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

[mrsmartalec]

So there are separate plugins you have to download?  Ok, where would I find them and when I do, how do I replace the codes?

[halkun]

Oops, now you've gone and confused the noobie. Way to go...

(He's talking about the playstation plugins)

[mrsmartalec]

Oh lol, so I'm screwed?  Were those pics from playstation or something?

[Hellbringer616]

No, This driver (and pics related to it) are for the PC version.

He was saying you can use the shaders from petes opengl plugin for ePSXe to make the backgrounds look better, atleast i think thats what he meant.. Either that or use the shaders to add a fuex blood effect to the game.

[Prince Lex]

Is it possible to use AA with this plugin? The AA on my graphics card doesn't seem to give it that much improvement, the text is still quite jagged as stated above.

[mrsmartalec]

Lol ok I apologize but I'm still confused...

So...you can use plugins/shaders/whatever on this driver (pc version)?  If so, where and how do I obtain/install them?  The reason I mentioned AA was because I read that a guy that uploaded a pic was using AA in it.

Thanks.

[Aali]

AA and AF settings are usually accessible via your graphics drivers control panel.
They will not noticeably improve any of the pseudo-2D graphics though (field backgrounds, menus etc)

You could always upload a screenshot so we can see whats going on.

While you can use your own shaders with this driver, there are none available that will magically make things look "better".

[mrsmartalec]

Yeah I tried changing the AA with my ATI control panel, but it didn't seem to change anything.  I could try again though.

EDIT:  Oops, well that didn't work.  How do I upload an image then lol?

[Prince Lex]

Upload to somewhere like photobucket or imageshack then post a link.

It may be something to do with ATI cards. My laptop's native resolution is 1280x800, so enabling AA causes artefacts when the game isn't set at a resolution thats a multiple of 640x480, even when using preserve aspect = true. However, when prevent_rounding_errors = true, there are no artefacts with AA & AF up at x16 and it does look much better - I'm happy with this.

The reason I'm confused is because with the SaiNt's High-Res patch (which only supported 1280x960 & 1280x1024) and AA was turned on, the font looked a lot smoother, as did materia slots and such. Although this patch is far superior, the font looks quite jagged still, though marginally better than the original - and I've tried it in 1280x960 (with the bottom cut off, obv). The thing is, it looks a lot better in some screenshots posted here. I'll post a screenshot as soon as I can, I'm using a friends comp atm.

[blargiefarg]

If you want your backgrounds smoothed you will need to replace the code in main.frag and main.vert. I suggest you get some of the shaders used by Pete's OGL2 plug-in. Personally, I like one called Smart Bloom.

Borde, I tried that just now, and all it did is kill the framerate! And possibly other stuff!

EDIT: Could you possibly copy your main.frag and main.vert code onto the thread or simply message it to me?

[drfeelgud88]

this driver works wonderz! it fixed those graphic glitches i had in the past and i just barely got around to use it since i had the time... thankz aali! altho, i adjust the resolution (thanx to hellbringer616) and i set it to 1280 x 960 but it ends up being too wide!   

EDIT: oo, nvm, i figured out. great work on the lastest driver aali

[Borde]

Mmmm... you are right guys, this post-processing thing is trickier than I thought. Actually main.frag and main.vert should remain unchanged (unless you know what you're doing). What you should do is change the postprocessing shader file (by default bloom2.post). This file is a fragment shader, so if your desidered filter does something on the vertex shader, it's not meant to be used here (I guess it can allways be adapted, though). So far I could only get Smart AA Bloom working partially. It smooths the GUI correctly, but the background remains blocky.

Edit: Got it working. I had to specify the original resolution on the shader. Here you have the shader:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=1HJAA9HX
3D gets filtered too, so things can get a little blurry, but I think it's fine. You can adjust the strength of the filter by changing the width and height variables (the lower the resolution, the bigger the strength).

Here are a couple of pics to show the effect:
Befor:

After:

[mrsmartalec]

Ok I downloaded that shader.  Now, how do I use it instead of the default?

[Borde]

Put it on the shader directory, edit ff7_opengl.cfg and change the post_source variable.

[mrsmartalec]

Got it, thanks.  It is definitely smoother, but yeah a little blurry.  Is there any additional shaders, or whatever, to counteract that?

[Aali]

Get ready for some nitpicking

The texture sampler should always be called "tex", it will be set to the right texture unit from the driver. (Obviously it's working anyway, but you shouldn't rely on this)

[Borde]

Well, there are other filters that look less blurry, like 2xSai or HQ2x, but personally I don't like how they look on hi-detail images. Besides, you'd need to write a fragment shader that does the job.

I guessed the the texture sampler should be called tex Aali, but I changed the name to see what happened and it still worked so I didn't care anymore I'll keep it in mind in the future though.

[Prince Lex]

Shader looks great ingame. My fps drops to 20 in the field though ^_^

And yeah, it's a little blurry - but still better. Makes the text look nice and smooth - and if you haven't noticed by now, I'm funny about the text.

[Aali]

If you want nice text you could always replace the fonts with high-res textures.

[Prince Lex]

I'd love to, but I have no idea how to do that! I could learn though, I have a week off work with nothing to do but relax (I'm so happy right now).

[Hellbringer616]

If you want nice text you could always replace the fonts with high-res textures.

Probably did the textures wrong, But when i tried that the game didn't load up any text i used a 512x512 256 color bitmap

[Terid__K]

Hmmm, it's definitely too blury, plus the fps drops to an unplayable level (very weird indeed). But it's a nice start.

[Borde]

You can also make that shader filter only the text by rising the width and height variables in the shader.
By the way, I didn't think this shader would be so power demanding. It works fine in my machine (I've got an 8800GT, though).

[Terid__K]

I have a 7600GS, more than enough for FF7 and custom shaders (at least it should be).

[Aali]

Scaling and/or postprocessing is essentially drawing a full screen worth of pixels, twice. Without FBO support, this alone will be sucking a lot of performance.

But even if you have FBO support, this shader does a number of texel fetches per pixel and performs some less-than-trivial math on them. This is waaay more GPU-intensive than what FF7 normally does.