Author Topic: FF8 Launcher - Custom resolutions and 8-bit paletted textures fix (patch)  (Read 148107 times)

NellyD

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Have you tried just right clicking the launcher and setting it compatible to windows 98?
Some people have reported that installing the 1.2GeForce patch works even on none GeForce cards.

magixts

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ahh, X002 seems magixts was active just the other day, but no answer to our respective problems :(

Never mind, he's still done an incredible job, that  I could never do, and at least my gameplay is full  screen, :D cheers magixts.
There are a lot of different issues with FF8 that the launcher does not have a fix for. The launcher only acts as a wrapper for the DirectX calls being made by the game and does not alter alter the assembly code in any way except overwriting the IAT of the loaded DirectX modules. Hence all compability issues with new hardware will still be there, any crashes that are present without the launcher active will still happen.

I don't have the time to work on the FF8 launcher anymore. I have very little free time during the weekends which is also the only time I have access to a computer or the Internet. This is the reason I made the source of the launcher public; anyone is free to add new features or fix old ones that are broken (cause crashes or missing graphic effects that I did not get around to try and fix).


If the launcher works for you in the original resolution but not any higher custom resolutions it may be because your laptops cpu or gpu is to slow to handle the scaling routines that are being applied. The code is not optimized for speed and any wrapper is bound to make the code run slower than before. In the readme file theres a list of different systems specifications that have reportedly run the game without problems.

I'm not aware of any crashes in the game that are comfirmed to be caused by the launcher. The only such crash that I've come across was when I was working on windowed mode support. When I forced the game to run in 32bit (same as the desktop) the combat swirls would occasionally cause the game to crash. There's always the possibility that there are other issues that are caused by the launcher (slowdowns/memory leaks could be caused by the launcher but I never had any such issues after a few hours of gaming).

NellyD

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Cheers for taking the time to reply, and As  Isay, I'm more than happy just to play the thing full screen, slow FMV's may very well be a poor GPU!

Onigami

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I'm at a bit of a loss, I installed Miscrosoft C++ 2008 fine. The config file says that I still fail the 8bit Pallete Textures. I am not using any nVidia Geforce, I'm using a simple VisionTek X1300 card. I'm not sure if the C++ 2008 program is supposed to help me pass the 8bit Pallete Textures or no... I've read all the posts but I'm still slightly lost on what exactly I'm supposed to do/download to fix this.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

~ Oni

Ben-Adar

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Hi, I have a Problem getting FF8 started with the launcher.
Everytime I try to start FF I get an errormessage that tells me "This application couldn't be started, because the application configuration isn't correct. To solve this problem, you should reinstall the application."

My System : A64 3200+
                  1GB RAM
                  MSI 7900GTO
                  Win XP SP2

sup0man

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Thanks alot for that =]

Spent all day trying to find a fix or a patch to fix the "black screen of death" that comes up when you run FFVIII with vista, and i couldn't find a single thing till my boyfriend linked me to this page :)

Just going to list my specs so everyone knows what its compatible with:

Dell Inspiron 1520
32bit Vista Home Basic
Intel Core 2 Duo T7100 1.8ghz
2gb memory
Sigmatel High Def Audio
nVidia GeForce 8600M GT (BTW, I didn't have to put the patch on)

This launcher is absolutely pimping :D  :mrgreen:

At first the FMVs were upside down, but i just uninstalled ff8 and re installed, and re did the steps , and it went fine after that.

If anyone has any questions at all, feel free to ask

Thanks alot for the launcher


PS: To the person who made the launcher, is this a late Xmas present  :lol:

And a happy new year to all  :-P



Hi I realize that you've been working on this problem for a long time now but I'd appreciate it if you could lend a couple minutes to helping me out with this issue. My system has the same specs as this poster (except I'm running on vostro 1500, but still using GeForce 8600M GT).

I managed to get the launcher to launch correctly but even though I downloaded the 1.2 patch and the eax.dll and the C++ runtime mod, I still get black box borders. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling multiple times and I haven't come up with anything. I've also tried following the procedure exactly as posted in that topic you pinned to the first post. I've read these threads and I don't seem to see anyone with the same problem. Any thoughts?

