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

[Maf]

Had to register and reply for this.

Simply put .. AWESOME
Been waiting for years for this.

The only other option for FF8 on the pc (with new hardware) was a playstation emulator.
You have no idea how many souls you've saved with this tool

Hope I can get it to work on my 1366x768 display (damned HD ready sigh).

--edit

Unfortunately 1366x768 can't be used (obviously) , hope it'll get on the list.
Perhaps you can modify the tool to fetch the resolutions directly from windows ?
It's the way most games do it, will save you some time from adding every resolution people need as well.
Unsure on how hard it is though, no coder here

[Kinseek]

Great, 1.3 worked with my HDTV resolution. 16xs & 16AF worked as well. Haven`t tried it on Vista 64-bit yet (as the bloody thing stopped working...).

Just one request though; right now I have black bars on the side, which seems awfully claustrophobic to me . Could you perhaps make it so that we have the option to stretch it or not?

[Tsetra]

Have to toss in my applause, the launcher is great. It's good to see FF8 getting some love, too. I wish there were more tools available to tweak it as we have with FF7.

[magixts]

Here's a new version of the launcher (v1.31):
http://rapidshare.com/files/80132624/ff8_launcher_v1.31.rar

[ Version 1.31 ]
- New option "Stretch 4:3 Aspect Ratio" stretches the picture to the full screen width and height without maintaining original 4:3 picture aspect ratio. OPTION ONLY APPLIES TO NON-4:3 RESOLUTIONS.
- Added 1366x768 custom resolution.
- Fixed UV-map Compensation bug that made it impossible to remove all line-artifacts in background textures (very noticeable in wide-screen resolutions.)
- Fixed bug where the entire Black Borders Flicker Fix was not included in the release build of version 1.3 as intended.


I found some bugs in the last release of the launcher (version 1.3) as seen in the patch notes above. The uv-map compensation one actually had quite a bit effect on the background textures with lots of line-artifacts all over the screen that appeared and disappeared as you moved around. I’m surprised no one has made any comments about this. Anyway it should be fixed in this release and background textures be completely ridden of line-artifacts.

Also ran the readme.txt through a spellcheck (I really can't seem to spell some words correctly huh..? ) and changed my made up terms x32 and anisotopic filtering to x86 and anisotropic filtering respectively.


The new "Stretch 4:3 Aspect Ratio" option should do what you were asking for Kinseek. It won't remove the black bars put there by FF8 itself as to keep the entirety of the picture from the original but it will stretch the image in both directions to fit the current resolution and hence mess up the proportions (like on tv).

I have added the 1366x768 resolution to the launcher so give me a shout if it does not work for you Maf. I could modify it to do a check for possible resolution settings on the computer but originally refrained from doing so due to expecting different resolutions to need different values for different settings  (like with the uv-map compensation except I ended up making it user configurable due to it depending on external factors like FSAA).

Speaking of FSAA; I originally had the thought to include it as a setting in the launcher as given away by the UI. It has since become apparent that the Direct3D interfaces being used in FF8 do not support setting any specific settings (from what I can tell there’s only one). I might look into it more at a later point but more likely than not I will just remove that option in an upcoming version or leave it like it is currently as a reminder that it will actually use the global setting.

[Mattie]

This is amazing well done on creating it and thanks a bunch! Glad to see FF8 getting some tweaks for once! Just one problem. It doesn't stretch for me. I'm not sure why. I've tried lots of the resolutions but none seem to stretch. My resolution is 1680x1050. If you can help me that would be great!

Thanks, Mattie. 

[magixts]

This is amazing well done on creating it and thanks a bunch! Glad to see FF8 getting some tweaks for once! Just one problem. It doesn't stretch for me. I'm not sure why. I've tried lots of the resolutions but none seem to stretch. My resolution is 1680x1050. If you can help me that would be great!

Thanks, Mattie. 

Make sure you use the 1.31 version of the launcher and have checked the "Stretch 4:3 Aspect Ratio" option. Otherwise it will pad the screen with black borders to maintain 4:3 aspect ratio (so that everything has the right proportions).

This works for me in 1680x1050 on Windows XP SP2. I have yet to test it on Vista but it should work the exact same way.

[Maf]

1366x768 working great , thanks again 

-edit

Also like to add that I couldn't get picture perfect with 1.2 normal.
I had to use the 1.2geforce patch to get 100% perfect.

Another issue (unsure if it's related to the launcher) , is that the game gets slower after a while.
As well as a minor soundmod issue with the battle song (something sounds off in it).

