Messages

26

General Discussion / Glitches in FF7 on the PS2?

« on: 2005-01-20 16:26:37 »

Hi, thanks for the reply Chesso.

I would have assumed that all PS1 titles played 100% perfectly on the PS2, but I read somewhere that there are problems with a number of games.

I think Wing Commander 3 is the only game that doesn't work that you'll have heard of.
Rest are random Japanese games.
Could have be fixed outside of the original release of the Ps2 in Japan though...

27

General Discussion / How fast did you beat FFVII?

« on: 2004-12-27 14:43:52 »

I think thats the greatest thing ive ever seen.  It often
amazes me to see videos of japanese people playing
video games. Cause they kick the crap outa them.

Koreans are worse. Especially with Tekken, Star Craft and a few other titles. All about English anyway... if only we weren't so damn lazy ^^
Like blaytant, I don't see any Japanese heads doing this: http://sircanealotshome.homestead.com/files/10000030.jpg (note: it's a level from Tomb Raider 2, completed in an insanely fast time by a friend of mine, years ago...)

The last time I played FFVII, I tried to zoom through it; I made a few mistakes (like forgetting to set battle speed to max till half way through the game), but I was at about 18 hours at the end of disk 2. So I would have gussed about 22-24 hours.
I guess if I didn't make so many mistakes, I could have done it in under 20.
I've been REALLY tempted recently to dust FFVII off and try again... well, we'll see... ^^

I REALLY don't think 12 hours is possible unless you either, yes, suffer from a bug or go to insane lengths to complete the game fast.

Infact, I wonder what's better for speed play, PC or PSX? I mean, you can skip the movies and stuff on the PSX, but does the timer run while loading? You're going to save seconds here and there since the PC NEVER has to access the slow-ass CD medium while playing...

28

General Discussion / Translation request, should be easy

« on: 2004-11-11 12:15:39 »

Got a picture of it anywhere?
I probably have a few people I can nudge if no-one else can be bothered.

29

General Discussion / Nobuo Uematsu Leaves Square Enix

« on: 2004-11-11 12:14:51 »

Square probably still has access to GOOD composers.
Take Massashi Hamauzu, who did most of my favourite music in FFX.

Anyway, as I've read, he seems interesting now in working in the internation market, which may mean we get to see some of his music in American/Euro/Whatever games!

Although by the sound of things, he's taking a break from doing full OSTs. I bet we'll still see him back with Square in the future for the odd main theme, or few songs here and there.

30

General Discussion / FF IX for pc

« on: 2004-10-15 22:54:45 »

That PSX is FAKE.
To the l33t heads on the inernet the PSX will ALWAYS stand for PlayStation 1!!

And there's NO risk of SpyWare/Viruses from downloading Emulators, unless you download from a duff site, but that would be your own fault, wouldn't it?

31

General Discussion / FF7 FMV's

« on: 2004-10-15 22:51:57 »

Why do the FMVs look so crappy on the PC, I know TVs have less scan lines or something like that (less detailed anyways), so you can't see how bad the videos are. But it can't effect it that much can it? They look really rubbish on my monitor which is completely tiny compared to my TV.

Because the way in which FFVII plays the movies is shite in every way:
Crappily upsized from 320x to 640x
No post-processing applied to them
Movies run in 16bit colour

Heh, try playing the movies in WindowsMedia Player to see what normal Post-Processing will do ^^

32

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / "Gears" - The FF7 Documentaion Project

« on: 2004-07-02 00:09:12 »

Heh, I was going to say if you needed an editor type person to check over your work, I'd be happy to help.
I'll be reading it anyway when I can be bothered, so it's not much effort to note errors if I DO find any (and lord only knows, I've seen things get gone over by 3 people and there's still typos in it)

But no worries, thanks for the reading material (when I can be bothered) ^_^

33

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / WILL FFVII run movies based on another codec?

