noticable on wall textures with large patterns, but is more apperant on textures with tighter patterns.

• 

  PC: Textures on walls attached to inclined floors are skewed to match the floors. Notice the angle of the line in the bricks.

• 

  PS1: Textures on walls attached to inclined floors do not appear skewed. Notice the line in the bricks is perfectly horizontal.

• 

  PS1: The skewing effect is more noticable on wall textures with smaller tighter patterns

• Decals on diagonal walls are stretched the same as the diagonal textures.

• 

  UW1 PC version stretches textures on diagonal walls. Actually all versions do this.

• 

  UW1 PC version does not stretch decals on diagonal walls.

• 

  UW1 PS1 version does stretch decals on diagonal walls.

• The "swimming textures" artifact on the PC version isn't nearly as bad on the PS1 version, but it is still present. It's most noticible in the lines on stone bridges.
• Lower textures are unpegged. In the PC version, if a floor is moving up and down, the textures attached to the walls below that floor will have their tops "pegged" to that upper floor, so that the texture of the wall moves up and down with the floor. In the PS1 version these textures remain static in reference to the world and the floor moves along them.

• 

  UW1 PC version, lower textures pegged to upper floor

• 

  UW1 PS1 version, lower textures unpegged and static

• This difference in texture drawing is notable on the platform in the cave of wonder. The platform uses the same texture as the wall to the left, a rocky wall with a grate at the bottom. Since the PC version draws this texture starting from the top and the platform is short, the grate part of the texture is not shown. Since the PS1 version draws the texture starting from the bottom, the grate is shown on a wall where it doesn't make sense to see a grate.

• 

  PC version does not show the grate on the side of the platform

• 

  PS1 shows the grate on the side of the platform

Artwork: Sprites

• Player sprites have been redone with anime style artwork. There are still two genders to choose from and five individuals per gender. Most of them have become less pink skinned and more yellow skinned.
  • The dirty blond has been replaced with a bleached blond.
  • The yellow blond has been replaced with a dark brown haired man.
  • The black haired man has lost his beard.
  • The red haired man has lost his moustache.
  • The dark-skinned and red-haired women have been merged to make room for an new woman.
  • The new female character has dark brown hair and slight features.

• There are fewer player armour sprites for the paperdoll. In the PC version, there is 4 sprites for each piece of armour to depict it's state: Excellent, servicable, worn, badly worn. The PSX version still have the 4 condition states for armour, but only has 3 sprites for each piece of armour, so some conditions must share sprites.
• The NPC portraits, like the player graphics, have been changed to match the new style, albiet less drasticlly. Mostly they just look darker.

• The PS1 version has a lot more NPC portraits. The PC version shares portraits with several different characters. The PS1 version has a unique portrait for every named chacater and each category of unnamed characters. See Ultima Underworld Characters for a full list and comparison.
• Item sprites have been redone. They are mostly similar but the black outlines have been removed and a few stylistic changes have been made aswell. It seems to have been done in a big rush, as there errors in some of the artwork, and there are also many sprites with transparent holes in the middle of them.

• 

  Fish rendered on PC version. Notice black outline and black eye.

• 

  Fish rendered on PS1 version. Notice lack of black outline, eye is white because of skull behind it.

• 

  PS1: The white pixels in the sprites are holes showing the floor below

• The game files contain the spell icons from the PC version, but these images aren't used in-game. The PXS port has it's own version of the spell icons. Generally the flesh tones are less pinkish and more yellowish. The differences can be noted on the spells page: Ultima Underworld spells
• The animations for the water fountains aren't aligned properly

• 

  UW1 PC fountain, 3 pools of water align with the 3 tiers of the fountain

• 

  UW1 PS1 fountain, water animation is mis-aligned, too high

Artwork: Textures

• Texture maps have been redone.
  • Pillars have been increased in resolution from 8x32 to 16x64. However the pillar in-game size hasn't changed, so now they are rendered with double the pixel density of everything else.
  • Engravings have been slightly changed to match the new wall textures
  • Switches and such are mostly the same, but the back plates are lighter, especially around the edges
  • Bridge textures have been upsacled to 64x64 from 32x32, just like all the other floor textures.
  • Grave stones have been completely redone in both bigger size and higer resolution. It has been pointed out that graves in Ultima Underworld display the Christian cross symbol, where it would be more appropriate for them to display the Britanic ankh in line with Ultima lore. This appears to be a result of Ultima Underworld being orignally designed as a stand alone RPG and not existing in the Ultima universe. When it was brought in as an Ultima game, it was not considered to change the graves. It seems a missed opportunity to correct that here since the graphics were completely redone for the PS1 version.
  • Rocks and benches have textures in the PS1 verion, where in the PC version they were just shaded to a single color per surface.

