Messages

51

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

« on: 2009-05-29 07:26:12 »

Yeah, I may try it out with my laptop sometime.  It's sporting a Radeon 7500 Mobile, which is another shaderless DX7 card.   No post-processing for me, it seems.

However, I may also try it on my fiance's computer, as I recently got her into playing the game on her comp -- she's got some craptastic HP Pavilion running Vista Home with an integrated nVidia Geforce 6150 LE that can't tell the difference between Cloud and the backside of a chocobo barn in hardware mode.

52

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

« on: 2009-05-29 05:25:24 »

Firstly, because my video card was orphaned, driver-wise, in 2001 when the company went under.  Up-to-date drivers for WinXP/Vista either don't exist, or are hacked together, or are gimped compared to the Win98 drivers.  The card can report Hardware T/L capability under Win9x, but due to how Win2k/XP/Vista don't allow the drivers to touch the hardware directly, I can't do that under them, severly castrating performance in some DX7/8 games if I were to use the newer OSes with it.

Secondly, this particular box has long been relegated to being a legacy system for playing older games, FF7 and 8 in particular, because they work out of the box with FSAA with my setup, and no chocobo patching is needed either.  I have a somewhat-more-modern laptop with XP that I use for today's stuff, though.

53

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

« on: 2009-05-29 04:59:44 »

Ok, I can not for the life of me get this driver to work on my system.  Relavent specs:

1.5Ghz P4, 512mb RAM, Win98SE, 3Dfx Voodoo5 5500 AGP video card (DX7/OpenGL 1.1 compliant hardware, can hit OGL 1.3 using MesaFX driver)

Yes, yes, I know with a system like this Aali's driver isn't really needed, nonetheless I want to try it out for kicks.

Anyway, when I tried to import the ff7_opengl.reg file, Windows said it wasn't a real registry file, and thus refused to import the settings.  So, I had to manually create the keys and import the data.  After copying the files to the ff7 install directory and launching the game, it suspiciously looks like its using software rendering.  Checking the app.log file confirms this, it is definitely either ignoring the driver or silently falling back to software.

Any ideas, Aali?

54

Troubleshooting / The APZ Cloud Project!!!!

« on: 2009-05-29 01:48:01 »

Sweet field model there.   I do have a question, though.

<constructive_criticism>The zipper running down the boots appears to be misaligned.  I figure that that is probably because the leg and foot are two separate bones, and thus the boot texture is in two parts, resulting in the misalignment when the foot is rotated.  However, would it be possible to play with the sizes of those bones abit to allow the boot texture to be all on one bone, in order to avoid that?</constructive_criticism>

If not, then no biggie.  I doubt we'd be close enough to cloud that often to really notice it.  Still, I figured you'd be kinda interested in it. *shrugs*

55

Troubleshooting / The APZ Cloud Project!!!!

« on: 2009-05-27 07:41:06 »

That's exactly what I was thinking:  It's like a PS2 model stuck in a wacky PS1.5 world.  What a nightmare for this cloud's head.

Still.....one 512x512 texture?

This may go without saying, but that texture won't work on legacy systems that are rocking a 3dfx Voodoo3 or Voodoo2 card (max texture size = 256x256 @ 16bit), so anyone planning on throwing together an old system to play FF7 and other old games without the hassle of making modern OSes and hardware play nice should be made aware of the incompatibility before they try to use this model.

But.....I highly doubt anyone here is using such a setup these days, even as a legacy rig.... 

*sits back down in rocking chair and grabs cane, cranky kong style*

Where was I again?  Oh yeah. You carved that model with a hammer and chisel from a block of pure awesome, didn't you?

56

Troubleshooting / The APZ Cloud Project!!!!

« on: 2009-05-27 06:26:31 »

This is incredible.  Simply incredible.   

APZ, the level of detail in your model is just outstanding.  I'm left wondering just what the game engine's limits on textures and texture detail are, because I daresay this makes it look like the engine's got a LOT of untapped potential.

So, I hereby award you with 10,000 Cool Points.  Spend them wisely.

57

Releases / Re: [Release] Final Fantasy VII Phoenix Rejuvenation Project

« on: 2008-11-25 21:12:49 »

Hey guys....remember when I said this?

