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Skillster/RedSarg99
Guest
Anyone ever been able to hack the music in this one?
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magixts
Guest
I've created a launcher application that fixes the black texture corruption in Final Fantasy VIII PC on newer generations of graphics hardware.
So far I've only had the chance to test it out on my system configuration (C2D E6600, NVIDIA 8800GTX (ForceWare 163.75), Windows XP Pro. SP2) and it works like a charm.
Here's a link to the application and instructions on how to use it:
http://rapidshare.com/files/77447730/ff8_launcher_v1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/78672746/ff8_launcher_v1.1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/78767857/ff8_launcher_v1.2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/79664278/ff8_launcher_v1.3.rar
Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package is required to run version 1.3 of the launcher due to being built using Visual Studio 2008 instead of 2005:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...34-3e03-4391-8a4d-074b9f2bc1bf&DisplayLang=en
[ Version 1.3 ]
- Vista x32 is now supported
- Non 4:3 aspect-ratio resolutions added. The display is padded with black borders to retain original
4:3 picture aspect-ratio.
- Texture flickering on black borders fixed
- New option "Expert Mode" enabled advanced control of display properties. See OPTIONS in the readme.txt for more details.
Anyone who tries it out; I'd be interested in hearing if it worked or not and on what system configuration.
A couple of screenshots of FF8 running on my machine with the launcher:
So far I've only had the chance to test it out on my system configuration (C2D E6600, NVIDIA 8800GTX (ForceWare 163.75), Windows XP Pro. SP2) and it works like a charm.
Here's a link to the application and instructions on how to use it:
http://rapidshare.com/files/77447730/ff8_launcher_v1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/78672746/ff8_launcher_v1.1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/78767857/ff8_launcher_v1.2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/79664278/ff8_launcher_v1.3.rar
Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package is required to run version 1.3 of the launcher due to being built using Visual Studio 2008 instead of 2005:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...34-3e03-4391-8a4d-074b9f2bc1bf&DisplayLang=en
[ Version 1.3 ]
- Vista x32 is now supported
- Non 4:3 aspect-ratio resolutions added. The display is padded with black borders to retain original
4:3 picture aspect-ratio.
- Texture flickering on black borders fixed
- New option "Expert Mode" enabled advanced control of display properties. See OPTIONS in the readme.txt for more details.
Anyone who tries it out; I'd be interested in hearing if it worked or not and on what system configuration.
A couple of screenshots of FF8 running on my machine with the launcher:
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Lucleonhart
Guest
Gnah! O_O Though this would be the fix.. finally.
BUT .. same Problem with Vista as without copying the files. Start and black.
*wähwäh* ^^
BUT::: Very nice done so far! : )))
BUT .. same Problem with Vista as without copying the files. Start and black.
*wähwäh* ^^BUT::: Very nice done so far! : )))
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magixts
Guest
I'm going to check what might be causing it to not work properly in vista when I get the chance. I figure it probably has something to do with the security features in the OS and the dll injection/hooks rather than the actual 8-bit paletted texture code fix.
Meanwhile I have gotten some reports that the patch works on the GeForce 6xxx series of cards running on XP which suggest it will work on any GeForce card put to-date. Still no information on whether the fix works on any ATI card.
I'm currently working on enabling additional resolutions to be used in-game and have had a great deal of success. More on that can be found here: http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=4908&view=findpost&p=296929 .
Meanwhile I have gotten some reports that the patch works on the GeForce 6xxx series of cards running on XP which suggest it will work on any GeForce card put to-date. Still no information on whether the fix works on any ATI card.
I'm currently working on enabling additional resolutions to be used in-game and have had a great deal of success. More on that can be found here: http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=4908&view=findpost&p=296929 .
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Lucleonhart
Guest
Jeah, i've bookmarked both threads to see the maybe-vista FIX immediatly. 
BTW:
I've a Dell Notebook, Vista Ultimate, Nvidia 8400M GS.
BTW:
I've a Dell Notebook, Vista Ultimate, Nvidia 8400M GS.