• 

  PC boulder

• 

  PS1 boulder

• 

  PC bench

• 

  PS1 bench

• Door textures have been enhanced. They are still at the same size and resolution (32x52) but the PS1 version has some extra color details and some minor changes. The PC version doors has several transparent sections in the graphics, but the renderer just draws these areas as black. The PS1 version doors have transparent areas, albiet fewer. The PS1 renderer doesn't fill these in with black, it leaves them transparent, so many doors have see-thru pixels.

• The wall textures have been redone. They look very close to their originals, obviously in a different palette, and with much less black outlining. This likely has been done by hand, see the note in the maps section below.
• The floor/ceiling textures seem to be brand new, thematically matching the originals but artistically completely different. Also they are done in 64x64 pixel size. The PC version of UW1 uses 64x64 for walls but 32x32 for floors and ceilings. UW2 uses 64x64 for both, as does System Shock.

Models

• All critters were drawn with sprites in the PC version and use 3d models in the PS1 version.
• Critters seem to have less animations defined
  • slugs and worms don't seem to have attack animations
  • most don't have death animations - goblins, headless, and ghouls do
  • models can't turn their heads to look around
  • goblins scratching their heads is excessive, since there is no other idle animation
• The shadow beast is no longer a mostly invisible creature. In the PS1 version it is a large bright purple beast. This would not have been possible in the PC version, as it does not have any purple it it's main color palette.

• 

• attacks seem to happen more often. In the PC version, many times you would be looking at an opponent in combat and suddenly take damage, like it forgot to play the attack animation. So perhaps this increased amount of attacks in the PS1 version is simply playing the correct amount of attacks.
• The portculli are made with 3d models in the PC version but use a flat texture in the PSX version.
• Bridges in the PC version had textures applied to the top and bottom surface and flat colors on the sides. The PSX version applies textures to the sides, but IMHO they should have been rotated 90 degrees to get the grains to match better.
• There are a lot of render errors around models, the renderer seems to not have a proper z-check. Often you can see a door through a diagonal, legs thru a bench, walls thru pillars, etc. There were no shortage of render errors in the PC versions of UW1 and UW2, but the PS1 is several generations ahead in both hardware and software and I would expect a higher quality from it.

• 

  UW1 PS1, door rendered through wall

• 

  UW1 PS1, bench legs rendered through bench top

• 

  UW1 PS1, pillar rendered through wall

• Some of the smaller decals (16x16, eg plaques and scrawlings) seem to be floating quite a ways off the walls they're supposed to be attached to. This happens on both cordinal and diagonal walls.

• 

  UW1 PS1, plaque floating off the wall

Map

• There appears to be less variety of wall textures. In the PC version, if there is for example a room made of grey stones, there are several variations of the grey stone texture sprinkled around the room so that the wall doesn't look too "tiled". See the note in graphics above, if the wall textures were in fact redone by hand, this might have been done to reduce the amount of work needed to get the game out.

• 

  UW1 PC version has a greater variety of wall textures

• 

  UW1 PS1 version repeats the same wall textures

• The "fishing dock" near the green goblins on level 1 is slightly higher. In the PC version it sits slightly below the surrounding blocks, but in the PS1 version it is even with them.

• 

  UW1 PC version dock

• 

  UW1 PS1 version dock

• A surprizing non-difference: It seems that the texturing limitation of the UW1 engine was not improved for the PS1 version. In UW1+2 a wall cannot have a specific texture, but instead a floor tile specifies a texture and all walls facing that tile will use that texture. This means that corners and narrow corridors cannot have unique textures on their walls. System Shock didn't have this limitation, so it's surprising that they didn't remove this for the PS1 version of UW1, seeing as they were doing so much texture and map improvement work by hand anyway.
• Level 2 mountainman portcullis isn't unlocked by the mountainman key
• Many doors swing a different direction compared to the PC versions
• Puzzles (eg: level 1 pillars, level 4 bullfrog) reset when you leave and come back. The floors reset however the levers are left in the same positions.
• Level 7 graves Thulsoom and Valk don't have gems in their gravestones
• The Ultima Underworld can only make true walls between map grid squares with floors of different heights, or lack of an open space with a floor, or diagonally across a grid square where half must be solid and the other half open. To make thin walls between two grid squares it must use a texture-mapped object to create a "fake" wall, either with or without a collision check. The PC version uses this trick in a number of places, however the PS1 version doesn't do this, leavng gaping visual holes in the map that would otherwise be closed off in the PC version. My first impression was that the engine on the PS1 simply wasn't capable of this feature, although this doesn't make sense as the PS1 is a far more advanced 3d gaming machine, and this feature seems pretty basic. I then noticed that the hidden room in the Bullfrog puzzle is covered with a fake wall in the PS1 version, so the PS1 version is indeed capable of doing this feature. I have no theory or even speculation as to why it fails to do it in so many other places. The notable places are: level 3 cave hidden behind waterfall, level 5 exit route in the tower of courage, level 6 telekinesis closet, level 7 great stair, and level 7 tombs.