Later on, when you're trying to get to Hojo, the entire screen, 2D background and all, was totally corrupt, and other 2D artifacts started appearing (improper colors, random border lines around the experience gauges and text boxes, etc.)

Turns out someone else encountered it and screenshotted it:

http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=7865.msg94994#msg94994

That's exactly the degree of corruption I had when I had my field display "meltdown" during the Hojo mission.  If you notice he is also using either NPC 0.6 or the PRP mod (based on the character models), so I don't think its a hardware failure....

58

Releases / Re: [Release] Final Fantasy VII Phoenix Rejuvenation Project

« on: 2008-11-21 22:04:41 »

i didnt have any of these problems when i played thru it, sounds like a end user setup problem, i hope ur video card isnt going out.

For what its worth, I haven't had errors of that magnitude since then.  I think it might have been a one-time thing.  *shrugs*

However, I have noticed that the tifa-chocobo race model is missing her face textures every time the model is used, without fail.  Perhaps something is not right in the LGP file?

59

Troubleshooting / Re: FF8Config.exe cannot find MIDI device

« on: 2008-11-13 20:40:53 »

Sounds like you need to reinstall DirectX.   FF8 uses a software midi device called the "Microsoft Synthesizer" by default, and that gets installed with the DirectMusic portion of DirectX, so it should be there regardless of whatever sound card you use.  The fact that FF8 can't find it makes me think your DirectX is seriously borked.

If it still can't find it after reinstalling DX, try reinstalling your sound drivers next.

60

Troubleshooting / Re: sfx problems

« on: 2008-11-11 10:09:50 »

Oddly enough, I've noticed it happen on my system as well.  I'm using an SB Audigy2ZS on Win98, with what I think is the last driver set they made for Win98, and the sound effects are cutting out at random times, including during battles.  I'm not using FF7music either (MIDI playback continues to function after the sound effects disappear), and it still occurs with a fresh stock 1.00 version of the game as well.....

61

Troubleshooting / Re: FF8 Launcher - Custom resolutions and 8-bit paletted textures fix (patch)

« on: 2008-11-11 09:56:35 »

And now for more of the same:  I've got an error report!

I've been trying to get ff8 running correctly in hardware mode on my friends computer (an HP Pavilion Slimline), which is some random ~2ghz Core2duo running Vista with an nVidia GeForce 6150 LE built into the motherboard.  Hardware mode continues to give me the "black boxes in background" problem, even when using the launcher and checking the 8bit textures fix.  I can't remember the exact driver version ofhand, but I seem to remember it saying something like "version 178".  And yes, I have installed the 1.2 GeForce patch for FF8.

Software mode runs without problems, and also makes things look as crappy as they tend to when I first get up in the morning.

62

Releases / Re: [Release] Final Fantasy VII Phoenix Rejuvenation Project

« on: 2008-10-29 22:51:43 »

Just encountered a few graphics errors during the whole Diamond Weapon event in Disc 2 yesterday.  Here's one of 'em:



Occurs during the buildup to the Cannon firing, when everyone's still on the Bridge.

There's another one before that, when Diamond is moving towards midgar.  The World map is missing textures all over the place.  There was one really bad spot when I tried it the other day, with entire landmasses acting as if they'd got Hidden Surface Removal'd.

Later on, when you're trying to get to Hojo, the entire screen, 2D background and all, was totally corrupt, and other 2D artifacts started appearing (improper colors, random border lines around the experience gauges and text boxes, etc.)

I haven't had these errors happen to me when I replayed the scene today, so I don't know if it's from the PRP patch or if my video card started screwing up randomly....

63

Troubleshooting / Re: FF8 Launcher - Custom resolutions and 8-bit paletted textures fix (patch)

« on: 2008-10-28 20:43:21 »

What type of sound card do you have?  I assume you've already installed the whole EAX unified thing and/or whatever EAX drivers that came with your sound card.

If you're using a Soundblaster Live! or Audigy series card, check to see if the sound acceleration slider is set all to the way to "Full".  I've noticed that if its not on full, games will refuse to see your card's EAX functionality regardless of whatever driver you have installed.

64

Releases / [FF7PC-98] The AWEsome Patch - SoundFont MIDI data fix (2008-10-22)

« on: 2008-10-21 21:44:58 »

Man, it's been a long, LONG time since I've actually released something.

