Messages

26

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

« on: 2010-04-01 20:06:07 »

Hey, long time no see.  Glad to see how well the custom driver has developed since I last came by here -- the new battle interface is totally sweet.  Kudos to Aali. 

My apologies if this was covered already, but I am noticing an intermittant, peculiar error when running this on my Gateway laptop, though.  It's graphics chip is a Radeon 7500Mobile, using OmegaDriver 3.8.252 (The newest set that is still compatible with such legacy hardware -- apparently the newer driver cores simply don't work with this), on WinXP SP3.  Here's the error:




This happens with both 0.7.5b and 0.7.6b, though with 6b I'm also getting massive frameskips during the movies.  Are both errors the result of the (relatively) older drivers, or is this a fixable problem?

27

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

« on: 2009-07-31 08:28:09 »

Right, I wouldn't call that a launcher, that implies an external program that loads the FF8 exe in some way.

drfeelgud88: I'm not interested in PlayFF8.exe, that's just a launcher. But I'm pretty sure you have the same version as Rinoa so don't bother.

I don't know if this is important, but when the game is launched via playff8.exe, it seems to ignore the settings stored in game's registry entries completely.  I know the driver relies on registry entries for running in FF7, so I figure it might be relevant for ff8.

28

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

« on: 2009-07-30 18:55:52 »

Out of curiousity, what is his driver/GPU setup on his laptop?  If it happens to be something quite common in the el-cheapo sector of laptops, that piece of information could be helpful for a small FAQ or something.

29

Troubleshooting / Re: Oh great. FF8's got a rather awkward error with DirectMusic...any ideas?

« on: 2009-07-29 19:30:42 »

Ok....that's odd. Now its looping correctly, with the exception of that last file I edited in DMP.  Whatever got corrupted the other day seems to have mostly fixed itself.  Tempermental Computer?

Win98SE
3Dfx Voodoo5 5500 AGP

:O

Oh for the days.... So sad the Voodoo line didn't make it. It didn't support OpenGL very well, but Glide would have topped it in time. I guess with OpenGL and Direct3D someone decided Glide would be too much? I loved my Voodoo5 and I still miss it sometimes.

Yeah, I miss those days as well.  My first 3D card was a 3dfx Voodoo2 2000 PCI; it made a HECK of a difference in FF7's performance on my at-the-time P1 233Mhz w/ 48MB of totally mismatched RAM.  About 3 or 4 months after I got it, I decided to do my first 3D driver upgrade, so when I casually went to the 3Dfx site to grab 'em, I see this "dear john" letter saying they got bought out by nVidia and discontinued, with no hope of support.   I was pissed at nVidia for doing what to me looked like such an underhanded move on the competition.  I'd find out the real story of what happended later, and I know that 3Dfx's demise was mainly their own doing.

Anyway, you probably have your midi device set to something other than the default. Control Panel -> Sounds and Audio Devices -> Audio tab will let you set devices. If you don't have Microsoft Wavetable (or something similar), try (re-)installing your sound card's drivers.

Heh...it's been a long time since Win98, hasn't it?  So many name changes to the applets from version to version.  '98 called it "Multimedia".

Anyway, I actually don't have your standard MIDI device layout you see on most computers.  MS-GS Softsynth isn't there, but my list of available devices is pretty huge.  Check it out:

DS-XG MPU401 OUT
DS-XG Synthesizer
MIDI for Creative Audigy Audio Processor (WDM)
SB Audigy 2 ZS MIDI IO [E000]
SB Audigy 2 ZS Sw Synth [E000]
SB Audigy 2 ZS Synth A [E000]
SB Audigy 2 ZS Synth B [E000]
YAMAHA SXG70 Driver

Out of those, none are actually valid, DLS-supporting ports for the DirectMusic interface -- its supposed to use a couple of special DirectMusic-only synthesizers that are normally hidden from everyday MIDI applications.  Only DirectMusic-aware programs like FF8pc and Winamp can see the others, which are called:

Microsoft Synthesizer
YAMAHA XG SoftSynthesizer
SB Audigy 2 ZS DirectMusic Synthesizer [E800]

So that's what, 11 distinct MIDI devices on one system?  I think I went a little overboard on my sound setup....

-edit-
Memo to self: PROOFREAD YOUR POSTS FOR TYPOS.

