Custom graphics driver for FF7/FF8 [v.1-.7.6]

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Good job on the custom driver Aali, works like a charm! Would be nice if you could add a feature to boost the overall FPS of the game a little though.
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He already added one, you just have to buy a better video card or a new computer for it to work.
Seriously, that's something that just can't be done here. You want better FPS? Lower the resolution, turn off shaders, or get a better computer. This isn't a graphically demanding application.

Now, rage aside, this just isn't something that's technically feasible or a priority. You can't just "speed it up" under normal circumstances. Aali might find some sort of optimization that would make the game faster, but that's not likely to happen, nor is it a priority. On ordinary hardware, this game runs with no performance issues, and the custom driver already makes it faster.
 
Think he's referring to the "internal" frame caps the game has.
The thing is FF7 is extremely FPS dependant, thats why there were a lot of patches to make the game work at the right speed in some places before, but our hero Aali solved all that for everyone and made the game ever better with his video mod, tho it's not flawless.
Luckily the default 30FPS make the game completely smooth even on my laptop and I imagine this game will even play just as well on an Atom N270 with the GMA950.
Just turn the FPS in the corner off so you don't get psychologically disturbed and enjoy this awesome game. :)
 
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He already added one, you just have to buy a better video card or a new computer for it to work.
Seriously, that's something that just can't be done here. You want better FPS? Lower the resolution, turn off shaders, or get a better computer. This isn't a graphically demanding application.

Now, rage aside, this just isn't something that's technically feasible or a priority. You can't just "speed it up" under normal circumstances. Aali might find some sort of optimization that would make the game faster, but that's not likely to happen, nor is it a priority. On ordinary hardware, this game runs with no performance issues, and the custom driver already makes it faster.
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Don't worry about my specs, they are top notch, but I remember I used a side-effect of Dziugo's patches that made the FPS increase because I think the game is generally slow. I'm not complaining or anything, I just asked if it was a possibility.
 
FF7 ran at 30 FPS on both PS1 and PC (a mere 15FPS for cutscenes)

Which is slow yes, But thats how the game is meant to be played
 
as some of you may know i run this game w/ wine on a linux machine. lately ff7music is once again on the fritz. other wise ff7 works perfectly (thanks again aali for this awesome video driver). i get sound effects. but no backround music. this whole outdated ff7music thing has got to go.. i was thinking since this driver works perfectly w/ wine and there for should allow ff7 to be played on just about any platform w/ wine support. why not create a ff7music plug in for the video driver. now i know there is one that uses ff7music but its not exactly what i am proposing. this plug in would bascily do the work off ff7music thus elimiating it and enabling users to easily set there own custom songs. in the plugin's config

first off is this possilbe w/ your video driver, or does this reside more in the area of the exe. if its not possible does any one know if ff7 supports its own native music driver in a similar way that it supports the gfx driver?
if it is possible, what sort of external calls does the driver make in terms of the soundtrack. and how would i go about creating a plugin for it ?
 
as some of you may know i run this game w/ wine on a linux machine. lately ff7music is once again on the fritz. other wise ff7 works perfectly (thanks again aali for this awesome video driver). i get sound effects. but no backround music. this whole outdated ff7music thing has got to go.. i was thinking since this driver works perfectly w/ wine and there for should allow ff7 to be played on just about any platform w/ wine support. why not create a ff7music plug in for the video driver. now i know there is one that uses ff7music but its not exactly what i am proposing. this plug in would bascily do the work off ff7music thus elimiating it and enabling users to easily set there own custom songs. in the plugin's config

first off is this possilbe w/ your video driver, or does this reside more in the area of the exe. if its not possible does any one know if ff7 supports its own native music driver in a similar way that it supports the gfx driver?
if it is possible, what sort of external calls does the driver make in terms of the soundtrack. and how would i go about creating a plugin for it ?
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Aali has previously said that he could do something about ff7music, not exactly sure if it was a seperate program or tied into his driver somehow. But he is a busy person, I am sure he will get around to it when he feels like it.
 
Aali has previously said that he could do something about ff7music, not exactly sure if it was a seperate program or tied into his driver somehow. But he is a busy person, I am sure he will get around to it when he feels like it.
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i understand that he is very busy, i was wondering if i could get some further info so i could attempt to create a solution. for this issue.
 
Aali has previously said that he could do something about ff7music, not exactly sure if it was a seperate program or tied into his driver somehow. But he is a busy person, I am sure he will get around to it when he feels like it.
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i understand that he is very busy, i was wondering if i could get some further info so i could attempt to create a solution. for this issue.
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Well from what I understand of ff7music is that it intercepts the calls to start playing music in the game and plays whatever music is set up in the program. I have no idea any other way this could be accomplished. Maybe aali has an idea for a better solution.
 