« on: 2004-06-24 22:09:14 »

Dunno, just tweaking the brightness/contrast seems to help a lot.

More concerned with trying to clean out the blocks right now...

Too tired at the moment though. For some reason, it's more effort that it seems.

34

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / WILL FFVII run movies based on another codec?

« on: 2004-06-24 21:47:19 »

Virtual Dub won't open FFVII PC movies normally. You need to install the proper codec, it can't use VFW (video for windows) codec. I installed it ages ago, but I couldn't be bothered to do it again, so I just loaded the PC movie into Virtual Dub with AVI Synth's DirectShowSource
Which basically does use VFW, even if it is slower than decoding with the proper codecs.

As for the PSX movies, they're just ripped to uncompressed AVI, so... no comment.

I think you may be able to open the videos in Virtual Dub with that Tool Kit, but don't bet on it; I really don't remember...

After seeing how much better the PSX movies are though, I've sorta given up on the PC movies. The only problem with the PSX movies are that they have a slight green tiny, and some of them are a little bright (and ALL of the PC's movies are too dark - guess they had to compensate for glare on TV screens or something, the green tint can't be intentional though - they must have noticed it and fixed it for the PC version, or maybe it's even a problem with the video compression codec Square used for the FFVII movies).

35

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / WILL FFVII run movies based on another codec?

« on: 2004-06-23 00:13:32 »

The backgrounds don't look better because they are displayed in their native resolution when you are running in 320x240, and just scaled to fill the screen via pixel doubling in 640x480.

Aha - that'd make sense.
And in FFVIII years later we get a shity bilinier filter -_-

The PC movies indeed look terrible, but they are noticeably less terrible if you play them in WMP. I think this has to do with FF7 running in 16-bit color mode (did I hear the movies looked better when you were using the window mode patch and playing in 32-bit color depth?

Yes, the colour thing is true. However, I'm really not sure about how colour effects movies. The movies never looked anywhere near as bad if I ran my desktop in 16 bit colour and played the movies. And since I never bothered with the 32bit colour patch, I'm not sure what sort of quality was gained.

If they would look in FF7 like they do in WMP, I'd be reasonably happy. Since they're messed up in FF7 for some reason, re-encoded movies might suffer similar negative effects...?

I'm really not sure. If you could clean up the blocking present in either the Psx or PC movies, so there was no blocking visable without using Direct X's postprocessing (better find out how to turn that off again, haha), then it shouldn't display blocks when it plays in FFVII PC.
It's simply a case of someone being bothered to try it - I certainly can't be bothered right now, especially considering the effort involved in getting FFVII PC up and running
Either way, cleaning up the movies is past my current ability. I hate smoothing over detail, so simply slaping on heavier filters isn't really an option. I need to find some way of cleaning up the blocking present in the original movies...
I'm also trying to sharpen the movies ( http://www.williams1.homechoice.co.uk/Re-Original.png ,  http://www.williams1.homechoice.co.uk/Re-Sharp.png) which is another pain in the ass.
I know this is do able up to a fairly decent quality.
It's just, encoding gives you out as much as you put in. And improving on my current level of skill is pretty annoying, as the community is very n00b unfriendly

36

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / WILL FFVII run movies based on another codec?

« on: 2004-06-22 19:46:51 »

I don't trust the 320x mode though. The backgrounds don't look any better either...
But yeah, you may be right...

37

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / WILL FFVII run movies based on another codec?

« on: 2004-06-22 14:46:32 »

I did the intro:

http://www.williams1.homechoice.co.uk/Opening(PSX)XVidV1.avi

If someone wants to see if this actually works now, go ahead.
Although I've relised that any minor ammount of filtering might be pointless if FFVII doesn't post process at all. However, I'm hoping it's FFVII resizing from 320x-640x using a shity resizer is what kills most of the quality.
I've got to find a way of cleaning up the videos more - there's still tons of blocking left from the original PSX FMV. Especially in the shot where it pans out on Midgar - there's probably so much blocking, the filters I'm using are mistaking the blocking for detail NOT to be smoothed over -_-

38

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / WILL FFVII run movies based on another codec?

