FF8 Launcher - Custom resolutions and 8-bit paletted textures fix (patch)

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Ossott

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Three things,

First, does anyone know if this could possibly help with the crashing in Dollet communication tower bug? After multiple attempts I finally made it up the elevator to see Biggs talk, however now as soon as I get up, I crash again. =/

Second, When running this program in both Vista & XP (I dual boot), I receieve:

CreateProcess(FF8.exe) returned an error...
ERROR CODE:2

I've found an easy work around by passing the location of my FF8.EXE to it in the command line. My registry of course has the correct location, so I'm not sure why this is needed.. but oh wells. No biggie

However, when I start FF8 in this manner, using your loader, the game goes full screen, but it stops there. It's the same problem as I was having prior to applying the 1.2 patch 'n all that good stuff. I ctlr+alt+del out, and if I then start FF8 directly, I receive the proper EIDOS logo, and seconds later the FF8 menu, so it's not that I'm not all properly patched. I've already devoted a few good hours of my life, once again, to the game.


Any ideas on why your loader would be causing an issue with the game? Should I try an old (1.0) FF8.EXE? I run a GFX 8600 GTS & the latest drivers.

Thanks for any info bro, it's much appreciated.
 
First, does anyone know if this could possibly help with the crashing in Dollet communication tower bug? After multiple attempts I finally made it up the elevator to see Biggs talk, however now as soon as I get up, I crash again. =/
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The launcher does not fix any bugs in the game. I have played past that part in 1920x1440 with 16xQ FSAA / 16x Anisotopic F. without crashing. Maybe there's something wrong with your CDs.

Second, When running this program in both Vista & XP (I dual boot), I receieve:

CreateProcess(FF8.exe) returned an error...
ERROR CODE:2

I've found an easy work around by passing the location of my FF8.EXE to it in the command line. My registry of course has the correct location, so I'm not sure why this is needed.. but oh wells. No biggie
Click to expand...
Error Code 2 translates to ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND. At that point in the code the launcher has already successfully received the value of the FF8 AppPath key. I don't know what could be causing this unless the path in the key is indeed wrong.

However, when I start FF8 in this manner, using your loader, the game goes full screen, but it stops there. It's the same problem as I was having prior to applying the 1.2 patch 'n all that good stuff. I ctlr+alt+del out, and if I then start FF8 directly, I receive the proper EIDOS logo, and seconds later the FF8 menu, so it's not that I'm not all properly patched. I've already devoted a few good hours of my life, once again, to the game.


Any ideas on why your loader would be causing an issue with the game? Should I try an old (1.0) FF8.EXE? I run a GFX 8600 GTS & the latest drivers.
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I wrote a note about this in the readme for version 1.21. I got the same error when testing the launcher on Vista and narrowed it down to an issue with the Creative Soundblaster drivers and EAX (OpenAL). When deinstalled the launcher would work once again. I'm not sure what could cause this behaviour and haven't had a chance to take a closer look at it.

It should be noted though that Vista support is basically "what works, works" at this stage. All testing has so far been carried out on XP and I lack the tools and patience to dig deeper into Vista. It's hard enough to work out bugs on XP with dynamically injected dlls and hooks in a process that I have no sourcecode for; my only two options are basically to either step through the process manually in a disassembler or to break when a fatal error is thrown.

Thanks for any info bro, it's much appreciated.
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No problem, sorry I can't be of more help at this time. Meanwhile I recommend running the launcher on XP; There are quite a few people who have successfully used without any issues that I'm aware of.
 
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Wunderful!
It works perfect!

My first System Cofiguration is:

AMD Athlon XP 64 2400
Geforce 7300 GS

The Second:

AMD Athlon X2 6000+
Geforce 8800 GTS

On the second Configuration i have little Problems with the background Grafics. I can see little Cuts on 2 or 3 Backgrounds in Balamb Garden.


Can support your Louncher any Widescreen Resolution like 1440 x 900 ?
 
Hey again! :)
I tried your new versions now, but no effect for vista... The game does not start! Got a black screen all the time.
Tried
- Launcher in Main Folder, FF8.exe in main folder
- Launcher in Main Folder, FF8.exe in Game Subfolder
- Launcher in Game Subfolder, FF8.exe in main folder
- Launcher in Game Subfolder, FF8.exe in Game Subfolder
using The Command line parameter for the exe.

Just black screen.... :(
 
FF8 isn't my favourite game, but this patch is great. Great job magixts.

