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

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Your movies are broken somehow. It finds the file, but it doesn't recognize the format.

It's not really supposed to crash in this case, it could just skip the movie (and it will, in future versions).

Oh and you do not need to install any codecs, the driver will only use its own codecs.
 
Oh yeah, I forgot to say movies were re-encoded for the Duck codec not to be needed anymore. Such a skip would be useful, though! :)
 
twipley it would be best to reencode the movies into a standard format like Divx or Xvid (H264 doesnt work on versions after 0.6.2b and a few other lossless codecs dont work on any version like the DXA format etc) and that should fix your problem.
 
hello again, dear developers and related comrades. i still have a few questions, if you don't mind:

1) "you do not need to install any codecs, the driver will only use its own codecs." -- does that mean I would not need the truemotion codec installed to be able to display movies, if I use your driver tool?

2) will it ever be possible in the future to include a speed fix for the minigames, but better than the one created by dziugo? because his tool requires you to manually adjust the framerates, depending on the strength of the computer you are using.

3) helps in increasing resolution? "yes it will increase it to any resolution, looks best if a multiple of the originals (320x240, 640x480, 960x720, 1280x960)." -- a) isn't that a little similar to "2x scaling?" (see http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/index.php?t53262.html) -- b) and can black bars at the sides of my screen be added? because otherwise the image gets all stretched, and i cannot seem to add black bars with the help of nvidia drivers (because of some nasty, well-known bug).

by the way, thanks, and well, i hope to see you soon.
 
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hello again, dear developers and related comrades. i still have a few questions, if you don't mind:
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1. That is correct, you do not need the TrueMotion codec and even if you have it it will not be used.

2. This driver already includes a speed fix for the minigames, it relies on vsync however, and only produces reasonable results if vsync is really working and your refresh rate isn't set too high (the limit is at refresh rate / 2, or 30 FPS for a 60hz refresh rate). I would also like to point out that the YAMP patch (by dziugo) does not under normal circumstances require you to adjust anything. Set it to 25 FPS and you should get 25 FPS.

3. It doesn't look *bad* if you don't use a multiple of 640x480, it used to have all sorts of trouble with other resolutions and apparently some people haven't realized that this was fixed long ago. The best resolution to use will always be the max resolution of your monitor, unless for some reason it isn't. Experiment and don't take anyone else's word for it (including mine). Also, the driver will only add black bars to preserve aspect if you turn on that option, it will not try to pad a larger resolution down to a multiple of 640x480.
 
1) "you do not need to install any codecs, the driver will only use its own codecs." -- does that mean I would not need the truemotion codec installed to be able to display movies, if I use your driver tool?
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Yes, the driver uses the FFMpeg library, which provides codecs for most video formats, including TrueMotion. The library is included with the driver.

2) will it ever be possible in the future to include a speed fix for the minigames, but better than the one created by dziugo? because his tool requires you to manually adjust the framerates, depending on the strength of the computer you are using.
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Right now, a frame limiter is in place in the driver that works on 90% of computers (read: computers that don't have crappy OpenGL drivers). I think it limits you to some multiple of your screen's refresh rate.

3) helps in increasing resolution? "yes it will increase it to any resolution, looks best if a multiple of the originals (320x240, 640x480, 960x720, 1280x960)." -- a) isn't that a little similar to "2x scaling?" (see http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/index.php?t53262.html) -- b) and can black bars at the sides of my screen be added? because otherwise the image gets all stretched, and i cannot seem to add black bars with the help of nvidia drivers (because of some nasty, well-known bug).
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I don't remember the exact name, but there is an option that makes the driver add black bars instead of stretching the image. This isn't just scaling; the 3d models are rendered at the resolution you specify. It works best in multiples because 2d backgrounds used in the game ARE scaled, and they scale best in integer multiples.


EDIT: Gah, Aali beat me to the reply.
 
Still crashes game for me with opening avi I made with AAC+ H264
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It doesn't solve the alignment problem, it will only prevent it from crashing when you try to play some unsupported video format (H264 is supported, but broken on SSE capable machines due to a compiler issue)
 
Ah yes :)  Forgot, the driver actually supports it even if a little broken
 
hey guys..
i'm new here and first i want to thank you Aali for developing a driver for this game.

since i use this driver i have not found any issues. i play this game for the first time so i
want to ask here if this is normal.

141jcir.jpg


a pic form the highwind... and know i want to know if the color (i mean this white/grey) is normal because i dont know

mfg
whitemandan
 
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I don't wanna annoy anyone but does anyone know how to alter the code in these for use as a .post file in this driver?

I've tried this myself previously (the posts are here) but it doesn't look like it should (as Aali said, they won't work "out of the box") but I'm too swamped to be able to learn properly atm. There are some screens of the shaders working with Pete's plugin for epsxe with FF7 and it looks pretty awesome. It'd be great to see the game Cell-Shaded, especially with the custom models.

I've tried just screwing around with the code to see what it does (just adding them all to the one .post file and rearranging the text appropriately) but I either get an error when trying to load it or it just doesn't do what it says on the tin  :wink:

Does anyone know what to do with these?

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=bb80d3c8494e9c5cb64026cfc0611236e04e75f6e8ebb871
 
thanks for the quick and comprehensive replies to all of previous questions.

so, you've both told me that the fix for the minigames locks them at half of the refresh rate. but, some extra interrogations:
a) why not instead lock them at a fixed "30 fps," so that monitors of the future, potentially using another standard refresh rate (e.g. 70), would still make one able to play those minigames correctly? b) and furthermore, dziugo in his "minigames patch" HighwayAndSnowboardMinigamesFix.txt puts: snowboard_speed=40; highway_speed=30; rollercoaster_speed=25; battleswirl_speed=50; any idea as to why those are not all locked to the 30 fps you have chosen for all of those? has dziugo screwed up in mgp but not in yamp?

plus, as for the third question, alli has written that "the driver will only add black bars to preserve aspect if you turn on that option." any reason as to why black bars aren't added by default on widescreen monitors (or, systems using a 16:10 (or, more rarely, a 16:9) resolution as desktop default)?

thanks,
twipley
 
I'm not really sure about this, but I think a real cartoon filter cannot be implemented with a simple post-processing shader. I mean, usually cell-shaded graphics still retain all the detail of the texture, the only thing that's changed is the vertex color. Since post-processing filters only have acces to the final fragment color, there is no way you can tell what is texture and what is vertex color by then.
I guess you could embed this shader somehow on the main.vert and main.frag files, though.
It would also be helpful to see those images showing the real expected behavior of the shader.

By the way, great job Aali. I'm sure the new hi-resolution backgrounds support will make things bring us some great mods.
 
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OK I'm updating from ff7_opengl-0.6.10b to ff7_opengl-0.7b driver and the 0.7 ff7_opengl.cfg is not working. Any options i set nothing changes. i set showfps = yes and nothing. use_shaders = yes nothing changes. the ff7_opengl.fgd is 298kb compared to 0.6.10b's ff7_opengl.fgd 3.30mb. It works fine when i revert back to 0.6.10b  Anyone having problems with the update? Am i a complete idiot and forgetting something? lol
 
I figured out why frame limiter wasn't working correctly for me (technically, it was). Even though I set my monitor to refresh at 60hz (I even used RefreshForce), it was refreshing at 75hz no matter what, thus making battle swirl and minigames to stay around 45fps.

I guess I'll never buy another Acer monitor again.
 
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