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magixts
Guest
I have uploaded version 1.1 of the Final Fantasy VIII Launcher which can be found here:
http://rapidshare.com/files/78672746/ff8_launcher_v1.1.rar
This new version adds very early/basic support for custom resolutions within the game.
The 1920x1440 resolution works well with only minor glitches experienced so far.
Other resolutions exhibit the same texture corruption that can be replicated through forcing most FSAA settings to enabled. I have yet to find any workaround that eliminates the artifacts entirely. It seems to be a hardware or possibly Direct3D Immediate Mode issue with texture sampling when small textures are scaled to fit vertices that span a larger area. It is possible that this does not happen on ATI cards but not certain and I have no way to test.
I have worked to add support for Vista in this version and recoded the hooks to support the security limitations in the OS. Sadly when I tried it on my brothers' computer with Vista x64 it only led to more artifacts. I can't do any tests on Vista x32 but chances are slim that it will work.
http://rapidshare.com/files/78672746/ff8_launcher_v1.1.rar
This new version adds very early/basic support for custom resolutions within the game.
The 1920x1440 resolution works well with only minor glitches experienced so far.
Other resolutions exhibit the same texture corruption that can be replicated through forcing most FSAA settings to enabled. I have yet to find any workaround that eliminates the artifacts entirely. It seems to be a hardware or possibly Direct3D Immediate Mode issue with texture sampling when small textures are scaled to fit vertices that span a larger area. It is possible that this does not happen on ATI cards but not certain and I have no way to test.
I have worked to add support for Vista in this version and recoded the hooks to support the security limitations in the OS. Sadly when I tried it on my brothers' computer with Vista x64 it only led to more artifacts. I can't do any tests on Vista x32 but chances are slim that it will work.
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magixts
Guest
I just logged a session with all textures loaded plus their handles and compared it to a log of all vertices and their coordinates and UV mappings. From this information I was able to extract the structure of background- and interface textures and how they are mapped and drawn in 3d-space.
With this information I have modified the draw-calls to translate the UV-maps of all vertices in background- and interface textures to compensate for the overlap caused by the inaccuracy of directx/hardware rutines for texture filtering.
The result is exceptional; there are hardly any artifacts left in any resolution (even non-even multiples of the original resolution) from what I've seen in my testruns.
16xQ FSAA and 16x Anisotopic Filtering can be forced through the NVIDIA Control Panel and works without corruption.
Here's the updated version 1.2 of the Launcher:
http://rapidshare.com/files/78767857/ff8_launcher_v1.2.rar
With this information I have modified the draw-calls to translate the UV-maps of all vertices in background- and interface textures to compensate for the overlap caused by the inaccuracy of directx/hardware rutines for texture filtering.
The result is exceptional; there are hardly any artifacts left in any resolution (even non-even multiples of the original resolution) from what I've seen in my testruns.
16xQ FSAA and 16x Anisotopic Filtering can be forced through the NVIDIA Control Panel and works without corruption.
Here's the updated version 1.2 of the Launcher:
http://rapidshare.com/files/78767857/ff8_launcher_v1.2.rar
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Archer Mac
Guest
First of all hi! :-D
I want to say a HUGE thanks to magixts for the patch!Great job!
I almost gave up hope that there will ever be a fix for the black texture corruption and that I'm stuck with software rendering and oh boy a higher resolution patch?OMGÂ
so here it goes..
Intel Core2Duo E6750 clocked @ 3.4GHz,2GB ram,8600GTS (FW 169.21-Beta),WinXP SP2 the game runs great in 800x600,1024x768 and 1920x1440 resolutions with forced 16x Anisotropic and 16xQ AA from the Nvidia CP....didn't see any artifacts yet with those settings but without the Anisotropic and AA there was flickering on the top of the screen.
The game doesn't start in 1280x960 and 2560x1920 resolutions,ok the last one is too much for my monitor and i can't select 1280x960 as normal resolution (desktop) eighter but i can choose and play with the 1280x960 in all games except in this one so it looks like this resolution change isn't the "normal" change like other 3d apps have..well ok...it's not a problem at all when i can run at 1920x1440Â :lol:
I want to say a HUGE thanks to magixts for the patch!Great job!