• 

  PS1: The waterfall on level 3 completely disappears after finding the hidden cave

• 

  PS1: In the tower of courage, the level 5 exit route is not hidden behind a lavafall

• 

  PC: Level 6 telekinesis closet

• 

  PS1: Level 6 telekinesis closet missing upper wall

• 

  PC: Level 7 great stair

• 

  PS1: Level 7 great stair center section is further back

• 

  PC: Level 7 tombs have thin walls between graves

• 

  PS1: Level 7 tombs are missing the dividing walls

• The secret room in the bullfrog puzzle may be one of the only places the PS1 version uses a fake wall, but even there it does it different from the PC version. In both versions there is a fake wall covering the entrance to the secret room from the outside. It the PC version it is not visible from inside the room, but in the PS1 version it is.

• 

  PC: Bullfrog secret is hidden from outside

• 

  PS1: Bullfrog secret is hidden from outside

• 

  PC: Can see out to bullfrog puzzle from inside secret room

• 

  PS1: Cannot see out from the secret room

Automap

• Can't write notes.
• Can make marks (little white blocks) but can't seem to erase them
• Can't change pages to look at maps of other levels
• Can "see through" diagonal walls, can also see diagonal walls through square corners
• Unexplored areas look like walls, can be consfusing to know if you have explored an area or not
• All bridges are marked on the map even if they're supposed to be "hidden bridges", eg the water in the knights area or the floor tile in the academy
• All doors are drawn as a horizontal line regardless of their orientation.
• In the PS1 version, peering through an orb will map the viewed destination on the map. The PC version does not do this.

Inventory

• The inventory bug from the PC version is present, as well as a new one. See the bugs section.
• Closing a container takes the cursor back to the top left, instead of back to the container that just closed.
• Nondifference: Still get that annoying "No space to drop that" message way too often.
• Picked up items don't stack automatically in inventory, but items moved into or out of containers do.
• Can't actively look at someting in inventory, but can hover to get it's description. This may initiate the lore roll.
• You don't get item decriptions when hovering in conversations
• Can only stack in the base inventory, can't split or rearrange inside containers.
• There are not a separate look and use actions in the inventory mode, just a generic action button that will use usable items and examine non-usables. This means you can't examine usable items such as keys. This also means you can't look at a scroll to see if it is magical before attempting to cast a spell from it. This means a lot of unintentional spell casting when finding new scrolls or trying to organize your scrolls, or a lot of save-loading.
• Casting Name Enchantment, by runes or by wand, can only target items in main inventory, not in any nested containers.
• can't assemble the tri-part key in a container, it must be done in main inventory

Object Interactions

• "Clicking" sprites is no longer pixel accurate, they now use a generic square hitbox
• Container pickup objects (bags and such) in the world (ie not carried by the player) cannot be emptied without picking them up. In the PC version you can use the USE action to empty a container out on the ground. This is useful for example if the whole container is too heavy to pickup then you can empty it out and take just what you want.
• Locked doors are automatically unlocked if the player is carrying the correct key, but locked chests still require manual interaction to unlock.
• Mushrooms, toadstools, and hallucination potions don't seem to do anything
• In the PS1 version you hold R1 to put the game in "cursor mode" and from there can examine or use/pickup objects. While in cursor mode until an action is selected the game is effectively paused. This is a nice feature, in the PC version it can be difficult to examine a monster or other object that is actively moving.
• You can examine objects through walls and also bridges, pillars, and thin walls. I've noticed this but haven't fully tested it out yet.
  • In the PC version you can click the examine action anywhere in the viewport and the game seems to cast a ray in that direction and if it hits level geometry (walls, floors, ceilings) it prints the description for the texture on that geometry and if it hits an object it prints the description of that object.
  • In the PS1 version if you try to examine a wall, floor, or ceiling it just says "You see nothing special." At first I believed it was doing this because the texture descriptions and/or code to display them hadn't been ported over. But I've noticed that if I examine a wall and there is an object on the other side of that wall, I'll get a description of that object. So my guess is that the examine ray isn't colliding with level geometry at all, it just goes until it either hits an object or times out.
  • But I've also noticed that I can examine objects through bridges, pillars, and thin walls. In the PC version, these are not part of level geometry, they're objects drawn with a 3d texture-maped object and have a movement collision box. Assuming this is also true on the PSX version, my theory of the examine ray passing thru geometry and stopping at objects doesn't work out. The PS1 version either handles them as geometry or there is extra code to ignore them in the examine ray.
  • I'm not able to examine the wine through the floor tile, which in the PC version is done with a bridge object. It is done the same way inthe PS1 version? If so why is this one special?
  • I am able to examine and get items through a thin wall. It wasn't easy to test because the PSX version is missing most of the thiin walls that were in teh PC version. But there is one at the hidden room in the bullfrog puzzle.