With my x800XT, FSAAx16 and AFx8 it works very well. There are some corrupted graphics displayed on the black bands on the upper and lower part of the screen during movies and the backgrounds show some little cuts here and there, but nothing very noticiable.

By the way, I never noticed how unstable the 3D looks in this game. Doesn't it use perspective correction?
 
Nice christmas present!

I just have one snag though, the launcher crashes at once when I try any resolution above 1024x768 on XP, while it worked on Vista (though with the other bugs mentioned of course). Got a clue as to why?

And could it be possible to add 1280x768 (common HDTV rez) as a custom resolution?
 
Hey Kinseek! Can you tell me your config with vista, cause it does not work for me at all.. :(
 
Err, what config? It pretty much does not work for me on vista either, since you have big glaring black boxes (that this patch fixes if you run on XP).

If it matters I have a Geforce 8800 GTS, using Windows Vista 64-bit. I just installed the game completely ordinarily.
 
On the second Configuration i have little Problems with the background Grafics. I can see little Cuts on 2 or 3 Backgrounds in Balamb Garden.


Can support your Louncher any Widescreen Resolution like 1440 x 900 ?
Click to expand...
In the next release of the launcher (version 1.3) i will add an advanced option to be able to adjust the UV-mapping compensation on-the-fly through a set of direct input hotkeys. The value of the compensation giving the best looking result is very dependant on the game resolution and additional settings like forced FSAA.
The value in version 1.21 of the launcher is the same in all resolutions and settings and therfore the result is varied and sometimes truly bad.

Non 4:3 aspect-ratio resolutions are also included in the next release. Left/right and top/bottom of the screen will be padded with black borders to maintain the same scale in both directions.

Hey again! :)
I tried your new versions now, but no effect for vista... The game does not start! Got a black screen all the time.
Tried
- Launcher in Main Folder, FF8.exe in main folder
- Launcher in Main Folder, FF8.exe in Game Subfolder
- Launcher in Game Subfolder, FF8.exe in main folder
- Launcher in Game Subfolder, FF8.exe in Game Subfolder
using The Command line parameter for the exe.

Just black screen.... :(
Click to expand...
Yeah, I feel ya. :(

I dual-booted my computer with Vista x32 yesterday and I'm going to look into this and all the features that are broken. Hopefully I'll manage to come up with something.

There are some corrupted graphics displayed on the black bands on the upper and lower part of the screen during movies and the backgrounds show some little cuts here and there, but nothing very noticiable.

By the way, I never noticed how unstable the 3D looks in this game. Doesn't it use perspective correction?
Click to expand...
The black bands issue have been dealt with and will be fixed in version 1.3 (will release it once I have a look at the Vista problems and update the launcher with some new configurations).

Not sure what you mean by "unstable" but the vertices I work with are already transformed so any possible perspective correction done by the game is already baked into the data and indistinguishable.

Nice christmas present!

I just have one snag though, the launcher crashes at once when I try any resolution above 1024x768 on XP, while it worked on Vista (though with the other bugs mentioned of course). Got a clue as to why?

And could it be possible to add 1280x768 (common HDTV rez) as a custom resolution?
Click to expand...
Do you mean the process really crash or just terminate itself? The latter it's the result of the FF8 excecutable failing to change the display mode to the requested one and hence not being able to continue.

There's a weird issue with it not being able to change the display mode even when it's supported by the system. I can't run the game at 2560x1600 which is the native resolution of my display and I've heard others that can't run it at 1280x960 while 1920x1440 works just fine. At first I was quite puzzled about this but I then discovered that this is the case with any Direct3D 6.1 SDK example i try to run aswell. Hence it's probable to be some kind of backwards-compability issue with DirectX itself.

1280x768 will be added in version 1.3.
 
Yeah, I feel ya. :(
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Kay, waiting for ya...

Tried to run with software mode via Virtual PC: Sound is crappy
Tried to run on my other little PC with XP: Very very very slow.

Grah! ^^
 
Yes, don't get me wrong magixts. It has nothing to do with your program, it already worked this way without the launcher. I just was curious if you knew something about it.
I meant that vertices show a strange movement, as if there was some kind of precision problem. Just like in the PSX version.

By the way, nice to hear about the black band. Sure you are fast :-P
 
Yes, don't get me wrong magixts. It has nothing to do with your program, it already worked this way without the launcher. I just was curious if you knew something about it.
I meant that vertices show a strange movement, as if there was some kind of precision problem. Just like in the PSX version.