I almost gave up hope that there will ever be a fix for the black texture corruption and that I'm stuck with software rendering and oh boy a higher resolution patch?OMGÂ
so here it goes..
Intel Core2Duo E6750 clocked @ 3.4GHz,2GB ram,8600GTS (FW 169.21-Beta),WinXP SP2 the game runs great in 800x600,1024x768 and 1920x1440 resolutions with forced 16x Anisotropic and 16xQ AA from the Nvidia CP....didn't see any artifacts yet with those settings but without the Anisotropic and AA there was flickering on the top of the screen.
The game doesn't start in 1280x960 and 2560x1920 resolutions,ok the last one is too much for my monitor and i can't select 1280x960 as normal resolution (desktop) eighter but i can choose and play with the 1280x960 in all games except in this one so it looks like this resolution change isn't the "normal" change like other 3d apps have..well ok...it's not a problem at all when i can run at 1920x1440Â :lol:
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kruci
Guest
I got this error message...
"Couldn't register window class!"
Version 1.0 give me
CreateProcess(FF8.exe) returned error...
ERROR CODE: 120
so, some minimal requirements?
Maybe create seperate topic for your program.
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magixts
Guest
Archer Mac:
Hi! No problem, I'm glad that there are more people out there that can use and enjoy the patch than me.
The flickering is one of the known artifacts (if it's the same one that I am aware of). It's caused by my code for scaling bink-videos from their original resolution up to the current custom resolution. I couldn’t find a simple fix and since the glitch is hardly game-breaking and there are other issues that take priority (i.e. full vista support) I’ve added it to my future to-do list.
The 1280x960 resolution issue seems kind of weird and I have a hard time thinking of a good explanation for it. It might have something to do with the game using 16-bpp colors (as opposed to 32-bpp which is the current standard). Essentially the patch attempts to change the display mode to 1280x960 (16-bpp and the default setting for refresh rate); If it fails the game simply terminates itself.
Kruci:
From the CreateProcess error which translates to ERROR_CALL_NOT_IMPLEMENTED (This function is not supported on this system.) it would seem like you're trying to run the launcher on an earlier version of Windows than XP. That could also explain the first error seeing as the launcher is UNICODE; Windows versions previous to XP have very basic support for it.
The only requirement for the launcher is currently Windows XP. Some features work under Vista (custom resolutions) and others don’t (8-bit paletted textures fix). I'm working on full Vista support.
Apart from this basic requirement; different hardware and software configurations could cause the patch to work differently on different systems. I'm no expert on hardware but my goal is for the patch to work on current mainstream systems and better.
A new thread would probably be a good idea to let people know that there have been some development on this front. I'll create one and post a link in here later.
Edit. New thread can be found here (includes download link for version 1.21 of the launcher that adds support for additional custom resolutions):
https://www.ff7catalog.com/threads/4573/
Hi! No problem, I'm glad that there are more people out there that can use and enjoy the patch than me.
The flickering is one of the known artifacts (if it's the same one that I am aware of). It's caused by my code for scaling bink-videos from their original resolution up to the current custom resolution. I couldn’t find a simple fix and since the glitch is hardly game-breaking and there are other issues that take priority (i.e. full vista support) I’ve added it to my future to-do list.
The 1280x960 resolution issue seems kind of weird and I have a hard time thinking of a good explanation for it. It might have something to do with the game using 16-bpp colors (as opposed to 32-bpp which is the current standard). Essentially the patch attempts to change the display mode to 1280x960 (16-bpp and the default setting for refresh rate); If it fails the game simply terminates itself.
Kruci:
From the CreateProcess error which translates to ERROR_CALL_NOT_IMPLEMENTED (This function is not supported on this system.) it would seem like you're trying to run the launcher on an earlier version of Windows than XP. That could also explain the first error seeing as the launcher is UNICODE; Windows versions previous to XP have very basic support for it.
