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

[Kudistos Megistos]

Yeah, that doesn't sound right 

Did you open up FF7 config after you configured the open gl? Because that will reset everything. Unfortunately I can't give any WINE specific help, since I play the game on Windows...

[myk]

The registry looks ok.  It's easy to verify, since if I use one of FF7's default renderers, the game crashes immediately.

[arew264]

It works for me in Wine...
Did you use the regedit command to bring up the Wine registry editor and import the reg file? Check the movie path while you're in there.
There's just a blank screen when you make a new game? It doesn't make sounds like it went to the opening scene?

[myk]

Yeah, I imported the ff7_opengl.reg in regedit.  The movies dir is correctly set to d:\ff7\movies (where I have the CD copied). Also, I'm not sure if this is abnormal or not, but after running the game, there are a lot of *.P files in my game directory.

[myk]

I should also mention that I don't get any music.  I get sounds and midi fuzz when I test sounds and music in ff7config, but nothing when I run ff7.

[arew264]

The P files are normal.
The APP.LOG length thing bothers me... Are your permissions all good? What version of Wine do you have?
This is random, but did you get MIDI configured?
Can you successfully run glxgears?
Does Wine give you any obvious errors if you run ff7.exe from a console?

[myk]

permissions are good -- everything is owned by me and is writable.  Wine is version 1.1.26.  MIDI is configured with Timidity under ALSA.  glxgears runs successfully (at a healthy 19096.777 FPS)

ff7_opengl.cfg is default except for:
window_size_x = 1920
window_size_y = 1200

output from wine:
err:alsa:ALSA_CheckSetVolume Could not find 'PCM Playback Volume' element
err:alsa:ALSA_CheckSetVolume Could not find 'PCM Playback Volume' element
fixme:win:EnumDisplayDevicesW ((null),0,0x324064,0x00000000), stub!
fixme:d3d:WineD3D_ChoosePixelFormat Add OpenGL context recreation support to SetDepthStencilSurface
fixme:dinput:SysMouseAImpl_Acquire Clipping cursor to (0,0)-(640,480)
fixme:amstream:IAMMultiMediaStreamImpl_AddMediaStream (0x2321388/0x2321388)->(0x12bd08,{a35ff56a-9fda-11d0-8fdf-00c04fd9189d},0,0x9924cc) partial stub!
fixme:amstream:IAMMultiMediaStreamImpl_AddMediaStream (0x2321388/0x2321388)->((nil),{a35ff56b-9fda-11d0-8fdf-00c04fd9189d},1,(nil)) partial stub!
err:amstream:IAMMultiMediaStreamImpl_QueryInterface (0x2321388)->({b502d1bc-9a57-11d0-8fde-00c04fd9189d},0x324cb0),not found
fixme:amstream:IDirectDrawMediaStreamImpl_GetFormat (0x21effe0)->(0x9924d8,(nil),(nil),(nil)) stub!

[arew264]

Well, I can't think of anything else to check right now. I have Wine 1.1.27, but I doubt that will really make a difference. Hopefully Aali can think of something.
The driver is being loaded, but it's not successfully parsing it's own configuration file... are you sure you unpacked it in the right place? It should be in the same folder as ff7.exe. Did you use the right reg file and not the Vista64 one?
Sorry if these seem obvious, but they're worth checking.

Heh, my glxgears runs at 150FPS. Crappy ATI integrated graphics + unfinished open source driver = failure. Hopefully the driver will get a bit better pretty soon.

Oh, have you tried running the game at a lower resolution in a window instead of fullscreen? That could give a clue as to what's going on. It would at least show whether the driver is parsing the config.

Have you tried putting the default config back in place? I'm not sure what the driver does if there's a syntax error.

[Aali]

Make sure InstallPath (in the FF7 reg key) is correct, the driver reads this separately to determine where its files are.

[myk]

Here's a listing of what's in HKLM/Software/Square Soft, Inc./Final Fantasy VII:
AppPath    c:\ff7\
DataDrive  d:\
DataPath    c:\ff7\data\
DiskNo       0
FullInstall     0
MoviePath  d:\ff7\movies\

All paths are correct as far as I can tell.  The game is installed in c:\ff7, where I decompressed the driver, and disc 1 is at d:\

[Aali]

Ah yes, it's AppPath, of course.

But it doesn't matter because the driver isn't loading at all, that WINE output clearly indicates that it's trying to use DirectShow.