By the way, nice to hear about the black band. Sure you are fast :-P
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No idea about the PSX version of FF8, haven't played it from what I can recall. It's probably a bug or optimization in the original engine. With the higher resolutions that the launcher enables it becomes quite apparent that there are more than a few graphical glitches in the game especially in the 3d models. Missing polygons in character models and normals that are turned the wrong way are both pretty common.


Vista "Black screen of death"-issue
I've done a bit of debugging in Vista x32 now and I've got a working fix for the black boxes ie. "8-bit Paletted Textures Fix" for Vista. There were a few other bugs and issues, most due to the new code in 1.3, that have been corrected.

As for the "black screen of death" when running the game on Vista; it is 100% an issue with sound hardware acceleration. Here are my notes:

No Creative (Sound Card) Drivers Installed
- FF8 Launcher works, custom resolutions work
- FF8.exe launched from within FF8 installation directory (No \Game\ FF8.exe & binkw32.dll workaround needed)

AFTER Creative Drivers are Installed
- FF8 does NOT work ("black screen of death")
- FF8 Launcher does NOT work
- D3D/DDRAW/DINPUT log no errors


Here's a quote from the Creative Support Knowledge Base:
3# The Vista audio architecture disables DirectSound 3D hardware acceleration; resulting in legacy DirectSound based EAX game titles not working as they did in XP.

Issues that may be encountered:
Could range from loss of EAX functionality in EAX enabled games to a complete game incompatibility, depending on how the game title was authored. This would only happen with games that render 3D audio using DirectSound, it should not affect games that render 3D audio using OpenAL.

Status:
These issues cannot be addressed by the Creative audio driver, because the functionality was purposely removed by the operating system. We look forward to game titles moving away from DirectSound and toward OpenAL for fully optimized Creative 3D audio hardware and technology support.
Click to expand...

There's some good news though. Creative have released a program called "Creative Alchemy" for just this purpose. It relays DirectSound3D calls to OpenAL and tries to emulate hardware acceleration. With this program and a profile for Final Fantasy VIII enabled, the game runs just fine. The quality of the sound is much worse than in XP with EAX though.

Creative Alchemy is available for both Audigy and X-fi type soundcards at the following link:
http://connect.creativelabs.com/alchemy/default.aspx


If anyone has this same problem but do not have a Creative X-fi or Audigy soundcard; the "black screen of death"-issue is very likely to be caused by this incompability with EAX in Vista. Check your soundcard manufacturers homepage and see if they have any workarounds available. If not, it's not impossible that turning of hardware acceleration or EAX in the soundcard somehow could force the game to run using software acceleration and therfore work.
 
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O_O OMG, thats true.
I've deactivated my soundcard, and everything works!

But.. my soundcard is from "Microsoft" .. Dell Laptop. Hmhm.. what to do now...


When i deinstall eax alone, ff8 does not start because eax.dllis not there... maybe start it without eax support..? ^^
 
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O_O OMG, thats true.
I've deactivated my soundcard, and everything works!

But.. my soundcard is from "Microsoft" .. Dell Laptop. Hmhm.. what to do now...


When i deinstall eax alone, ff8 does not start because eax.dllis not there... maybe start it without eax support..? ^^
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I'm going to check to see if theres something I can do through DirectSound in the launcher, but it's not a safe bet. I'll report my findings.
 
Do you mean the process really crash or just terminate itself? The latter it's the result of the FF8 excecutable failing to change the display mode to the requested one and hence not being able to continue.

There's a weird issue with it not being able to change the display mode even when it's supported by the system. I can't run the game at 2560x1600 which is the native resolution of my display and I've heard others that can't run it at 1280x960 while 1920x1440 works just fine. At first I was quite puzzled about this but I then discovered that this is the case with any Direct3D 6.1 SDK example i try to run aswell. Hence it's probable to be some kind of backwards-compability issue with DirectX itself.

1280x768 will be added in version 1.3.
Click to expand...
It just terminated itself. It certainly defies all logic that Vista is the one that would be more compatible in that regards (if what you say is correct). Maybe 1280x768 willl work, since that is what rez my screen is set at afterall, so I`ll wait for the next version.

I also tried Alchemy (before you mentioned actually), and it did nicely add the option for EAX on Vista, but I can only select the microsoft synthesizer (or general midi or whatever vista calls it), whereas on XP I can select SB X-fi audio. Is there a big quality difference between these? You mentioned a lesser audio quality in vista, is that what you meant?
 
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Do you mean the process really crash or just terminate itself? The latter it's the result of the FF8 excecutable failing to change the display mode to the requested one and hence not being able to continue.