The only requirement for the launcher is currently Windows XP. Some features work under Vista (custom resolutions) and others don’t (8-bit paletted textures fix). I'm working on full Vista support.
Apart from this basic requirement; different hardware and software configurations could cause the patch to work differently on different systems. I'm no expert on hardware but my goal is for the patch to work on current mainstream systems and better.
A new thread would probably be a good idea to let people know that there have been some development on this front. I'll create one and post a link in here later.
Edit. New thread can be found here (includes download link for version 1.21 of the launcher that adds support for additional custom resolutions):
https://www.ff7catalog.com/threads/4573/
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celestria
Guest
found a bug here for ya for some reason it runs jumpy (puttering?) on my system i have a amd 3800+ running at 2.5 with 2gb platinum ocz xtc ram on a evga 7600 (forceware 169.06) and windows xp sp2
just wondering if anybody else is havening this problem?
just wondering if anybody else is havening this problem?
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magixts
Guest
I haven't heard of anyone else having this problem atleast. Does it just lag a bit or is it unplayable? FSAA etc. enabled?
My code is in no way optimized for speed but in sense a hook implementation of this magnitude will always be somwhat of a system hog. Final Fantasy VIII is however a VERY old game and even if I managed to make it ten times as resource intensive through some miracle of coding; it should still run decently on any relatively new system.
Even in a old game like this at high resolution in combination with maxed FSAA could make the GPU hickup due to high bandwidth requirements.
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celestria
Guest
its like stop and go motion could it be the drivers im useing? also on a 2nd note my anti aliasing is set to application controlled (sorry forgot to turn compatibility mode to win98.....) thank you for the patch no one would release^^ you are a hero!@
(just curious but i though this post area would have alot more hits due to the bad ass content^^
(just curious but i though this post area would have alot more hits due to the bad ass content^^
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magixts
Guest
Most of the discussion is in another thread now: https://www.ff7catalog.com/threads/4573/
It's not all too common for a ten year old game to have this big of a fan base. Most of them probably don't actively take part in the FF8 community but come looking whenever they get the urge to play the game once again. Hopefully they'll find their way here and are able to use the patch when and if they do.
The different versions of the launcher has been downloaded a total of about 550 times as of now.
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yoshi314
Guest
when you game stops working after an system/hardware upgrade - that's when the urge to play again suddenly comes out quickly. you want something more when it turns out you cannot achieve it easily anymore (like running ff7pc/ff8pc nowadays on modern systems).
i've ditched windows 2 years ago. and i do regret is sometimes because of ff games i could play on windows (running them via wine is still difficult). recently i bought a used ps2 and ff8 for psx as a 'workaround' to this problem, so i could play ff8 some more.
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Onigami
Guest
Good evening, new member.
To keep a long explination short, I played FFVIII, but couldn't play it long, I have no console, only a computer right now, college and all puts a damper on obtaining a new system (especially since my old PS2 decided to eat up 2 of my games). I got my hands on the game and for some odd reason can only play it in what can literally be called the worst graphics ever. I saw this place in a link on a forum I was looking up.
The game works fine, no black blocks or anything, but I have a question about this 'configurator. It runs on CCC, well as it turns out my computer absolutely hates CCC. For some reason (even if I download the newest driver) it refuses to 'find any new hardware'. Regardless of this, the chip I have in (VisionTek X1300) works on my other games. It just refuses CCC, once I actually got it to install correctly but everytime I tried to open it, it suddenly crashed. I uninstalled it and tried to install a recent driver and it still wouldn't function. So I'm at a loss and am still working on that... but in the mean time, is there a way to get this to function without the CCC function to turn on AA?
Also, when I installed this program (or rather... attempted to) it kept saying 'application failed due to "such and such" try running FF8.EXE'. When I tried an alternative method to getting it to work, I got as beforementioned the 'black screen of death' again on my Windows Vista. Which led me to remove the files from the '/Game' file that made the game work, to the main folder in order to 'force' it to work without the annoying pop-up. Sort of an 'damned it you do, damned if you don't' situation.