30

Archive / Re: DirectDraw Wrapper 1.2

« on: 2009-07-28 06:07:59 »

This might be a dumb question, but is it possible to force it to use a different surface?  Considering how FF8 likes to have the screen all to itself, it might be trying to attach to a surface that the windows desktop itself is already using and won't release to FF8.....

....or I could be completely off-base.  I'm a sound guy, not a video guy.

31

Archive / Re: Final Fantasy VIII (Modder's Awakening)

« on: 2009-07-27 06:50:28 »

Why would it give an error? The high-res textures are probably loading fine, it's just not using them.

Eh, I figured it would let us at least rule out the possibility that they're not loading fine. *shrugs*

-edit-
Sure enough, FF8 does produce an app.log file.... but it only exists during run-time (gets deleted upon program exit, I have to alt-tab out to even see that it even exists)......and is completely empty.  Rats.

32

Archive / Re: Final Fantasy VIII (Modder's Awakening)

« on: 2009-07-27 06:20:55 »

....Right.  I ended up writing that suggestion while you posted, so I missed it.   My apologies for sounding moronic.

At the risk of still sounding retarded:

Is there any way to get the .exe to produce an error log of what it's doing and/or failing to load?  It might give us a clue as to whether or not the hi-res load code is there in the first place.  The lack of an error would then mean the code was never called.

33

Archive / Re: Final Fantasy VIII (Modder's Awakening)

« on: 2009-07-27 05:59:29 »

....Hold on.  Are we, in fact, dealing with two sets of textures here (low-res ones for far away and hi-res for close up)?

If so, a quick 'n' dirty workaround could be to rename all the hi-res ones with the names of their low-res counterparts.  Since we know the low-res texture loading code works, replacing them should force the game to load 'em.

If its just one set and the game's screwing up the scaling, then nevermind.

On the other hand....it'd be real ironic if they somehow inverted their distance/texture detail code and caused it to only load the hi-res stuff for really far away objects....

-edit-
Fixed Typo.

34

Archive / Re: Final Fantasy VIII (Modder's Awakening)

« on: 2009-07-27 05:35:51 »

Can anyone confirm or deny that FF8 never used the high-res textures for the PC version? (Even on the hardware and software it was meant to run on)

I can confirm that I have never seen the high-res textures on my PC version, and I have played it through 100% in both hardware and software mode, and on both a typical machine when the game was released for PC and on a relatively new machine with a new generation graphics card.

I also confirm this.  Tested in hardware mode on my trusty Win98se w/ 3Dfx Voodoo5 rig:



The V5 has hardware support of 8-bit palletized textures, so it is NOT a case of newer hardware lacking the feature and refusing to load it.  I suspect that during development, someone typo'd the file names in the texture call.

35

Troubleshooting / Re: FF8 - Logitech Rumblepad 2 Not Working

« on: 2009-07-26 23:43:02 »

Does the program do its job outside of FF8?  If not, then perhaps a reinstall of the gamepad's drivers are in order?

Finally, you mentioned earlier that it could be interference from another USB device.  How many devices are hooked up and installed?

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Troubleshooting / Re: FF8 - Logitech Rumblepad 2 Not Working

« on: 2009-07-26 20:49:35 »

Ok, I just remembered something that could help you in this situation.

Joy to Key (English version)

This should allow you to map your current keyboard controls to your gamepad.  This will bypass FF8's native gamepad support, as it is an outside program.  I haven't used it myself, but I heard a lot of people on console emulation forums have success using it to get their gamepads working with whatever game they're playing.

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Troubleshooting / Re: FF8 - Logitech Rumblepad 2 Not Working

« on: 2009-07-26 19:57:01 »

No.  The DirectX installer is pretty smart, it will NOT overwrite your directX 10 files that are on vista, it may even go so far as to say that the install is not necessary due to it being an older DX (and therefore exit the install); however, if the case is that your DX10 package is missing some DX6 files, those should get added in.

I had to do something similar a few years ago, somehow my DX9 install was completely missing a bunch of DX8 stuff, to the point where D3D7 and D3D9 would work but D3D8 would fail spectacularly.  Running the DX8.1 redistrubutable added in the missing files, despite the fact it saw that my current version of DX was 9.0

38

Troubleshooting / Re: FF8 - Logitech Rumblepad 2 Not Working

« on: 2009-07-26 06:21:47 »

Eh, then at this point you ought to try running the DX6 install package.  I wouldn't be surprised if M$ skimped on the pre-DX8 stuff in whatever DirectX package that gets distrubuted with Vista.