Linkage here: The AWEsome Patch (Size:87.1kb)

Anyway, this is my first FF7-releated MIDI release.  It is aimed at those who have SF2-compatible soundcards and are having stability issues with FF7music that they can't seem to fix.  It is also somewhat inspired by this thread here, in which Zaphod77 began an attempt at fixing some of the sequencing errors in the MIDI files.  In fact, this release builds on some of the work he did in that thread, and I give him credit for the files of his that I incorporated in this patch.

What it does
As the name implies, its an update for the midi files in the AWE.lgp file, that fixes the midi files there to sound more like the PSFs by using more intelligent sample choices from the game's FF7.sf2 file, as well as other notation tricks and fixes.   Loop point data is intact as well, so they will loop seamlessly.

Which files are updated
This is a short, but good, list for a first release.  Fighting, Still More Fighting, Victory Fanfare, J E N O V A, Electric de Chocobo and Under the Rotting Pizza have been updated in this version.  Future releases will attempt to fix more songs, should they need to be fixed.  I have the PSFs, so doing A/B comparisons isn't a problem.   

How to install it
The MIDI files included in the zip file are for those who want to patch the awe.lgp file manually using LGP Tools, and the .exe file is the autopatcher for those to just want to point/click/install/play.  They also serve as a handy way of previewing the new midi data without installing the patch.  Just make sure to load FF7.sf2 into bank 1 (not bank 0) of your soundfont device before playing.  Also, be sure to go into the MIDI tab in the config program and select "SoundFont MIDI (AWE32/64)" under "MIDI Data", in order to make sure you're using the new data.

Using the EAX Preset
I've included a tweaked version of Samuel's FF8 EA Preset, that should be compatible with Audigy2 cards.  Unless I've fundamentally misunderstood how to export EAX presets, then this should work.  Do the following to use it:

1. On the EAX tab, click ENABLE AUDIO EFFECTS, if EAX sounds are currently off.

2. Click CUSTOM, then click EDIT.

3. A new window should appear.  Click the IMPORT ENVIRONMENT icon, go to where you extracted "PSX Reverb.aup" to, and select it.

4. The new Environment setting should now be added to the selectable list of custom effects.  Close the window and click CUSTOM (or to ENVIRONMENT and then back to CUSTOM to refresh the list), and PSX Reverb should now be listed.  Select it and enjoy!

Questions, Comments, Suggestions?
As this is a first release, I'm eager to hear some feedback.  Try it out and let me know what you think.

Also, I have no webhosting of my own, so I'm currently doing the ghetto thing and putting it on Mirex' Public Trashbin (No offense to Mirex of course.  )  Anyone who is willing to put up a mirror of this is welcome to, just let me know that you are so I can update the links in this post.

65

WIP / Re: Cloud Replacement Model * (Now with Sephiroth) * BUSTER SWORD RELEASE!!!

« on: 2008-10-06 20:17:42 »

(Whew, I haven't posted here in years....)

Apz freak, good job on the new buster sword.  Looks totally awesome.

However, I did notice something -- the sword looks somewhat off-axis with respect to Cloud.  I don't know if you somehow accidentally rotated its starting position or if the original Buster Sword was always that way, but it's most noticable when the camera is behind cloud.  I've got a screenshot:

http://bin.mypage.sk/FILES/Off-Axis%20Sword.bmp

It's kinda subtle, but check the angle of the hilt with respect to his hands, and the ground.  It's all angled like this:  \

When it should be going like this:  |

Or something.  Keep up the good work regardless.  The texture work really brings that sword to life and matches Cloud well.

-edit-

Bah, image is too big for the forum to display quickly.  I'd better change it to a regular link instead.

66

Archive / Re: The Idiots Guide To FF7Music (JK xD)

« on: 2007-06-10 21:29:44 »

Hey all, first post

I was just wondering what the differences are between the different formats. Ok I know midi files are horrible, but what about psf vs mp3.

I have to be honest in the fact that I can't tell the difference between them. Are mp3s really that much better that it's worth it to use them? what about performance? Does one format tax the system more than the other? Even though I can't really tell the difference between the formats, I still want the best audio quality possible. I also like the fact that with mp3s you can substitute songs for the AC versions, is this possible with psf? I know AC songs aren't available in minipsf format, but is it possible to encode to it?