I like FFVIII and would have adhored it even more if I could get better graphics on it, or even using that one program to play it in higher resolution (that one also failed) so I'm hoping there's a work-around for this. If there is any help I can provide in finding this work-around for the program and 'black screen of death' let me know. I'm still tinkering and trying to find alternative methods to getting it to work, and if I do, I'll post it here.
Until then, keep up the good work.
~ Oni
To keep a long explination short, I played FFVIII, but couldn't play it long, I have no console, only a computer right now, college and all puts a damper on obtaining a new system (especially since my old PS2 decided to eat up 2 of my games). I got my hands on the game and for some odd reason can only play it in what can literally be called the worst graphics ever. I saw this place in a link on a forum I was looking up.
The game works fine, no black blocks or anything, but I have a question about this 'configurator. It runs on CCC, well as it turns out my computer absolutely hates CCC. For some reason (even if I download the newest driver) it refuses to 'find any new hardware'. Regardless of this, the chip I have in (VisionTek X1300) works on my other games. It just refuses CCC, once I actually got it to install correctly but everytime I tried to open it, it suddenly crashed. I uninstalled it and tried to install a recent driver and it still wouldn't function. So I'm at a loss and am still working on that... but in the mean time, is there a way to get this to function without the CCC function to turn on AA?
Also, when I installed this program (or rather... attempted to) it kept saying 'application failed due to "such and such" try running FF8.EXE'. When I tried an alternative method to getting it to work, I got as beforementioned the 'black screen of death' again on my Windows Vista. Which led me to remove the files from the '/Game' file that made the game work, to the main folder in order to 'force' it to work without the annoying pop-up. Sort of an 'damned it you do, damned if you don't' situation.
I like FFVIII and would have adhored it even more if I could get better graphics on it, or even using that one program to play it in higher resolution (that one also failed) so I'm hoping there's a work-around for this. If there is any help I can provide in finding this work-around for the program and 'black screen of death' let me know. I'm still tinkering and trying to find alternative methods to getting it to work, and if I do, I'll post it here.
Until then, keep up the good work.
~ Oni
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CaliCan
Guest
hello all
WOOT WOOT new guy here! :-D finally a decent site were you get somewere lol
been trying to get a working version of this for years >_< never got past cd 2 hehe. hopefully this time i will! + with these new graphics to it its gonna look sweet and dude it works perfect so far aswell very nice work! :lol:
only problem i got is how the ¤¤¤¤ do i change the controls in the configuration tool? i can change all the other stuff but the controls won't respond when i try to assign new bouttens :S
would there be any way to change the controls other then the config tool? as it overides the normal config for VIII THX :mrgreen:
WOOT WOOT new guy here! :-D finally a decent site were you get somewere lol
been trying to get a working version of this for years >_< never got past cd 2 hehe. hopefully this time i will! + with these new graphics to it its gonna look sweet and dude it works perfect so far aswell very nice work! :lol:
only problem i got is how the ¤¤¤¤ do i change the controls in the configuration tool? i can change all the other stuff but the controls won't respond when i try to assign new bouttens :S
would there be any way to change the controls other then the config tool? as it overides the normal config for VIII
THX :mrgreen:
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fastjeff
Guest
The 1.3 launcher was working for me until I downloaded and installed new video card drivers. I have 8800GTS 512 running on Vista32, the launcher worked on the 169.25 omega drivers (didn't try the original with this), stopped working with the nvidia 175.16 drivers.
Just a heads up for people with a working FF8 and don't really want to fiddle with something that's working.
Just a heads up for people with a working FF8 and don't really want to fiddle with something that's working.
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dragonhead
Guest
whats this mean? like ur gonna make copies of the cd or smth? lol cos I lost game disk 2 & 3
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jakeslogan
Guest
I remember there is a crack no-cd for FF8.
About the Launcher, I'm using 1.2, my GPU is FX5500, If I use low resolution, the game ran like a charm without any black boxes, but if I change it to high resolution, the character looks fine but the scene(background) become distorted. Anyway to fix this???
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