Anyway, thanks in advance for your time, I really appreciate it.
« Last Edit: 2008-03-14 01:42:35 by sup0man »

sup0man

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Magixts, you are freaking great.

When I got home today I thought about one thing I didn't try- I dled your launcher from different link off of rapidshare and after installing this new one, everything's worked out; apparently the link I was directed to the first time sucked. Anyway, thank you for helping me enjoy this wonderful game.

Blessings

Insight

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okay mate,the launcher is great,but i have ... a little problem left.is there any way to get this ... erm,without those stuff?

http://insight.ohost.de/Error.JPG

Truth Unknown

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I think the readme says something about it, but to fix it you need to enable Expert Mode and make the adjustments. Controls for Expert Mode is in the readme as well.

Insight

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when i click on expert mode,does the launcher change? because when i click on this option,nothing happens.

edit:
nvm,i got it perfectly working,thanks to this great launcher xD

edit2:
what about an ff7 launcher?
« Last Edit: 2008-03-28 09:57:33 by Insight »

fasen

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hello!

Thank you all for your tips but I still can't manage to get it to work. I've googled and read soo much so i dont know what to do anymore.
I ran ff8 in the beginning, but i had the problems with black stripes and boxes so i tried to download your ff8 launcher. It all goes good until when i press on "New Game" and it says "insert disc 1". But I've mounted it on L and I have changed it to L in the regedit, but still it doesn't work...

Hope someone can help a FF8 fantast.

Cheers,
fasen

Godlike

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what is the difference between Version 1.31 rev9 source and Version 1.31?

magixts

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what is the difference between Version 1.31 rev9 source and Version 1.31?
1.31 rev9 source - C++ source code for the launcher (a few changes in the source from the 1.31 release - 16bit windowed mode code)
1.31 - Release binary

Gezzaman

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been looking all over the place for this.. GJ!


anyways a lil problem.... CG movies hangs when it plays.. [actually they dont even play, it just hangs with a black screen]

Windows XP Pro SP2Sound Max Audio
AMD Athlon 2400+
Geforce 8600 GTS
1.5GB ram


PS: cant wait for window'd or 32bit support ;o

« Last Edit: 2008-04-01 11:47:59 by Gezzaman »

Fahrvergnugen

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Hi There,

I am following the procedure to install the loader, but when I finally go to run it, I get an error code 740. Any help would be great
daniel.

btw, I tried to disable my sound in the system screen, but I still got the same message.

tx
« Last Edit: 2008-04-02 19:50:58 by Fahrvergnugen »

ViagraPolice

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Hi, first off I'd like to thank you for making a great patch. I've been forced to play Final Fantasy 8 in software mode for a while now and it's a relief to finally be able to play it in hardware mode. Just a quick question though. While everything looks great when I'm running around the world, whenever I go into my menu interface the colors seem to wash together. I notice different lines of red and green scattered throughout the gray boxes. I don't know if this due to the patch but I just thought I'd point it out and see if anyone can help me.

celestria

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has anybody had problems running wide screen mode 1680x1050? when i try to run it the screen just stays narrow? (do i need to check on stretch 4:3 aspect ratio?)
« Last Edit: 2008-04-13 08:31:42 by celestria »

raelag

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what is the difference between Version 1.31 rev9 source and Version 1.31?
1.31 rev9 source - C++ source code for the launcher (a few changes in the source from the 1.31 release - 16bit windowed mode code)
1.31 - Release binary

Hi, I'm new here at Qhimm..

Been starting to play FF8 back on Playstation many years ago.. But I didn't finish the game and miss it..
so, I'm searching for PC version of the game and voila.. found one.. then installed it to Vista...

I did the guide that Lucleonhart gave and used your launcher v1.31 stuff..

The game started well.. Until I halt at the Squall's SeeD Ball event... At that moment, the game crashed on the FMV..
Low resolution move setting kicked me to desktop real soon.. But under high resolution, it crashed after Rinoa leaves the dance..

