Topics

26

General Discussion / FF6 boss battle -- Modernized!!

« on: 2002-05-05 01:55:41 »

Check out the link here:

http://www.vgmusic.com/forums/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=sequencing&Number=90104&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&fpart=1&vc=1&PHPSESSID=

It'll take you to a specific post on the VGmusic forums.  The guy here has two links, one that'll take you to the MP3 recording of what he's done, and the MIDI version of the same.  Appearantly, he's asking for help on improving it.  I've already mentioned something (my handle there is the same as I use here.)

56k'ers, beware: The mp3 is about 3megs.

27

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Dual Booting Questions

« on: 2002-04-29 03:50:48 »

Well, guess what?  My dad finally wants to take that big leap to using more than one OS.  Only thing stopping him is that he really doesn't know the details of how to do it (I don't know most of them either, for that matter.)

Specifically, he's gonna try to do a dual boot of Win98SE and Win2000.  And, he's been doing a few searchs at the Microsoft Knowledge base and he keeps hearing stuff about Bootloader (AKA OSLoader), and neither he nor I know where you get it, though I suspect it's a buried part of Windows that pops its head up when it detects more than one OS.....

So, I told him I'd ask you guys about what you know about dual booting.

Thanks in advance.

28

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / DirectX 8.1 and 3dFX Voodoo3: A problem?

« on: 2002-04-02 01:55:00 »

This is mainly concerning my 3dFX hardware's capabilities, but I do have a few issues on two non-FF games that I'll describe later.  I think the cause of all these problems is related.  That said, here goes:

In the dxdiag program, when I run the D3D acceleration test, it passes the DX7 interface test, but when it tries the DX8 interface, it fails, with the test report saying:

Direct3D test results: Failure at step 5 (GetDeviceCaps): HRESULT = 0x8876086a (3D not available)

Judging from what it says, it sounds like a driver problem.  So, I go and install the DX8 compatible 3Dfx drivers, run the DX8 interface test again, and it still fails.  Why?  Is DX8 only able to do 32 bit rendering (it's known that Voodoo3 cards can't do 32bit texturing)?  What gives?

Now, here's where I'm getting trouble.  The latest version of Moto Racer 2 (version 1.34), will not run.  I get a "crash to desktop" in the middle of loading a level.  Is it related to the DX8 test failure problem?  Second, Homeworld:Cataclysm has never been able to run ever since I upgraded my 233mhz system to the P4 1.5ghz system.  It simply dumps back to windows after playing the two intro movies.

29

General Discussion / Just.....Amazing. This gal's skills seem to be on par with

« on: 2002-03-29 21:21:00 »

Ok.  Here's her site:

http://www.geocities.com/rinoa_dawnwind/html/palace.html

Check out the music section, particulary the part labeled "Final Fantasy Fever".  These aren't from any particular FF game, but she wrote these from scratch as the music for a ficticious Final Fantasy game.

I don't know if anyone has already stumbled upon and told you about this, so my apologies if this is old news.

30

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / The Impossible has just been done: Hardware DLS on my XG car

« on: 2002-02-16 00:21:00 »

Yep.  

And, it's runnin' off a WDM driver, designed for Win98SE!

I'd post a screenshot proving it, but I don't know how exactly you'd go about posting it.

Anyway, I think I'm off to play FF8, and give these drivers a good run-thru!

YIPPIE!!!!  :laugh:    

-edit-
Stupid me.  'Had a typo in the subject line. LOL.
[edited] 239 2002-02-16 01:22

31

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Yes, it's now my turn to ask for advice on a major system up

« on: 2001-12-08 23:18:00 »

Ok, first of all, I'd like to announce that yesterday, December 7, was my birthday.  Now, aside from the fact that that means people were wishing me a happy birthday, I also got roughly $160 worth of checks and cash from my relatives.  Added to my life savings, that brings the total close to $200.  

Now, the real kicker is that my dad agreed to supplement me in buying a bare-bones CPU-Motherboard-Memory upgrade.  So, without further ado, here's my question:

What combination of components can get me the most bang-for-buck for under $500?  Why $500?  Because I think that dad is only willing to pay for roughly $300 or so for his part of the purchase.  300 + ~200=  almost $500.