« on: 2004-06-21 22:24:43 »

The PSX movies are 540582035823058023x better:

http://www.williams1.homechoice.co.uk/Bike(PSXVersion).avi

The PC movies are waay too dark.
The PSX movies are a tad too bright though.

I might just go ahead with this if I can get quality a few nothces higher with futher tweaking.
IF it works that is.
Anyone have any idea yet?

39

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / WILL FFVII run movies based on another codec?

« on: 2004-06-21 20:59:47 »

I'm implying I'd be suprised if they gave a crap, and if they did I'd walk into Jail before we even got a cease and detist.

And as for BT, I'll probably try to get ahold of a private(ish) tracker. It's as you said... I wouldn't put this up on a public tracker, it's just BT would be an easy way to get a gig of movies to the few peeps I'd actually do this for on this board.

And I'll say the PC version movies MAY clean up alright. I'm not that much of an encoder certainly, but I've seen some insane things done just using AVI Synth filters (which in their way far surpass even professional tools in the right hands). Fortunately I know a pair of hands, it's just a case of kicking him a lot and seeing what he can do with the clip
I'm going to dig up my PSX version in a minute, and see what the Bike scene looks like on that. If I remember rightly, there was at least less blocking to clean up on the Psx movies...

40

General Discussion / FF7 on PC

« on: 2004-06-21 16:26:27 »

"scraping" your knees is a silly thing to say. Sure, in certain colloqual coversations between parents and small children I could see the term being used, but in any sort of properly writen text, it sucks.
I don't think "scared" works particly well either, but it makes it still makes it  sound like a pretty small thing (most of us have got a few scars on our knees from triping over when we were younger - I know I have) - especially as Cloud did fall off a mountain (well, a rope bridge, but any excuse to say someone fell of a mountain).

41

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / WILL FFVII run movies based on another codec?

« on: 2004-06-21 16:23:25 »

Heh, play FFVII's movies in Windows Media player. Do they look better? Are you running your desktop over 640x480?
The reason they look better at a res even higher than 640x is because Direct X applys filtering, and uses a resizer not out of the prehistoric age (FFVII looks like it's using point resizing, eww) - eg, bilinier resizing (even though bilinier is shity, haha). FFVII PC does none of this.

I propose recompressing them and cleaning them up - eliminating such a 'need' for the post processing Direct X does when you play the videos in WMP.

I know for a fact I can clean the blocking and the artifacting up, it's just the resize and keeping the detail (not smoothing over or bluring them to hell) and whether or not they'll even work is what is bothering me.

Hey, if I can be bothered - I'll see what I can do tonight even
That's if I can work out how to get the videos to open in Virtual Dub, which if I remember the last time I did that was a PAIN

Edit: The movies are in worse condition than I remember. There even seems to be deinterlacing artifacts in there (god knows why, I don't remember the Psx movies being interlaced); I can't see ANY other reason for the weird pixel shimering - that's Dot Matrix and as far as I know it only comes from deinterlacing.
I managed to soften that out a little with a filter designed to remove dirt.
And I softed the blocking as much as I could, then encoded to XVid.
I also resized them to 640x480 (which is actually an incorrect ratio - since FFVII runs with the little bar at the bottom, but I can't be bothered to figure out what the correct 640x ratio is right now), so FFVII wouldn't need to bother resizing with its horrible point resizer.
Here's how well I did anyway. For some reason the audio is broken, I can't be bothered to figure out why, so there's no audio.

http://www.williams1.homechoice.co.uk/bikeXVIDFinal1.avi

I'm afraid with my level of skill, I'm not going to get it looking much better than that.
I think I might check out the Psx disks when I can be bothered (I have the USA version sitting around here somewhere). Not only is the audio a million times better, I also remember the video being a little better too...