• 

  I can examine this lever even though it's on the other side of the wall

• 

  I can examine these coins even though they're on the other side of the bridge

Informational

• There doesn't seem to be a way to get the player poison status. The health bottle turns green to indicate poisoned, but there is no indication of severity.
• The damage flash is always the same red color, so you can't tell what type of damage you're taking.
• There is no scroll to display game messages on, so they are displayed in modal pop-up windows. This can be annoying during combat.
• In the PC version you can look at textures (on walls/floors/ceilings) and it will describe them like "you see an irregular stone wall" or "you see a dirt floor." The PS1 version always says "You see nothing special." See note about looking through walls in Object Interactions
• Any time the player is hit The screen will flash and they will make their pain sound, even if it's a zero damage hit. This can be annoying, as it's hard to tell when you're actually hit for damage.

Miscellaneous

• Spells are no longer selected by runes, you must use a spell book. You may only use spells you have found in the game, there is no way to "discover" spells.
• Shrine Mantras cannot be entered, similar to spells they must be discovered in game to be used.
• You cannot enter things in conversations, you have to have heard/seen them and select them from a list.
• The FANLO mantra can be used as soon as the book is picked up, before being told about it.
• There are voice overs for the intro sequence, but not for the dream or game over sequences
• Jumping mechanics have changed slightly. In the PC version, colliding with the ceiling stopped all horizontal movement and the player dropped straight down. This was annoying for trying to line up long jumps under low ceilings. The PS1 version does not do this.
• In the PC version you cannot interact with world objects (open doors, pickup items, etc) in combat mode but you are able to jump in combat mode. In the PS1 version you can interact with objects but cannot jump or float/fly up/down in combat mode.
• On the PC version the summon monster spell can sometimes summon monsters not otherwise observable in the game. I was unable to reproduce this behavior on the PXS version.

Bugs

• The inventory bug from the early PC version is present in this version.
• Another new inventory bug is that sometimes when discarding an item from a container, all the rest of the items in that container will vanish from the game.
• Can't use ANRA mantra even after it's found (this may have been fixed in patch 1.1, unverified)
• Moving items around in nested containers sometimes says the container is too full. It might be doing a mass check without subtracting the initial mass, so it gets counted twice
• Trying to put an object in a container that is too full will show a message saying you're not hungry for that. (this may have been fixed in patch 1.1, unverified)
• An unusual bug I've experienced many times (never saw this in the PC version) is I'll be walking around somewhere and suddenly notice all the doors are floating about a foot higher than they should be. Not long after this I'll start seeing inventory bugs and other glitches. I most often notice this starting in the bandits hallway on level 3.
  • Note: this has been comfirmed to be a bug in the English 1.0 patch, caused by talking with the Badits on level 3. It has been fixed in subsequent patches.

• 

  Notice the door texture is raise by several rows of pixels and that another yellow sprite is just visible below

• In UW1+2 you aren't supposed to be abe to drop a lit light (candle, torch, lantern, etc). It would drop as extinguished. There was a way to do it however, if you have a lit item, open a conversation, move it to a barter slot, then end the conversation, the item would drop to the floor still in it's lit state. It wouldn't give off any light, because the engine doesn't actually support dynamic lights, but the object icon would remain in it's lit state, and would never burn out. Meanwhile the POV would lose the light boost offer by the item. In the PS1 version, if you do this, the POV keeps it's light boost until you pick up another item. So it's the same bug as the PC version but with a different effect.

• 

  PC version, dropped torch, room unlit

• 

  PS1 version, dropped torch, room lit

• Having Shak repair magic items turns them into regular items.
• The secret exit of the skeleton pit on the East side of level 4 sometimes has the wall textures changed to downstairs textures

•