Now, I'm planning to upgrade it to where I can stay above the 1GHz barrier on a P-III, with 256 Megs of PC133 SDRAM.  I don't need to worry about Video or Sound, because of my 3dFX Voodoo3 PCI and my XG hardware card.  I do need to worry, however, about the availibility of ISA slots on this potential system.  The SB AWE64 I use for SoundFont purposes is an ISA card, and therefore needs a slot.

So, therefore, those of you who are regulars in this forum (whom I dub the "Tech Squad", after the one in Trabia Garden in FF8.), give me your best shot at this limited opportunity I have.

-edit- why doesn't the forum recognize the underline tags in the posts?  Oh well, I'll just use italics instead.
[edited] 239 2001-12-09 00:19

32

General Discussion / Shockwave Pulsar: An actual Limit Break?!

« on: 2001-12-02 01:59:00 »

I recently discovered that in FF8, if you use an item called "Dark Matter" on Quistis, she'll learn "Shockwave Pulsar".  Yes, you heard right:  Griever's signature move is a limit break.

How to get a "Dark Matter"?  You're supposed to refine 100 Curse Spikes with one of the item refine abilities (I forgot which on offhand; but I'd bet my money that its the "tool-RF" ability).

Anyway, I have a question.  What is the fastest way to collect 100 curse spikes?  I get maybe two or three on rare occasions.  The most I've had is like 5.

I don't know about you, but I'd like to see Griever get a taste of his own mediciene at least once!

33

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Help! I suspect one of my comp's fans is failing!

« on: 2001-12-01 04:05:00 »

I read somewhere that some motherboards are programmed to play a little bit of some Beethoven (Spelling is wrong, I think) song through the cheap little PC speaker when it detects that one of the cooling fans (I forgot which) stops working.

Anyway, I was playing FF8 when my mom came in, asking me about renewing my subscription to Nintendo Power.  I had the game paused, so no sound was coming out.  All of a sudden I hear a series of beeps that almost sounded like the beginning of one of Beethoven's songs.  I couldn't tell exactly, because I couldn't tell where it was coming from, and mom wouldn't shut up while it did it.  Mom thought it came from the computer, but she thought it was something that the computer was supposed to do, so she didn't pay attention when I was telling her to stop talking so I can listen.

By the time she stopped, it stopped playing the song.  It hasn't happened again since before dinner.  I don't own anything that would have made a series of beeps like that.

Still, is it true that some motherboards are designed to play a song when one of the fans fail?  If anyone knows about what I'm describing, please help. For your information, my board is an ASUS VX97 model.

34

Archive / I need suggestions for My FF9 mod...

« on: 2001-11-17 02:59:00 »

Okay, I just finished this really good rendition of "The Prelude" from FF9.   Only now, I can't decide which FF8 song it should replace in the mod.

So, this is where you come in.  I would appreciate your suggestions on where to put it.  Ideally, it should fit in somewhere in the actual game, not just for credits or any of the title screen stuff.

35

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Questions about the SoundFont RAM on AWE32 and AWE64!

« on: 2001-09-18 05:31:00 »

I've been wondering this ever since I first heard about DownLoadable Sounds (DLS).  Is there any way to trick the AWE64 into using its RAM to load DLS instruments?  I figure in theory it should be possible, assuming there was enough RAM on the card to hold, for example, FF8's original 8meg DLS file.  

I mean, it's simply RAM onboard the card, so its not a hardware limitation that would reject the data.

So, if that's the case, is a driver hack or modified version of the AWE control panel that would allow you to select DLS files feasible?

36

General Discussion / An actual FF9 mod for FF8PC.......is anyone interested?

« on: 2001-09-16 06:18:00 »

Hi.  I'm new here, so I don't know if anyone's done something like this before.

Anyway, about a month ago I got this crazy idea to replace the regular battle theme and world map theme from FF8 with the ones from FF9.  After a few days of instrument tweaking, comparing it to what the real theme from FF9 PSX sounds, and going back and tweaking some more, I got it right.

Or so I thought.  After discovering the existence of Samuel's DLS (by the way, excellent job on version 1.35, Samuel!), I tested my mod on his DLS.  The Overdrive Guitar in the battle theme is not there, like it's supposed to be; so currently this mod is designed for the Original DLS that came with the game.  It still sounds pretty good, and hopefully within the next few days I will attempt to create a version that works with Samuel's DLS.

I mainly created this mod for fun, and unfortunately, I don't exactly have anywhere to post it yet.  Right now I simply want to know if anyone is interested in trying this out.