And this would certainly be a bad idea, for obvious reasons, even if there were something to be gained by recompressing.

And if Square even batted an eye lid about such activitys, I'd gladly sue MYSELF before they even issue a cease and detist.

42

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / WILL FFVII run movies based on another codec?

« on: 2004-06-21 10:32:15 »

Yo all.

I heard a while ago that FFVII WILL run other movies in place of the default ones, as long as the codecs are installed on the system.

Is this true?
If it is, I've been thinking about re-encoding those movies for a while.
Think about it, one could clean them up and get rid of a lot of the blocking, and perhaps even give them a decent resize up to 640x480, so the game wouldn't have to bother using whatever shity resizer it usually uses. If we could get the game to play XVid files especially...

Input?
If this did work out, I could easily put a Bittorent up for the files, so everyone could get them....

43

General Discussion / FF7 on PC

« on: 2004-06-21 10:21:41 »

PSX version naturally gets the TV advantage automatically,

Actually, PC version still gives you an advantage on a TV. It's still 640x vs 320x. The battle scenes look a million times better on a TV-Out running the PC version, than on the Psx version.

On the other hand, the PC version benefits from a (slightly) cleaned up dialog translation.

Actually, I'd say it's a little more than slightly. I was suprised a while ago when I started playing through the Psx USA version on an emulator, about how much bad dialog there was. In the USA version, Cloud "scrapes" his knees, in the PC version, he "scars" his knees.

so if you play the PC version on a TV screen there shouldn't be a noticable difference should there?

They still look a little stretched, since they still ARE being stetched, but the crapyness is hidden a lot, as the SDTV IS the best prostprocessor in the world.

No, for one, there is no quality difference, so it would be a moot point, two, the movies in the PSX version are all edited differently, and the PC version has the music as part of the movie, while they play the MIDI on the PSX version.

Actually, if I remember rightly, the music is only part of the movie with one or two of the movies.
And I don't remember which ones :/

44

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Getting character timing right...

« on: 2004-05-20 13:27:16 »

That problem is an effect from running the movies off the hard disk? Hmm, I never knew that....

45

General Discussion / BUTCHER, FAKE?

« on: 2004-04-30 18:51:42 »

OMG, that's him!
Just as I remember.......

46

General Discussion / Why are people so confused with this?

« on: 2004-04-30 13:58:37 »

There is?

I've been out of it.... too.... long....

47

General Discussion / BUTCHER, FAKE?

« on: 2004-04-29 21:22:28 »

Nah man. I still believes in the Butcher!!!1

I'm trying to dig up some threads on Not Eidos that were around back then, but it appears Not Eidos might be down for good... the link I have isn't working

They basically show who the original instigators were, heh.

48

General Discussion / BUTCHER, FAKE?

« on: 2004-04-29 19:33:21 »

Half and half.

Why?

49

General Discussion / BUTCHER, FAKE?

« on: 2004-04-29 15:44:50 »

The Butcher originally appeared in FFI. I can't find the pics, but he's there, trust me.

Some people have reported having some trouble getting THE BUTCHER, but he's in FFVII, you're just too stupid to find the 36th 1/35 soldier which no one outside Eidos' inner circle have ever been told about.

I remember back before that freak storm tore about the computer with my butcher save back on how l33t he was. His attacks only did 1 damage, but they seemed to kill everything anyway, even if it did take a while...

Anyway, that's how it is. You could say I'm just adding more to the rumor, but I don't deal in rumors. Only facts.

Thank you very much.

50

General Discussion / Why are people so confused with this?

« on: 2004-04-29 15:34:37 »

I agree, FF7 is teh suck, teh block hands are no good, Sqaure should rerelease it with real hands, and if someone dies in battle, they are lost from the game forever!!!

....

Thank you very much.