Aali has previously said that he could do something about ff7music, not exactly sure if it was a seperate program or tied into his driver somehow. But he is a busy person, I am sure he will get around to it when he feels like it.
Click to expand...
i understand that he is very busy, i was wondering if i could get some further info so i could attempt to create a solution. for this issue.
Click to expand...
Well from what I understand of ff7music is that it intercepts the calls to start playing music in the game and plays whatever music is set up in the program. I have no idea any other way this could be accomplished. Maybe aali has an idea for a better solution.
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Accomplishing it the same way, but using software that isn't buggy, is a start.
 
Hello, I've started playing FF7 using this opengl driver. So far I have encountered two places where I had to switch back to software:
- game freezes on the black screen after the video where Cloud falls from the reactor, and is supposed to wake up lying next to Aerith in the church.
- game freezes on the black screen after Cloud talks to his "ghost" in the honeybee inn and collapses.

I'm available for testing at any time.
 
ultramage:

Does it really freeze or does repeatedly pressing OK let you complete the sequence?
Can you confirm/deny that this problem goes away if you disable fancy_transparency?

sithlord48:

The music plugin interface provides more than enough functionality to implement a replacement for FF7Music, it's more or less the exact same calls FF7 does to it's own MIDI driver. (FF7Music recognizes two of these calls, start and stop, there are 10 calls to implement for a complete driver)
The source code for the FF7Music plugin "ff7music.fgp" is available on request, it's 104 lines of C code and it's very simple, it just passes some messages on to FF7Music. I may have to sprinkle some comments on it to make it clear whats expected of a real music driver though. Is this something you could work with?
 
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Does it really freeze or does repeatedly pressing OK let you complete the sequence?
Can you confirm/deny that this problem goes away if you disable fancy_transparency?
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Sir, you are absolutely correct. I tested the second case, and you do get past that part after some good minute of clicking ok (it's just way long), AND, the text and speech boxes will show if I turn fancy transparency off. That's one of the few settings I did not try before, because it was at the bottom =D
 
wierd problem i encountered yesterday:
My new laptop has a core 2 duo(2.2GHz) and a 4670(1GB) ATI card in it.  On my old rig (socket A w/3850 ATI AGP) i could simply hit print screen for fullsize screenshots. On my new rig, printscreen simply produces a black image which is the size of my intended resolution. Desktop shots work fine, but ingame they do not. Is this an incompatibilty with my new card? Just curious, i canalways use Fraps to grab screenshots, or run in windowed mode, since print screen shots still work when i use that.

I'm excitied abotu a possible replacement for FF7music.  I have avoided the remastered tracks simply because the gaps in looping bother the hell out of me, no matter how small they are.  That and the fact it causes other odd issues with the game sometimes.

Lee
 
aali, sounds good, if you don't mind i would like a copy of that code. however the Wine version might be a bit more workable on my machine :), i'll see what i can do. but i can't make any promise that it will work in the end , also i prolly would need some one to cross complie for me since i don't have a windows machine...
 
Hm, one more graphical glitch. In the Corel Prison part, Barret/Dyne flashback, where the soldiers are shooting at them from the bridge, one of the soldiers gets rendered right in the face of the 'camera' as well as normal-size on the bridge. The 'clone' moves and obscures most of the screen. Part of it also obscures the left third of the next screen where the two guys get shot in the hand, and in the animated falling scene.
 
hey, i found one.
when im having my crazy fight with shinra in condor, just after my mission in temple of the ancients..
it just crashes..
 
Doesn't seem to work for me.

1.02 english
Windows XP SP2

APP.LOG is a 0 byte file, show_fps is set to true, and fullscreen to false, and I see no FPS, and it looks very fullscreen to me.

Didn't read through 30+ pages of posts, and I'm sorry.
 
Is your installation clean (updated to 1.02 and that's it)? No MODs at all but Aali driver?
Same question to everyone else. If your installation is not completely clean please make sure to refer that 'cause it changes a lot.
 
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Doesn't seem to work for me.

1.02 english
Windows XP SP2

APP.LOG is a 0 byte file, show_fps is set to true, and fullscreen to false, and I see no FPS, and it looks very fullscreen to me.

Didn't read through 30+ pages of posts, and I'm sorry.
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did you run FF7opengl.reg and merge it into your registry? Did you run FF7Config after merging into the registry? Either one of these will cause the driver not to work, and i'm going to assume you did one or the other, because it should be doing something if you installed it correctly and changed the config.
 
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aali, sounds good, if you don't mind i would like a copy of that code. however the Wine version might be a bit more workable on my machine :), i'll see what i can do. but i can't make any promise that it will work in the end , also i prolly would need some one to cross complie for me since i don't have a windows machine...
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As promised: http://backup.ninjaloot.se/share/ff7music-070109.zip

This compiles under MSVC and not much else but it should be possible to set up some kind of cross compile with MingW. It's just a normal DLL after all.
It's not the wine version but the only difference is in how it sends messages to FF7Music, which is irrelevant in this case.
 
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