[myk]

Hrm.. to confirm, here's a listing of what's in HKLM/Software/Square Soft, Inc./Final Fantasy VII/1.00/Graphics:

DD_GUID  (all 0's)
Driver        3
DriverPath   ff7_opengl.fgd
Mode        2
Options       0

Does this look right?  I can tell that /something/ is happening with the driver, as the APP.LOG file is being created (albeit with 0 length), and ff7 runs without crashing.

[Curlyoxide]

Myk Does this sound like your problem?

[Aali]

If the driver really created that app.log it would be in lowercase. FF7 normally creates that file as APP.LOG before the driver is loaded so that doesn't really tell us anything.

The only reason it crashes without the driver is that it can't write out those temporary .p files properly, so if it somehow gets past that section, everything would be fine regardless of which graphics driver it's using.

If you have FF7Music run that once *or* manually add the following binary value to the reg key; SSI_DEBUG="SHOWMETHEAPPLOG\0"
This will tell us what's going on.

[myk]

Curlyoxide: It certainly does sound like the problem, but I do have the vc 2008 runtime SP1 installed, and I have the 1.2 patch.  Moreover, I get the same behavior when I revert to ff7_opengl-0.6.10b

Aali:  under which key do I add the value?

[LeeHiOoO]

@myk:

I'm sorry... u said the movies path is "D:\ff7\movies\" and said its the patch where u put DISC1 files into it...
If I may ask... if u really put all DISC1 files into this folder then... the movies would really be at D:\ff7\movies\ff7\movies\*.avi
And the game may be expecting the *.avi's to be exactly at D:\ff7\movies\...

sorry if I misunderstood what u said

EDIT: nvm... i've just read ur post again and now I understood

[Aali]

Curlyoxide: It certainly does sound like the problem, but I do have the vc 2008 runtime SP1 installed, and I have the 1.2 patch.  Moreover, I get the same behavior when I revert to ff7_opengl-0.6.10b

Aali:  under which key do I add the value?

HKLM/Software/Square Soft, Inc./Final Fantasy VII

[myk]

Here's the output of APP.LOG with SSI_DEBUG set to "SHOWMETHEAPPLOG\0":

INITIALIZE DD/D3D START
DIRECT DRAW 2
TOTAL 335544320 FREE 335544320
DD MODE: W 800 H 600 P 3200 RGB 1 BPP 32
DD MODE: W 320 H 200 P 1280 RGB 1 BPP 32
DD MODE: W 400 H 300 P 1600 RGB 1 BPP 32
DD MODE: W 512 H 384 P 2048 RGB 1 BPP 32
DD MODE: W 640 H 480 P 2560 RGB 1 BPP 32
DD MODE: W 1024 H 768 P 4096 RGB 1 BPP 32
DD MODE: W 1152 H 864 P 4608 RGB 1 BPP 32
DD MODE: W 1280 H 1024 P 5120 RGB 1 BPP 32
DD MODE: W 1400 H 1050 P 5600 RGB 1 BPP 32
DD MODE: W 1600 H 1200 P 6400 RGB 1 BPP 32
DD MODE: W 1920 H 1200 P 7680 RGB 1 BPP 32
DD MODE: W 800 H 600 P 1600 RGB 1 BPP 16
DD MODE: W 320 H 200 P 640 RGB 1 BPP 16
DD MODE: W 400 H 300 P 800 RGB 1 BPP 16
DD MODE: W 512 H 384 P 1024 RGB 1 BPP 16
DD MODE: W 640 H 480 P 1280 RGB 1 BPP 16
DISPLAY MODE MATCH
DD MODE: W 1024 H 768 P 2048 RGB 1 BPP 16
DD MODE: W 1152 H 864 P 2304 RGB 1 BPP 16
DD MODE: W 1280 H 1024 P 2560 RGB 1 BPP 16
DD MODE: W 1400 H 1050 P 2800 RGB 1 BPP 16
DD MODE: W 1600 H 1200 P 3200 RGB 1 BPP 16
DD MODE: W 1920 H 1200 P 3840 RGB 1 BPP 16
DD MODE: W 800 H 600 P 800 RGB 1 BPP 8
DD MODE: W 320 H 200 P 320 RGB 1 BPP 8
DD MODE: W 400 H 300 P 400 RGB 1 BPP 8
DD MODE: W 512 H 384 P 512 RGB 1 BPP 8
DD MODE: W 640 H 480 P 640 RGB 1 BPP 8
DD MODE: W 1024 H 768 P 1024 RGB 1 BPP 8
DD MODE: W 1152 H 864 P 1152 RGB 1 BPP 8
DD MODE: W 1280 H 1024 P 1280 RGB 1 BPP 8
DD MODE: W 1400 H 1050 P 1400 RGB 1 BPP 8
DD MODE: W 1600 H 1200 P 1600 RGB 1 BPP 8
DD MODE: W 1920 H 1200 P 1920 RGB 1 BPP 8
Direct3D HAL
  Wine D3DDevice using WineD3D and OpenGL
EXCLUSIVE MODE
LOCK UNLOCK TEST
MATRIX INITIALIZE
ERROR: COULD NOT WRITE TO FILE TF2D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT READ FROM FILE TF2D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT WRITE TO FILE TF3D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT READ FROM FILE TF3D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT WRITE TO FILE TG2D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT READ FROM FILE TG2D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT WRITE TO FILE TG3D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT READ FROM FILE TG3D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT WRITE TO FILE T2D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT READ FROM FILE T2D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT WRITE TO FILE T3D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT READ FROM FILE T3D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT WRITE TO FILE TGT2D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT READ FROM FILE TGT2D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT WRITE TO FILE TGT3D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT READ FROM FILE TGT3D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT WRITE TO FILE SF2D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT READ FROM FILE SF2D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT WRITE TO FILE SF3D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT READ FROM FILE SF3D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT WRITE TO FILE SG2D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT READ FROM FILE SG2D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT WRITE TO FILE SG3D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT READ FROM FILE SG3D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT WRITE TO FILE S2D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT READ FROM FILE S2D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT WRITE TO FILE S3D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT READ FROM FILE S3D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT WRITE TO FILE SGT2D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT READ FROM FILE SGT2D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT WRITE TO FILE SGT3D.P
ERROR: COULD NOT READ FROM FILE SGT3D.P
INITIALIZE DD/D3D END
ERROR: COULD NOT OPEN FILE c:\ff7\ff7input.cfg
initializing sound...
creating dsound primary buffer
reading audio file
loading static sounds
sound initialized
INITIALIZING MIDI...
selecting device 1:TiMidity - TiMidity port 1, mid=255, pid=1,
midi data type: GENERAL MIDI
using midi data file: c:\ff7\data\midi\midi.lgp
midiOutGetVolume returned: ffffffff
MIDI INITIALIZED
set music volume: 127
MIDI set volume: 127
10036623060f 127 = 127
set music volume: 127
MIDI set master volume: 100
MIDI set volume: 127
10036623060f 127 = 127
Entering MAIN
Exiting MAIN
START OF CREDITS!!!