[Mattie]

I definitely have the 1.31 version and have checked the "Stretch 4:3 Aspect Ratio" but it still isn't stretching :/ Maybe I'm doing something wrong. I am running it on Vista. Hmmm :/

Thanks, Mattie.

[Kinseek]

The new "Stretch 4:3 Aspect Ratio" option should do what you were asking for Kinseek. It won't remove the black bars put there by FF8 itself as to keep the entirety of the picture from the original but it will stretch the image in both directions to fit the current resolution and hence mess up the proportions (like on tv).

Excellent, worked perfectly as well. I would have tested it on Vista 64 if I could, but its not been working and I don`t think I`ll mess with that until SP1.

So there is no way to stretch it horizontally just a tad more to remove the black bars on the top and bottom? That would improve the aspect ratio somewhat as well.

[The Skillster]

Hi is there anyway to manipulate the music? Like FF7music lets you assign MP3s to replace midi tracks?

[magixts]

Maf:
GeForce patch is probably required for all GeForce cards. It’s possible that the launcher somehow impact the performance of the game over time but unless you see it using up more memory than normal after awhile it is more likely to be caused by the original game.

The launcher does not hook any sound or music interfaces or make any changes to the ff8 assembly apart from rewriting parts of the import address table so I don't see how it could possibly have any effect like like what you mention.


Mattie:
I’ve now tested the patch on Vista and the stretching works fine for me.

What resolution are you trying to use? Is it the native resolution of your monitor? If not and your monitor is a LCD you should check the flat panel scaling option to make sure that it scales non-native resolutions instead of pixel-mapping them. On Nvidia GPU’s this is done in “NVIDIA Control Panel” -> Display -> “Change flat panel scaling”, make sure it’s set to Use NVIDIA scaling.

Are you using Vista 32bit or 64bit?


Kinseek:
I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to remove those black bars. They are present in the original game and I would have to assume it’s for a reason.

I know for sure that movies use up the full screen including the space that those black bars occupy. In video-sequences where the characters move over the video surface it could possibly lead to some unwanted side-effects but I’m not sure. I could take a look at it later on.


The Skillster:
Yes it should be possible but it's likely that you'd have to make changes to the assembly for something like that to work. The same thing goes for other resources like textures; I can replace them using the DirectX hooks used in the launcher but I have no way of knowing what texture is what as they are not loaded through DirectX but rather copied into a surface created using DirectX.

One of the great things about the launcher in its present form is that it is independent on what version or patches you have applied to the ff8.exe as it makes no actual changes to the game code.

Either way it’s not a project that I’m likely to undertake, at least not anytime soon. I have another month off until I’m going into military service so time’s running out. I’ll make sure to release the source code of the launcher under GPL before then for anyone who wishes to make changes or continue development.


Anyway, I wish you all a Happy New Year!

[Mattie]

Thanks for the reply. I've managed to get it working. I just deleted the files and tried it again and it worked! Thanks for your help

Thanks, Mattie.

Happy New Year Everyone

[JetBlack]

Hi is there anyway to manipulate the music? Like FF7music lets you assign MP3s to replace midi tracks?

Probably one of the main reasons I found this forum was through Qhimm's mainsite (http://www.qhimm.com/), and also the soundfonts and patches that were found at http://ffsf.cjb.net/

The soundfont site is really good, it helps to have soundblaster live, but there are plenty of options out there.
 

[ryg]

The newest Version dosent work for me. it open a message like "The Application Config are corrupt. Please reinstall..."

[celestria]

u need to install Microsoft c++ x86 runtime w/e

[alysun]

Hi I tried installing the visual c++ file but whenever I try to install it, this comes up:



Anyone know what it means cos I'm a bit of a computer moron!
My comp spec:
Asus notebook pro31 series
Vista Biz 32-bit
1015MB memory
Intel Core Duo T2350 1.86ghz
Mobile Intel(R) 945 Express Chipset Family
thanks a bunch!

[magixts]

Seems like either your Vista installation or the filesystem is somehow corrupt. I'm not an expert on Vista but the threads linked below seem to have solutions to both cases:
http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.3c058577
http://207.46.196.83/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1943869&SiteID=1

[Lucleonhart]

Hey Grandmaster!
Everything is working fine here... i just found an old loader "ff8w" that was able to launch the game in window mode.. does not work in vista of course. ^^
Maybe you will add such a functionality?
-Luc-

[alysun]

hey thanks a lot for the help!
Just something really weird is going on...
I installed the Visual C++ and it's fine but now I still can't load the newest version of the ff8 launcher.
Don't know if I'm right but I was thinking of something about that 1.2 patch that Lucleonhart mentioned earlier.
What is it?

