Improving FFVII Resolution?

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Theres also the point of mouths.. they gave all the characters little mouths for the Pc version, which actually look quite nice. Playing the Psx version with no mouths looks very weird these days...
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Did sephiroth still have his wide-open mouth in the psx version? It looks like he's gonna swallow a fly any second.

Boy, you kinda butchered those quotes, Canealot.  :lol:
 
FF7.exe has to call either CreateWindowEx or ChangeDisplaySettings (or any related function) to switch to fullscreen mode. The width and height is given as a parameter there. So I'm trying around to intercept that function call and change the resolution ...
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That *almost* sounds like Ficedula's patch that switches FF7 to windowed mode (although I can't get Cetra to work...or Cosmo for that matter, so I can't test it.)

It's not. The problem you ran into, was one of off-screen drawing.
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Nice to know it's f1x0rd. ;) Thanks for the info.
-Srethron
 
I tried ff7 on pcsx for xbox, it runs perfect until you go into battle, it locks up as soon as its supposed to do that smeary screen thing. I tried it with epsxe on my pc with 4 other plugins, fooled around with them a bit, still looks like crap... I guess ff7pc is my only option for now...
 
I tried ff7 on pcsx for xbox, it runs perfect until you go into battle, it locks up as soon as its supposed to do that smeary screen thing. I tried it with epsxe on my pc with 4 other plugins, fooled around with them a bit, still looks like crap... I guess ff7pc is my only option for now...
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Sounds like the XBox just got "pwned" by PSX framebuffer access routines! :P

Although, I thought the latest versions of ePSXe and the GPU plugins by Pete were able to fix up the whole "swirly-screen" problem in FF7?

...I dont' have the PSX version, so its not like I can test it myself....
 
FF7's swirlys are a right bitch that's true. If you are using an NV3x or a R200 or above card, you can use Pete's OpenGL2 plugin (which isn't OpenGL 2, but it's his second OpenGL plugin) which apparently sorts this issue. If you are using an NV2x card and running Win2k/XP, you are screwed unless nVidia sort out what appears to be a bug in thier drivers.
 
That's about what I expected.  The game isn't designed to run in other resolutions than 320x240 and 640x480, so just changing what resolution it changes the screen to would result in what you get in Alhexx's screen shots, probably even in the full-3D scenes (i.e. World Map, battles).
 
Nah, that just I means I haven't rewritten all needed functions. Until now, I just rewrote the function that changes the screen resolution. I am currently searching for the function which creates that rendering device. Since FF7 uses DirectX, and am not very familiar with Directx, so it could take some time to rewrite the right functions. (Since Directx works with system than opengl, I first have to look at the code clearly...)

 - Alhexx
 
That's great progress, Alhexx. Nothing I could ever do with my current (lack of) skill  :P

But once we find a way to make it all "stretch", won't the fonts look a little..um...stretched out? By the way, have you tested the movies yet?
 
I have an idea that could deal with the Font res/scaling problem.

Remember how in the Remake project, it was planned to have some high-resolution fonts for use in the game?  Assuming that that font set actually does exist in a useful state, it might not be a bad idea to also use that to replace the existing "low-res" FF7pc font data, while its in the middle of patching the .exe to allow for higher screen resolutions....

I don't know if its possible to do that on a standard install (the font data might be among the stuff that's read off the CD on a standard size install, for all I know)....but I'm betting it may not be possible, which would mean that this solution requires a Full Install....
 
Actually, what you're talking about is pretty much cake compared to the type of stuff normally being attempted around here.

FF7PC's current font sets are in cr_us.lgp (in .TEX format.) It's a fairly small file, and *is* put on the hard drive with the Standard Install. There are two sets, one for the full screen modes, and the other for quarterscreen.

Which of course means, in theory, all you have to do is extract them as .BMPs with LGP Tools; scale them appropriately in a graphics prog; convert back to .TEX with TexTool; reinsert your replacements, make an LGP patch; and distribute.

...if only it were that simple. From my experience, you're going to run into trouble, though, changing the size. FF7 doesn't like it when you modify the size (or palette, as Ficedula correctly points out in TexTool's readme.) This leads me to believe that the size definitions are stored/called elsewhere, but I'm not sure how or where.
My guess is that this is where another DirectX layer *might* be helpful. Obviously, keep in mind, I'm quite a buffoon when it comes to knowing about how texture rendering can work--this is merely theorycraft.