[LeeHiOoO]

It seems to me.... permissions to access .p files

[myk]

AFAICT, all the *.P files listed are writable and exist in the current directory (c:\ff7)

[Aali]

Nah, that's just WINE's lack of a certain win95 compatibility fix, FF7 will always fail to write those files if the driver isn't loaded.

But it's pretty obvious that it's dropping to software mode.. I don't remember how to get this info off the top of my head, but WINE should be able to tell you exactly why the library isn't loading if you enable the right debugging channel(s).

[lukas227]

@myk: To me it looks like you don't have the 1.02 exe (that's what happens in my wine using the 1.00 exe)

[Mindrip]

@Curlyoxide thanks for your reply, and yes this is the current driver i am running. but i just cant get the ff7 to render in 3d. ive tweaked with intels opengl settings and dosnt make anydifferce. i have also read someone that the intel 945 chipset dosnt support opengl 2.0, im running out of idears. i also notice that it does seem to render in 3d looking at the app.log with the standard ff7.config set to nvidia tnt. but i would like it to work with the custom driver.

if anyone can help i will be most gratefull

many thanks mindrip XD

I feel like giveing up intel graphics sucks. lol

[_Ombra_]

Hey Aali,

you should create a hacked out or brand new version of FF7Config.exe which contains the third option to use your driver and takes care of modifying the registry based on the windows version, and maybe the possibility to set all extra options trough simple check marks or drop down menus inside it. And to make it perfect even autodetect older graphic cards and set the use_shaders option on know gfx that needs it, detect current resolution, wine and so on.

I know it sounds like a lot of work but that will make it the perfect driver. Easy and powerful. Just right for a 1.0 release (even with an installer)

EDIT:
Almost forgot, it will solve the problem where FF7Config, if opened after the reg file is imported, will set the Driver value back to 1 and screw everything up

[myk]

@lukas227: Thanks!  I had thought the version installed from FFVIIXP.exe was the 1.02 patch.  Looking for 1.02 explicitly, though turned up http://www.gzanime.net/index.php?gz=dl&name=ff7 which was the correct one.  MIDI is still fuzzy and eventually stops entirely, but, for the first time, I can play beyond the first battle without the game crashing! Graphics and non-midi sounds are perfect, and everything runs smoothly!