One last question, I love the ability to use better quality versions of music rather than the midi tracks, but what I don't like is how they loop. with the midi tracks, it seems like some of them have an intro, then really get into the song, and when it loops, it loops seemlessly with the part of the track after the intro... so the song just sounds like it keeps going. Ok, it's been a while since I listened to the midis, so this could be all in my head... but will FF7Music ever be able to loop like that? Rather than playing the track, fading out, and then fading in at the beginning of the song again?

Off topic but still related to this being my first post, I'm glad to be a member of this great community, and hopefully I'll be able to contribute in some way to help make this game even better!

Palmtree

The .psf and .minipsf formats are actually MIDI files at their core, coupled with the custom instrument sounds off the psx disc.  When you play one of them, the computer is actually emulating the PSX sound chip's MIDI functions -- this isn't a direct audio format like .mp3 or .wav.  Ideally, you should be using the psf files if what you're looking for is the highest quality version of the PSX songs.  As far as the AC songs are concerned, it would take a LOT of dedication, as well as development tools used for making PSX-compatible instrument samples, and new MIDI data saved in whatever binary format .psf files are compiled in, to make .psf versions of the AC songs.

So, you'll sorta be stuck with mp3 for that.

67

General Discussion / Re: FF5 + Satriani =This!

« on: 2007-06-07 22:47:07 »

Not entirely.  It is loosely based on "Blue Water, Blue Sky" from GGX, but apparently the main melody goes off entirely into other places that "Blue Water, Blue Sky" doesn't go.  It's more like the two songs share heavily similar rhythms.

68

Archive / Re: Clear guide to MIDI files

« on: 2007-06-06 20:41:38 »

EDIT: I recently tried it with FF7 PC on Vista. It worked, but Cantabile/SFZ doesn't quite like the original FF7 soundfont. Maybe they did some strange out-of-spec things that SFZ doesn't like.

They did, at least by today's SB Live!/Audigy standards.  The SF2 files were designed with an AWE32/64 in mind, and that chip has the basic GM samples hard-coded into the silicon.  As such, they are able to use what are known as "ROM samples", which are basically references to the hard-coded samples along with modifications to what the LFOs and such are supposed to do with them, instead of raw sample data.  It was rather space-efficient to do that back in the day.

SFZ can't emulate that because it doesn't know what to do with those instructions.

69

General Discussion / Re: FF5 + Satriani =This!

« on: 2007-06-05 18:53:52 »

Long time no see, indeed.

I'm not sure.  If by "takes" you're refering to how many different tracks he recorded in his songs, then from what I've read from the Youtube comments spanning several of his videos, he does all the backing tracks himself in Sonar 5 or something, so it could be several takes (Bass, backup guitar, overdubs, drums, etc.).  The video itself looks continuous (minus the obvoius screen transitions, but theoretically they could have forced a single take into different concrete sections and added in those transitions), but then again, I'm an audio guy, not a video guy.

Ultimately, I can't know for sure because his site, http://www.kurikinton-fox.com/, is written in Japanese.  Seeing as how some of the people here know japanese, perhaps they can go to the site and shed some light on the situation?

Oh, and BTW:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVh0Ep8fDIs&mode=related&search=  FF7 Boss Theme cover, in case ya missed it on the "related movies" section.

70

General Discussion / FF5 + Satriani =This!

« on: 2007-06-05 16:50:37 »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01wPCacTWZk

 

Based on this + some of his other stuff, I'd say give this man a recording contract. NOW!

71

Archive / Re: FF8 music patch?

« on: 2006-12-27 00:33:39 »

(My mom really liked the improved one on the FFSF page, but I have no idea how to make *that* work as I keep getting an error, even though it could be because I tried to patch the already patched Samuel's one...and it can't be the read only error since it wasn't read only).

Are you refering to the "Improved Tracks" patch and "Revision2" DLS update?  *Is the creator of those two patches*

If so, then yeah....they're kinda a mess right now, and have been for a couple of years, unfortunately.  For some reason my version of WinRAR isn't making the .FFAddon correctly, making any new updates I create unrecognizable to our config program's "install" function.  That, and life has forced me to put it on the backburner for years now.  Furthermore, the Revision2 update is supposed to be applied to the original DLS file that the game's installer installed on your computer -- don't put it on Sam's DLS.

