Author Topic: Custom graphics driver for FF7/FF8 [v.1-.7.6]  (Read 755918 times)

sl1982

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Custom graphics driver for FF7/FF8 [v.1-.7.6]
« Reply #1625 on: 2010-01-01 19:06:23 »
as some of you may know i run this game w/ wine on a linux machine. lately ff7music is once again on the fritz. other wise ff7 works perfectly (thanks again aali for this awesome video driver). i get sound effects. but no backround music. this whole outdated ff7music thing has got to go.. i was thinking since this driver works perfectly w/ wine and there for should allow ff7 to be played on just about any platform w/ wine support. why not create a ff7music plug in for the video driver. now i know there is one that uses ff7music but its not exactly what i am proposing. this plug in would bascily do the work off ff7music thus elimiating it and enabling users to easily set there own custom songs. in the plugin's config

first off is this possilbe w/ your video driver, or does this reside more in the area of the exe. if its not possible does any one know if ff7 supports its own native music driver in a similar way that it supports the gfx driver?
if it is possible, what sort of external calls does the driver make in terms of the soundtrack. and how would i go about creating a plugin for it ?

Aali has previously said that he could do something about ff7music, not exactly sure if it was a seperate program or tied into his driver somehow. But he is a busy person, I am sure he will get around to it when he feels like it.

sithlord48

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« Reply #1626 on: 2010-01-02 01:51:04 »
Aali has previously said that he could do something about ff7music, not exactly sure if it was a seperate program or tied into his driver somehow. But he is a busy person, I am sure he will get around to it when he feels like it.
i understand that he is very busy, i was wondering if i could get some further info so i could attempt to create a solution. for this issue.

sl1982

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« Reply #1627 on: 2010-01-02 14:51:44 »
Aali has previously said that he could do something about ff7music, not exactly sure if it was a seperate program or tied into his driver somehow. But he is a busy person, I am sure he will get around to it when he feels like it.
i understand that he is very busy, i was wondering if i could get some further info so i could attempt to create a solution. for this issue.

Well from what I understand of ff7music is that it intercepts the calls to start playing music in the game and plays whatever music is set up in the program. I have no idea any other way this could be accomplished. Maybe aali has an idea for a better solution.

Covarr

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« Reply #1628 on: 2010-01-02 17:20:15 »
Aali has previously said that he could do something about ff7music, not exactly sure if it was a seperate program or tied into his driver somehow. But he is a busy person, I am sure he will get around to it when he feels like it.
i understand that he is very busy, i was wondering if i could get some further info so i could attempt to create a solution. for this issue.

Well from what I understand of ff7music is that it intercepts the calls to start playing music in the game and plays whatever music is set up in the program. I have no idea any other way this could be accomplished. Maybe aali has an idea for a better solution.

Accomplishing it the same way, but using software that isn't buggy, is a start.

ultramage

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« Reply #1629 on: 2010-01-03 14:44:45 »
Hello, I've started playing FF7 using this opengl driver. So far I have encountered two places where I had to switch back to software:
- game freezes on the black screen after the video where Cloud falls from the reactor, and is supposed to wake up lying next to Aerith in the church.
- game freezes on the black screen after Cloud talks to his "ghost" in the honeybee inn and collapses.

I'm available for testing at any time.

Aali

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« Reply #1630 on: 2010-01-03 21:49:39 »
ultramage:

Does it really freeze or does repeatedly pressing OK let you complete the sequence?
Can you confirm/deny that this problem goes away if you disable fancy_transparency?

sithlord48:

The music plugin interface provides more than enough functionality to implement a replacement for FF7Music, it's more or less the exact same calls FF7 does to it's own MIDI driver. (FF7Music recognizes two of these calls, start and stop, there are 10 calls to implement for a complete driver)
The source code for the FF7Music plugin "ff7music.fgp" is available on request, it's 104 lines of C code and it's very simple, it just passes some messages on to FF7Music. I may have to sprinkle some comments on it to make it clear whats expected of a real music driver though. Is this something you could work with?
« Last Edit: 2010-01-03 23:40:20 by Aali »

ultramage

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« Reply #1631 on: 2010-01-04 17:47:07 »
Quote
Does it really freeze or does repeatedly pressing OK let you complete the sequence?
Can you confirm/deny that this problem goes away if you disable fancy_transparency?
Sir, you are absolutely correct. I tested the second case, and you do get past that part after some good minute of clicking ok (it's just way long), AND, the text and speech boxes will show if I turn fancy transparency off. That's one of the few settings I did not try before, because it was at the bottom =D

pyrozen

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« Reply #1632 on: 2010-01-04 19:25:55 »
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

sithlord48

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« Reply #1633 on: 2010-01-05 13:17:49 »
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...

ultramage

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« Reply #1634 on: 2010-01-05 19:22:42 »
Hm, one more graphical glitch. In the Corel Prison part, Barret/Dyne flashback, where the soldiers are shooting at them from the bridge, one of the soldiers gets rendered right in the face of the 'camera' as well as normal-size on the bridge. The 'clone' moves and obscures most of the screen. Part of it also obscures the left third of the next screen where the two guys get shot in the hand, and in the animated falling scene.

Soul

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« Reply #1635 on: 2010-01-06 05:19:01 »
hey, i found one.
when im having my crazy fight with shinra in condor, just after my mission in temple of the ancients..
it just crashes..

Asdayasman13

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« Reply #1636 on: 2010-01-06 15:59:50 »
Doesn't seem to work for me.

1.02 english
Windows XP SP2

APP.LOG is a 0 byte file, show_fps is set to true, and fullscreen to false, and I see no FPS, and it looks very fullscreen to me.

Didn't read through 30+ pages of posts, and I'm sorry.

InuRa

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« Reply #1637 on: 2010-01-06 16:07:30 »
Is your installation clean (updated to 1.02 and that's it)? No MODs at all but Aali driver?
Same question to everyone else. If your installation is not completely clean please make sure to refer that 'cause it changes a lot.
« Last Edit: 2010-01-06 16:09:35 by InuRa »

pyrozen

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« Reply #1638 on: 2010-01-06 20:18:23 »
Doesn't seem to work for me.

1.02 english
Windows XP SP2

APP.LOG is a 0 byte file, show_fps is set to true, and fullscreen to false, and I see no FPS, and it looks very fullscreen to me.

Didn't read through 30+ pages of posts, and I'm sorry.

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.
« Last Edit: 2010-01-06 20:19:57 by pyrozen »

Aali

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« Reply #1639 on: 2010-01-07 11:36:35 »
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.

Timber

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« Reply #1640 on: 2010-01-09 05:54:34 »
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

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« Reply #1641 on: 2010-01-09 09:03:10 »
Known problem, it's not a lockup you just can't see anything, disabling fancy_transparency will make it go away.

Asdayasman13

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« Reply #1642 on: 2010-01-09 13:49:51 »


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.
« Last Edit: 2010-01-09 14:05:50 by Asdayasman13 »

sithlord48

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« Reply #1643 on: 2010-01-09 14:16:26 »
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

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« Reply #1644 on: 2010-01-10 22:21:28 »
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

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« Reply #1645 on: 2010-01-10 23:00:39 »
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

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« Reply #1646 on: 2010-01-11 20:03:12 »
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 ?
« Last Edit: 2010-01-11 20:04:47 by kranmer »

Aali

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« Reply #1647 on: 2010-01-11 21:00:19 »
Totally a typo, I'm still living in 2009.

faquemon

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« Reply #1648 on: 2010-01-12 14:48:26 »
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

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« Reply #1649 on: 2010-01-12 15:03:27 »
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.