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:

• FF8 ^^
• 1.2 Patch (for me,i needed the NON GeForce Patch for my GeForce 6200!!!)
• The Loader from Magixts, v1.3 or higher (great tool.. GREAT!)
• The Visual C++ 2008 runtime from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9b2da534-3e03-4391-8a4d-074b9f2bc1bf&DisplayLang=en
• A new eax.dll .. i've downloaded from http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?eax

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!

Or maybe I typed something wrong in the command prompt
I followed the advice from the thread that magixts gave me

"Turns out I had a corrupt transaction log on my C drive. There was an fsutil command that i ran at the command prompt:
fsutil resource setautoreset c:\ <enter>
ran that command, rebooted, and 1.3.1 installed without a hitch"

so I typed: fsutil resource setautoreset c:\ true
is that right or did i muck up?
thanks so much!

[magixts]

Lucleonhart:
I did a few tests to try and make it windowed before I started working on the custom resolutions. I got it to run in a window and while you could hear everything working in the background the entire window was black. I didn't do much of any debugging on it before I shifted focus to custom resolutions so it's possible I could pick it up again. It's almost guaranteed that it should be possible on both xp and vista.

Haven't done a lot of coding over New Years but what I'm working on currently is to port the launcher to work with Final Fantasy VII. My Final Fantasy VII does not work in XP though since I have a GeForce 8800GTX and from what I understand there's some kind of driver issue. The errors I get are very elaborate and probably not something that can be easily worked around so I'm stuck with Vista.

alysun:
If you got the Visual C++ 2008 Runtime Redistributable to install but still can't load the launcher then what error are you getting now?

The 1.2 patch that Lucleonhart was talking about is the official 1.2 patch from Eidos. There are two versions; one meant for Nvidia GPUs and another generic one.

The fsutil command was mean to fix the previous error with installing "Visual C++ 2008 Runtime Redistributable" that you posted a screenshot of. From reading your last post I gather it worked, no?

[alysun]

The visual C++ runtime worked after the advice from the threads (thanks so much!) but the launcher is still not working, still has the "application is either in unknown format or corrupted" message.
Hmm whenever I download the launcher it's only 6kb, and that's all the versions.
Is it supposed to be that small, for all versions?
If not, then there's obviously a problem... grr

and I can't see the visual c++ program in my list of programs for uninstallation in control panel... am I supposed to or is it normal for it not to be seen?

The weird thing about this is that I can now play the game after putting the eax.dll in the installation directory of FF8 but it's small, the game display only takes up a quarter of the screen excpt its in the middle and I want to play it in full screen. I tried configuring it in the FF8 config but it's still not full screen. and it's like that for all games I play, it used to be normal full screen mode but recently you can only play games in this quarter center screen mode! anyone know how to fix this?

[magixts]

The launcher archive (.rar) that you download should be about 40-50kb. When you extract it (using winrar or .rar extraction software) you should have 4 files: FF8_Launcher.exe (~30kb), dx_hook.dll (~70kb), config.cfg (~1kb) and readme.txt (~9kb).

The Visual C++ 2008 Runtime Redistributable not showing up in Add/Remove Programs is not a problem.

If both FF8 and other games only occupy a small area in the center of the screen it's likely because you have a LCD monitor, are not running the game at your monitors native resolution and have "Flat Panel Scaling" set to not scale the image in the preferences for your graphics card (for Nvidia cards: NVIDIA Control Panel -> Display -> Flat Panel Scaling).

[xlovelikewinterx]

Heyy Magixts

I was wondering if I can put in a request for something to be put on the patch?
I was thinking, maybe you can put in like a Windowed Screen box that we can select, since you put in a stretched screen option so that we can do other stuff like forum jump or I.M while we're playing :D

Just an idea
=]

xLoveLikeWinterx


ps: I had a little bit of lag in the World Map.. Not sure if its coz of the patch, but maybe someone should check it out? 

[alysun]

thanks heaps!!
Got it to work now XD
Now with the fun!

[Terid__K]

I've been waiting for this for a looong time, thanks a lot. Just one problem... It works normaly if the resolution is the original one, but when I put it on 1280x960, I get gridlines on the menus and backgrounds (Note: Expert mode is checked)

I tried with both the 1.2 Nvidia patch and Non-Nvidia. I have a GeForce 7600GS, BTW.

Any thoughts?