Assuming you could get around this one problem, keep in mind you also will have to repeat this process with FF7's other textures (various splash screens--i.e. "Game Over"--, field model eyes, portraits, menu images--including battle slot reels--, not to mention all the various textures used in 6 minigames and the World Map, and magic.lgp) I can't remember if battle.lgp has any textures, but I'm assuming it does. Not all of these files are copied to the hard drive with a Standard Install.

All in all, it's still worth doing, and not *too* much work for someone who doesn't mind it. To be honest, I've already done some of it. =D

Backgrounds, as already stated, you pretty much have to wait on because we need to get rid of the black dots and other display problems.

Assuming that that font set actually does exist in a useful state
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IIRC, it doesn't. Although if it does, it seems unlikely you'd see it until after the whole Remake is finished.

Anyway, I think a smarter option is to just do an effects filter of some kind. It works for emulation, and it can work for us. All we have to is either:
1) Find someone with the know-how who is willing to program one for FF7PC.
or
2) Do it ourselves. (DirectX layer time again?) This makes the most sense to me, because the source for 2xsai (which was based off of the discontinued Eagle library), both of which are used in various SNES emulators (like ZSNES) is GNU and freely available. In case you're wondering, it's C, but compiled as C++.

it wont make the blocky backrounds or skinnyelbows/hugeblockhands go away.
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If I may, I'd like to direct you to \char.lgp\doga.hrc:

It's Tifa's hand, in higher detail. If somebody *really* wanted to, they could use it to create a hand model template. Then, they'd just have to replace every field skeleton's hands with their new model (which would involves lots of find/replace as well as modifying copies to match coloration and other defining characteristics of different model's hands.)
 
...if only it were that simple. From my experience, you're going to run into trouble, though, changing the size. FF7 doesn't like it when you modify the size (or palette, as Ficedula correctly points out in TexTool's readme.) This leads me to believe that the size definitions are stored/called elsewhere, but I'm not sure how or where.
My guess is that this is where another DirectX layer *might* be helpful. Obviously, keep in mind, I'm quite a buffoon when it comes to knowing about how texture rendering can work--this is merely theorycraft.
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Methinks that you'd need to look for checksum routines, in that case. :P
 
it wont make the blocky backrounds or skinnyelbows/hugeblockhands go away.
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If I may, I'd like to direct you to \char.lgp\doga.hrc:

It's Tifa's hand, in higher detail. If somebody *really* wanted to, they could use it to create a hand model template. Then, they'd just have to replace every field skeleton's hands with their new model (which would involves lots of find/replace as well as modifying copies to match coloration and other defining characteristics of different model's hands.)
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With what? Ultima? I still haven't gotten that program to work because the required DLL's never install right. Back when I did have interest in getting rid of those infernal skinny elbows I was going to try to take a stab at it. However, this may be all too impossible because of field .p models limitations. Or not.

We'd have to re-do a few animations too, such as the running animations. Imagine the run that cloud does with his field model used with the battle model. *shudders*

It's going to be hell to do anyways.
 
Methinks that you'd need to look for checksum routines, in that case. :P
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Quite likely. Which is something I hate doing. =P

With what? Ultima?
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Actually, I was thinking someone could do most of it with a hex editor and mirex's .P doc. doha.hrc is in essence just a single .P file, which means the only real changes that need to be made to match different hands is vertex coloration on a case-by-case basis. Of course LPG tools, along with the Techdoc's HRC dumps would be the tool of for the actual find/replacing.
Yeah, Ultima probably would work, though. If Mirex finishes his .ASE importer, Biturn might, too.

We'd have to re-do a few animations too, such as the running animations. Imagine the run that cloud does with his field model used with the battle model.
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I'm not talking about doing a battle->field model replacement--just taking a higher detail field model and letting it have a bunch of kids. Of course, the kids are cannibals who eat their ancestors, but apparently that's just survival of the fittest. =D
Besides, since we've already deciphered the battle animation format (although converting to field animation would be another unbelievable headache) we *have* access to animations of battle Cloud running. Practically every melee attack involves him running up swiping, and then running backwards to his spot (if I was a lazy Square programmer in charge of the battle engine, I would have just made the animations playable in reverse...which, chances are, they did)

It's going to be hell to do anyways.
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Which is why someone would *really* have to want to do this. :P
 
Actually, it seems to me like this is turning into a razz thread. We sure have a lot of tongues sticking out around here.
-Srethron (tongue-in-cheek)
 
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