There's a weird issue with it not being able to change the display mode even when it's supported by the system. I can't run the game at 2560x1600 which is the native resolution of my display and I've heard others that can't run it at 1280x960 while 1920x1440 works just fine. At first I was quite puzzled about this but I then discovered that this is the case with any Direct3D 6.1 SDK example i try to run aswell. Hence it's probable to be some kind of backwards-compability issue with DirectX itself.

1280x768 will be added in version 1.3.
Click to expand...
It just terminated itself. It certainly defies all logic that Vista is the one that would be more compatible in that regards (if what you say is correct). Maybe 1280x768 willl work, since that is what rez my screen is set at afterall, so I`ll wait for the next version.

I also tried Alchemy (before you mentioned actually), and it did nicely add the option for EAX on Vista, but I can only select the microsoft synthesizer (or general midi or whatever vista calls it), whereas on XP I can select SB X-fi audio. Is there a big quality difference between these? You mentioned a lesser audio quality in vista, is that what you meant?
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I have quite bad experiences with Vista so I'm gonna spare you how I feel about it and compability. :P

I did not check as much as to what synthesizer was available and used. I'm not entirely sure what hardware effects Creative ALchemy does not support or what effect it has on the sound quality but the difference from XP was pretty obvious. Not terrible but good either.
I can check later if I have any other synthesizers than the microsoft one you mention when I run it.


Version 1.3 is now available to download below:
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.


I'm interested in hearing how this version of the launcher works in Vista for you guys and if there are any bugs that I haven't found. I have no idea if it will work on Vista x64 but hopefully it does, and if not, tell me what issues/bugs are encountered and I will try and see if I can possibly fix them.
 
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I know you're only supporting vista to make us cry babies happy, and i know you hate the beast that it is. But we realllly are super grateful.

I just tried running your updated version, I get an error telling me to check eventlog, I do, and this is what I get.

Activation context generation failed for "E:\games\FF8\GAME\FF8_Launcher.exe". Dependent Assembly Microsoft.VC90.CRT,processorArchitecture="x86",publicKeyToken="1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b",type="win32",version="9.0.21022.8" could not be found. Please use sxstrace.exe for detailed

(Yes, i'm running 32bit)

--- 

EDIT: fixed. If anyone else is having that issue, download http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...34-3e03-4391-8a4d-074b9f2bc1bf&DisplayLang=en

the VS 2008 Runtimes.
 
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Hi!
I got a problem with this new v1.3,it doesn't want to start.All the previous versions start and work but this one gives an error.I tried changing settings manualy in the config.cfg file but it didn't help.
Windows XP SP2
"This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect.Reinstalling the application may fix this problem."

Hope you can help :)

EDIT:fixed....Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package (x86) is what it needed to start...funny...the same problem as Ossott's but Vista gives other info than XP :P

Well looks like magixts can freely add the info that v1.3 needs Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package :P
 
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I know you're only supporting vista to make us cry babies happy, and i know you hate the beast that it is. But we realllly are super grateful.

I just tried running your updated version, I get an error telling me to check eventlog, I do, and this is what I get.

Activation context generation failed for "E:\games\FF8\GAME\FF8_Launcher.exe". Dependent Assembly Microsoft.VC90.CRT,processorArchitecture="x86",publicKeyToken="1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b",type="win32",version="9.0.21022.8" could not be found. Please use sxstrace.exe for detailed

(Yes, i'm running 32bit)

--- 

EDIT: fixed. If anyone else is having that issue, download http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...34-3e03-4391-8a4d-074b9f2bc1bf&DisplayLang=en

the VS 2008 Runtimes.
Click to expand...
Was just about to post a link. :) I switched to Visual Studio 2008 when installing Vista and apparently those runtimes are not already incuded in the system.

Gonna update the last post to include links to the 2008 runtimes.
 
OMGOMGOMGOMG!!!!!11 It worxxxx... Did a stupid trick and it works!!!
Now a tut how to do this:

Got FF8 to run on Vista x86 without any Graphic Glitches
You need:


Now installing:

  • Install FF8 normally, EAX will install itself at the end of the installation
  • Copy 1.2 patch files to installation directory (no Game subfoler at all!)
  • Copy the loader files to the installation directory
  • Install the Visual C++ 2008 runtime
  • Got to the software deinstallation in the control center and UNINSTALL eax unified
  • Extract the new downloaded eax.dll to {Windir}/system32

Now the fun:

  • Run FF8_Loader.exe, Set Resolution to whatever, check the 8bit paletted texture fix checkbox, click PLAY and enjoy! :)
 
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