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

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Will running in say, 1440x900 strech the picture or will it put black bars on the side?

EDIT:
Nevermind, tried it and it works. FANTASTIC!

I'm still noticing some horizontal tearing on fields, I didn't really check for it on the world map or battle screen
Also the battle swirl is back.  once again, FANTASTIC.
This looks like a 1.0 release.
 
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That depends on the preserve_aspect setting; if its on, you get bars on the side (so, effective resolution becomes 1200x900), if its off, it'll stretch.
 
Custom OpenGL driver demonstration clip:
  I accidentally double-clicked ff7_opengl.reg, instead of ff7_opengl_tntfix.reg.  So the framerate is somewhat poor.  Also, I noticed some custom models are not shown with this driver while taking this video clip.
 
Blah blah blah, I wanna see some pictures!  :roll: I did it in my thread so cough em up!  :-D
 
You do realize that by this time, those pictures are just gonna look like they came from the original game, right? :-P

Landarma: nice video, I'll have to look into that texture issue (I'm probably missing something in the texture loader, its barely enough to load all the original game content correctly). I'm not sure why its so slow though, it can't be related to the tnt fix because that was never a speed thing and it just doesn't do anything anymore (which is why the 0.3b release doesn't even have those .reg files). Does it make any difference if you change the vsync setting?
 
About speed and other things, I need to tinker with .cfg more.   :-D  And for the custom models, not just Slayernext's weapon models, but also some of Phoenix Rejuvenation models have 'invisible' problem.

**Oh, one more, the game crashed when I casted KoTR.  Not tested with other summons.
 
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Even my crisis core models have that problem, but only aeris' head. I think it's because she doesnt have lighting on her head, i forgot to save it :-P
 
A thing I discovered while trying to get this to work with FF7Music, if you launch FF7 via the "run FF7" button in FF7music, the driver will fail to load the shaders, despite them being in the correct folder. In order to solve it, just put the shaders folder into the same folder where your FF7music is located, doing so will make the game run with the open gl driver and your custom music.

One thing that has been bothering me though, I have played around with the various settings, and I seem to be unable to get some kind of bilinear filtering on the textures with this driver, the driver just doesn't support it, or I am missing something?
 
The FF7music problem arises from the fact that shaders are loaded from a relative path (which means it depends on current working directory), I could solve this by reading the install dir reg key and using that as base dir for all file operations.

Bilinear filtering isn't "working" for three reasons:
1. D3D has to force it on you, FF7 can request it for any texture but it doesn't (the driver does provide filtering if FF7 wants it).
2. It makes everything look terrible in my opinion (low-res textures are filtered "too much" ruining what little detail they have)
3. You can't enable it all the time without introducing really bad glitches with fonts and field. (field has the layering problem, fonts are filtered differently when you change palette/size which ruins anything but plain static text)

I could probably get it "working" (i.e. do what D3D does) if I wanted to, but its low priority for now.

:EDIT: I need to look into the KOTR crash, I don't have any 100% completion saves available for testing at the moment, so I've been doing all the testing with my 11:30 speedrun, needless to say it doesn't have KOTR :-P (aka do what the release post says, provide the info I need to fix it)
 
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Do you have any idea what's on tap for 0.4?  I'm looking forward to every release of this.
 
The FF7music problem arises from the fact that shaders are loaded from a relative path (which means it depends on current working directory), I could solve this by reading the install dir reg key and using that as base dir for all file operations.

Bilinear filtering isn't "working" for three reasons:
1. D3D has to force it on you, FF7 can request it for any texture but it doesn't (the driver does provide filtering if FF7 wants it).
2. It makes everything look terrible in my opinion (low-res textures are filtered "too much" ruining what little detail they have)
3. You can't enable it all the time without introducing really bad glitches with fonts and field. (field has the layering problem, fonts are filtered differently when you change palette/size which ruins anything but plain static text)

I could probably get it "working" (i.e. do what D3D does) if I wanted to, but its low priority for now.

:EDIT: I need to look into the KOTR crash, I don't have any 100% completion saves available for testing at the moment, so I've been doing all the testing with my 11:30 speedrun, needless to say it doesn't have KOTR :-P (aka do what the release post says, provide the info I need to fix it)
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Thanks for the reply and for the explanation.
Yeah what I meant was to get some kind of filtering on the polygonal objects in the exact same way it happens in the d3d mode, but well it's also understandable it has a low priority, especially when compared to game breaking issues.  My bad :P
 
Hey, don't beat yourself up about it, I want to know about the small(er) issues too :-)

I don't really have any plans for 0.4, infact, I haven't touched the code since I made the 0.3b release.
But expect to see any combination of the following:
A fix for the KOTR crash, if I can reproduce it.
Support for the french version of FF7. (thanks to myst6re for providing the .exe)
A fix for the snowboard glitch, assuming I can figure out whats causing it.
Correct blending in certain situations where its still a bit off.
Better texture loader. (Support for more texture formats and more correct conversion of original and new graphics)
Linear texture filtering.
A replacement for frame buffer emulation. (Which will make all those effects much faster and better-looking)
Any other crazy stuff I can think of.
 
