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

[Timber]

Hi Aali,

First of all, thank you so much for the FF7 driver, it is wonderful.

I found a glitch in 0.7.3b, after the battle with the second boss in the game (Air Buster), there is a video of Cloud falling down to the church, but after the video there is just a black screen, the game locks up, but does not crash. Happened twice. I switched to 0.7.1b and this problem didn't occur.

Also I noticed that in some sequences on the train (can't remember exactly where), but there were times when several text boxes would appear on top of each other.
But instead of being 'on top', there were kind of see through and it was a mess.

 

[Aali]

Known problem, it's not a lockup you just can't see anything, disabling fancy_transparency will make it go away.

 

[Asdayasman13]

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.

I ran the .reg, but not the config afterwards, I ran it before.  I'll try running it afterwards, and report back.

EDIT:  No change.

 

[sithlord48]

you have to first run the config and set it up ... then run the FF7open.reg if you have a 64-bit windows run the FF7opengl64.reg file , if you run the config program for ff7 afterwards you will have to re add the .reg file to your regestry.

 

[Cupcake]

Known problem, it's not a lockup you just can't see anything, disabling fancy_transparency will make it go away.

I was actually just about to mention that bug.  Also, for me, I experience it as a lockup as I can't advance past the black screen.  It also happens sometimes exiting buildings in the Nibelheim Flashback (for example, exiting Cloud's house after he says there's no point being there because it has no relevance)

 

[Covarr]

Requirements for the

you have to first run the config and set it up ... then run the FF7open.reg if you have a 64-bit windows run the FF7opengl64.reg file , if you run the config program for ff7 afterwards you will have to re add the .reg file to your regestry.

Worth noting, you have to have the 1.02 versions of ff7.exe and ff7config.exe, and (I think) you have to set the config to use hardware rendering, not software.

 

[Kranmer]

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...

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.

thanks for that Aali, Seems to compile fine in MSVC.
on a side note Just 1 small question what are the numbers 070109 mean ? is it the date you made this (like 7th Jan 2009 ?) or does it mean somthing else ? Or is it just a typo on the year ?

 

[Aali]

Totally a typo, I'm still living in 2009.

 

[faquemon]

hey! i have been using 1.31 launcher from magixts for a while but a few days ago i found your driver for final fantasy viii and i decided to try it out
installing it was no problem but i don't no if i did some sort of a bad configuration because the image seems worst than before and i was utilizing the same resolution 1366x768
i am running FF8 from my laptop wich has a geforce 9400 G with the last drivers installed!
thanks for your attention

 

[Aali]

Try to disable prevent_rounding_errors, that should make it behave about the same as it does with the launcher.
Otherwise it will try scaling the image up or down from a multiple of the original resolution, which prevents glitches but can look quite bad if there's too much scaling going on.

 

[faquemon]

thank you for your tip and so fast answer!
i will try it in a few minutes and post the results back
thanks once again

well i have been messing around with the drivers configurations and i was able to achieve a better image

linear_filter = on - that did the trick for me the image was awful before and now it is more detailed and similar to what it looked before i think
however turning it on it added a black line around 2d background in battles which gives an anime looking to the game but i kinda like it!

prevent_rounding_errors = yes - it must be also turned on otherwise some strange lines appears on image

use_shaders = no
enable_postprocessing = yes
i can not have booth turned on because everything gains some huge glow ! turning shaders of put the image good again

i don't know what would be the theoretical optimal configuration but if you could point me in that direction i would be very appreciated !
thanks for your attention

 

[Asdayasman13]

Requirements for the

you have to first run the config and set it up ... then run the FF7open.reg if you have a 64-bit windows run the FF7opengl64.reg file , if you run the config program for ff7 afterwards you will have to re add the .reg file to your regestry.

Worth noting, you have to have the 1.02 versions of ff7.exe and ff7config.exe, and (I think) you have to set the config to use hardware rendering, not software.

Still not working.  Didn't see a "Hardware rendering" option, though, so I ticked the "NVIDIA" box, and selected "Direct3D Hardware Acceleration."

 

[Marc]

Requirements for the

you have to first run the config and set it up ... then run the FF7open.reg if you have a 64-bit windows run the FF7opengl64.reg file , if you run the config program for ff7 afterwards you will have to re add the .reg file to your regestry.

Worth noting, you have to have the 1.02 versions of ff7.exe and ff7config.exe, and (I think) you have to set the config to use hardware rendering, not software.

Still not working.  Didn't see a "Hardware rendering" option, though, so I ticked the "NVIDIA" box, and selected "Direct3D Hardware Acceleration."

I was under the impression the ff7 config was only needed for setting up the sound as the registry replaces all video settings in the registry ?  Untick the nvidia box, set up your sound. click ok. then run the registry fix.

You're supposed to run ff7config and then the registry fix, not the other way around.  eah time you'll run the ff7config, you'll need to re-run the registry fix afterwards.

Also, I've never seen the behavior under XP, but you might need to run ff7config, the reg file and the game as administrator.   I've also never seen this behavior under xp but installing to a non-standard location (NOT in program files) solved some vista issues.  It also needs to be a complete instal I believe (it needs to be for all other mods anyway).

I'd also use a stock config file (redownload the original) to rule out any config issues.  If hardware acceleration isnt checked in ff7config, the difference between the two should be apparent enough.

 

[Asdayasman13]

Still no result.

 

[Hellbringer616]

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

Sorry for the delayed reply (if you even still care) You are using Windows 7 correct? for some reason you have to use the snip tool, simply pressing the printscreen button no longer works

 

[pyrozen]

Sorry for the delayed reply (if you even still care) You are using Windows 7 correct? for some reason you have to use the snip tool, simply pressing the printscreen button no longer works

thanks! i hadn't discovered a workaround yet, and using fraps simply for screen caps seems useless to me

 

[sl1982]

Aali, you have a PM  :-D

 

[Hellbringer616]

Sorry for the delayed reply (if you even still care) You are using Windows 7 correct? for some reason you have to use the snip tool, simply pressing the printscreen button no longer works

thanks! i hadn't discovered a workaround yet, and using fraps simply for screen caps seems useless to me

Run in windowed mode and use the snip tool. not the best work around. But it will work.

 

[Mako]

Hey Aali just had a couple of questions...Will you drivers or do they support .fx or .cgfx file format for shaders? Or will you ever support dx...I apologize for the noob question I am trying to learn coding in opengl and I've made some good progress. Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[Aali]

Most shaders will have to be rewritten or atleast modified to work with the driver anyway, and I don't see many people doing that so supporting different shader formats is quite low on my list of priorities. Instead look forward to some interesting stuff that will happen with external textures for the next release Texture compression/caching is already implemented and the ability to override things like blend modes/palettes/zsort and the like will be there. If I can get some extra productive time in you might even have custom animations.