These days, I tend to recommend using Sam's stuff over mine, as the large majority of internet connections are now broadband, and a 45mb download isn't the multi-hour task it used to be back when I joined the project and made my patches -- the idea behind them being a compromise between sound quaility and download time.

Of course, I haven't stopped progress on my stuff completely -- in recent months I have been (slowly) working on making my choir version of Griever's Theme (from the "Improved Tracks" patch) compatible with Samuel's DLS, because while compositionally it sounds great, the relative lack of sound quality between the Rev2 DLS and Sam's DLS really holds it back.

72

Archive / Re: One winged angel

« on: 2006-06-02 07:31:37 »

Quite possibly.  Though by default, the game's own version of FF7.sf2 does NOT contain the voices.

The automatic loading of lb2.sf2 as a separate file was done because back in the era of the SB AWE32/64, you were stuck with a very small amount of RAM that was loaded on the soundcard itself (it couldn't use system RAM like today's cards), and most of the SB AWE cards out there were stuck with either 512kb (typical for AWE64 cards), or 2mb, and MAYBE 4mb if you knew where to get the RAM expansions for your card.  Furthermore, you were stuck with static loading, meaning when you uploaded a soundfont, you grabbed ALL of its instruments into the sound cards active memory, whether the song called for them or not -- so square decided to get around this by having the game unload FF7.sf2 and load lb2.sf2 for OWA.

Now, it should also be mentioned that square's soundfont is BLOATED to heck and back -- a majority of those samples could have been shortened without losing quality at all, and thus reducing file size.  But they didn't do that, and their inefficiency at it contributed to requiring two-file workaround they used to get the lyrics in the first place.

Fixing the dynamic SF2 loading would allow FF7 to use its out-of-the box soundfonts while still getting the choir lyrics -- package a fix in with any one of the many other patches available, and now we're good to go for OWA without needing to hunt down a secondary soundfont as well, plus we don't have to be bothered to go and manually load it every time we want to play FF7.  And heck, it would also solve some problems in the MIDI tab of the configurator as well (IIRC, attempting to run the MIDI test gives a "Failed" result).

73

Archive / Re: One winged angel

« on: 2006-06-02 05:58:56 »

I'd like to just remind ya'll that the choir lyrics are contained in C:\Program Files\Square Soft, Inc\Final Fantasy VII\data\midi\sf2\lb2.sf2 -- they came with the game in the first place.

What really needs to be fixed, if it hasn't been worked on already, is FF7's dynamic SF2 loading support for Live!/Audigy cards.  You see, back in the era of Windows95/98 and the Sound Blaster AWE32/64 series cards, FF7 would load lb2.sf2 automatically when it needed to play One Winged Angel, and you'd have voices.

With the advent of the Sound Blaster Live! series, FF7's support for doing this automatic loading was horribly broken, complicating things and leading to the myth that the PC version does not have the lyrics at all.

-edit-
Eh, looks like I messed up that file path.  It's all better now.

74

Archive / Re: No, the FF9 mod's not dead yet! (Samuel's DLS version)

« on: 2006-05-30 22:18:41 »

I prefer the old one!

Wow, I certainly wasn't expecting anyone to say that.   May I ask what you liked about the old version that makes you prefer it?

The new one sounds more authentic to me

Indeed, that was the point of the new version. I have to give some thanks to Neil Corlett and his PSF format -- without it, I doubt I'd be able to do the side-by-side comparisons between the MIDI file and the real deal that allowed me to keep fine tuning the MIDI.

75

Archive / No, the FF9 mod's not dead yet! (Samuel's DLS version)

« on: 2006-05-25 03:23:14 »

Alrighty, here's what happens when you actually bother to kick yourself in the arse to go and update something.

Demo mp3 alert!
OLD VERSION

NEW VERSION

As you can tell, I've just gone over the FF9 boss theme a bit (yet, its STILL not perfect - so its still being tweaked).....anyway, questions?  Comments?  Death threats over why the hell I haven't made ANY new public releases of stuff in the past 3 years?