For the KOTR crash, the casting start and the game itself works until the ground starts to collapse and the blue aura appears, so it crashes as soon the background should turn black. That's what windows reports:

Appname: ff7.exe (1.02 patch, nvidia/tnt checks on, unpatched) Appver: 0.0.0.0 Modname:FF7.exe Modver 0.0.0.0 Offset: 0028d2c3

clicking on the "detailed informations button" returns this:

Exception information

Code: 0xc0000005 Flags: 0x00000000 Record: 0x0000000000000000 Address: 0x000000000068d2c3

The applog.ini doesn't seem to show anything relevant the last lines are those:

[BATTLE] Entering FRAME_INITIALIZE
[BATTLE] Scene# 108
[BATTLE] Exitting FRAME_INITIALIZE
[BATTLE] Begin main battle loop
 
Yeah, that should be a simple one-liner, something I removed from the 0.3b release because I thought it wasn't necessary.

:EDIT:

Not that simple actually, but I have fixed the crash (at the cost of some effects not being visible).
This was actually something I neglected to fix, hoping it would never be used or just work anyway (because a proper fix is a lot of work) ..so much for that.
Seems like KOTR is the only place where it is used though.
 
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I've just tried the snowboard game, and now it's awesome, the only glitches I can see are a small white line that randomly appears over the "speed xx km" text and when in the tree section of the track, if you crash on a tree, it fills the screen with garbage, that immediately disappears once you are back on the board and start moving again. A time, I had the exe crashing for an error at the offset 0x6356d08a, but that was one out of perhaps 30 playthrough of the minigame.
 
The "tree problem" actually applies to any textured object, when you go past it, it gets warped and spewed all over the screen. You do not have to crash into the tree/whatever for this to happen.

That random crash is unsettling though, I had a random crash that I never really figured out that seemed to go away with the minigame crash fix, this could be what you're getting. I will look into it more deeply when I have the time.
 
That whole missing custom models deal was actually a combination of two things;
They use unlit vertices, no model from the original data does this (I had no idea you could specify this in the .p format, it doesn't make any difference though since FF7 doesn't have any real lights) so I was simply ignoring them.
Those same vertices have 0 alpha so even if they were drawn, you wouldn't see them.

I'm just going to assume all unlit vertices have full alpha for now, I'm not sure how D3D handles this. Whoever made those models (or the tools that made the models), please don't use such obscure features :-P
 
1.  window mode doesnt work if vsync is true.
 The menus just hangs on certain parts.  If you just click to load saved game without seeing the screens the game loads properly but graphics are all glitchy, the windowed world map picture also flickers.  Without vsync, aside from some minor tearing, its 100%

2.  some issues using this with fraps, SLIGHT slow downs.  But this happend with directx based game anyway....  it is minor.

This is awesome work
 
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also, to fix the ffmusic thing, all you really need to do is open ff7.exe, then open ff7music afterwards (or vice versa)

FF7music stiill operates regardless of whether it was used to launch ff7.exe ;)[

The game appears to work 100% even now....ff7music with it.  Well done.  I will upload a smooth HQ youtube vid soon

/b]
 
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hey guys

I'm sorry to make a first post asking for help like this, but I'm a long time FF7 fan coming back to the game, and you guys are clearly doing some great things

I'm trying to install this patch.  I've extracted it into the FF7 folder, and then opened ff7_opengl.cfg (with notepad) and changed as necessary. After I've made those changes though I'm having trouble re-saving the file and and getting an error with:

"Cannot create the C:\Program Files (x86)\Square Soft, Inc\Final Fantasy VII\ff7_opencl.cfg file.  Make sure the path and file name are correct."

I tried getting around this by saving to the desktop instead (seems fine) and then copy-paste back into the folder.  Then I ran the reg file (I tried both). There's no error messages when I do it this way, but when I run FF7 there's no change at all from the original.

I'm on Vista btw, which I'm still getting familiar with.  (XP just seemed so much more natural)

If anyone could point me in the right direction it would greatly appreciated.  I know this is probably alot simpler than what you guys normally deal with and have more important things to do, but I can hope at least, ha.

Thanks in advance
brent
 
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