Basically, I stopped there and don't know what to do..

So I'm here to ask for solution to this.. AND new feature request for your launcher.. (maybe on next release v1.4 or so..)

please add option to DISABLE FMVs on the game through the launcher.. Sooner, it's better..
I think that it may give us all the benefit to play the game smoothly, without dealing with corrupted fmv or the so-alike-trouble..

Thanks for listening!!  :mrgreen:

Terid__K

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The FMV crashes in FF8 are completely random, and it doesn't matter if the FMVs are corrupted or not. There are no fixes for this problem, and I've been having it since I bought the game when it was released. If you are lucky enough, you may be able to go through the entire game without those, but I've had them at least three times on every playthrough. Every time in a different place.

BTW, magixts has stopped working on the Launcher. Unless someone else takes over the project, don't expect an update to happen.


zlib

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Hello everyone.
I'm on Windows Vista and have big problems with sound in FF8. I copied new eax.dll in windows/system32 directory, installed Creative ALchemy for my Audigy4 and created profile for FF8 (based on default settings). After that option EAX in FF8Config.exe became active, but I have no sound in main menu at all (with EAX checked or unchecked - there is no difference). When I chose new game or try to load save state FF8 crashes. Looks like ALchemy is not working? I installed OpenAL, but it didn't help. And yes, I installed GeForce patch for FF8 (also tried non-GeForce version too). If I remove ALchemy profile for FF8 sound and music work but only in main menu (loading new game still crashes FF8). Could you help me with my problem?

And about graphics. Look at these screenshots of menus in software mode and Direct3D:


 


Menus in Direct3D mode have wrong colors. But it is not normal! When I had GeForce 2 MX (yes, it was long time ago) menus in Direct3D were fine with Detonator 28.xx (with other versions of Detonator menus were ugly as at screenshot of Direct3D above). magixts, I understand that you don't have time to release new versions of FF8 launcher, but could you at least say what I can do with Direct3D to fix that bug if I edit your source code of launcher?
« Last Edit: 2008-04-16 08:23:46 by zlib »

Terid__K

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That's not something that can be fixed through a patch. All newer Geforce cards look like that on 16-bit mode (It has a green tone to everything). On any game that supports it. It's a hardware issue.

ATI cards don't have this problem AFAIK. It's not that big of a deal anyways... I mean, besides FF7/8, what other games will you ever play on 16-bit?


zlib

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To tell the truth I had the same colors in FF8 on ATI Radeon X1600. But what about 8-bit Paletted Textures? Someone said it was also hardware problem... :roll:
Well, maybe someone knows solution of sound problem?
« Last Edit: 2008-04-18 17:25:16 by zlib »

sunny_123

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Hi!
The laucher works great!
Thanks lotz!  :-)

I have a bit of problem though.. When i load FF8, everything runs fine, including the FMV.. BUT, the the main page and menu(when u press D) simply white out, ie i cant see any words.. With the game itself and FMV though it's ok.. I was wondering if anyone has an idea how to solve this? Thanks!  :lol:

I'm running a vista basic machine with Intel Graphics..

lolmancow

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After a few months, I wanted to play again, so I take out my CDs and installed the game.  I had these weird black squares everywhere and I found this program.  The program worked like a charm until I got to the Dollet Communication Center.  Whenever I go up the elevator, it just crashes...  Also, it goes really fast on one time I open the program, or it goes really slowly.  Either way, it just crashes when I go up the elevator.  Once, I got through the speech and fought Elvoret.  He was about to explode but the game crashed again!
I have no idea what the problem is but I found out that several people also have this problem which had no solutions to...
I found some possible problems though, one person said that it was the CDs fault. 

My specs are:
Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 3800+ 2.00GHz
Memory(RAM): 1.00 GB
System type: 32-bit Operation System
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 6100

Sorry I'm not very good with computers...  and this is probably unrelated.   :cry:

Terid__K

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Get the 1.2 patch for FF8. Those crashes are common in the version 1.0 of the game.