39

Troubleshooting / Re: FF8 - Logitech Rumblepad 2 Not Working

« on: 2009-07-26 02:32:09 »

Ok, so its not a driver problem.

....Are you attempting to run FF8 in any compatiblity mode?  If I remember right, USB controllers might have issues when used with a program running under Win95 or 98 compatibility mode.

40

Troubleshooting / Re: FF8 - Logitech Rumblepad 2 Not Working

« on: 2009-07-26 01:39:32 »

When confused, go back to the basics.

Does the controller show up under "Game Controllers" in the Control Panel?  If its there, FF8 should see it.  Secondly, FF8 talks to the controller using DirectInput.  You could also run DXDIAG to check if its detected in the "Input" tab.

41

Troubleshooting / Oh great. FF8's got a rather awkward error with DirectMusic...any ideas?

« on: 2009-07-25 19:18:38 »

OK, so I recently started playing FF8pc again (my fiance finally gave me my pc version discs back after she bought the ps1 version), and now I find out that something's seriously borked:

The .SGT files are not looping properly.  At all.  Instead of looping where they are supposed to, they are all looping from the start of the song.

So I figured, OK, maybe the loop point itself was changed or erased during whatever edits I made in DirectMusic Producer.  Checking the files in DMP indicated that the loop point data is intact -- but the problem seems to have spread beyond FF8, as every time I hit play in the program, it starts from the beginning of the song.  Something, somewhere is telling it to ignore the current timestamp/position indicator and start from the beginning.  As far as I know, no such option is set in the program.

As someone who has a decent amount of experience using .sgt files and DirectMusic, I declare that I AM STUMPED.
My Specs:

P4 1.5Ghz
512 MB DDR RAM
Win98SE
3Dfx Voodoo5 5500 AGP
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
Maxi-Sound Fortissimo (Hardware XG-MIDI chip, uses YMF744 chipset)
DirectX 9.0c (with the Nov. 2007 minor update)

Reinstalling DX9 doesn't seem to fix the problem.  I'm considering reinstalling an earlier DX version (Probably 8.0/8.1), but I have a feeling that that may not work, as DirectMusic hasn't really gone through that many changes since DX8.

42

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

« on: 2009-06-07 17:41:52 »

Forget abot that, how the hell is that S-Video cable carrying a 1920x1080 signal?  I thought that was totally outside the spec of them, since S-Video was supposed to be a poorer-quality cable than Component (or composite, whichever was supposed to be the 5-prong cables).

43

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

« on: 2009-06-07 07:54:27 »

I might be able to do the D3D acid test, considering FF7 + 3dfx D3D is about as glitch-free as you can get, driver-wise.   So yes, please put the save file up, 'cause I'm currently not anywhere near Jenova Death in any of my current savegames.

That being said, I may not be able to produce any results until later this week -- I've got a rather busy week scheduled (and no, I'm not happy about said scheduling).

44

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

« on: 2009-06-05 09:57:25 »

So, I start up the the config after unsucessfully trying 0.6.7b on my system......




Gee, something's a little strange.

Does it look like this on everyone else's system, or am I just special?  I would think that running the config program at least auto-set it to software mode if it does not recognize the registry value.....

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Troubleshooting / The APZ Cloud Project!!!!

« on: 2009-06-04 09:31:36 »

LOL....Cloud looks like he's about to start crying.

46

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

« on: 2009-06-04 07:51:05 »

Aali, 30 fps is too slow for the battle twirl.  Looking at psx version I would say 40-50 is about right.. ?  Either that or  it is just because the twril isnt as good (there is a definate difference to the psx version)

Maybe it's just me, but I've noticed that in some cases in the psx version, if theres a "light source" drawn on the field background (i.e., artwork of a lamp and its light), it tends to get "bloomed" during the battle swirl while the entire image gets defocus'd / depth-of-field-blur'd......and I've yet to see it happen on the PC version.  Perhaps that is the difference?

47

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

« on: 2009-06-02 16:08:36 »

That graphics card is a bit on the old side, I'm surprised it can do OpenGL 2.0.

Try renaming the shaders dir or change the config so the files cannot be found, you'll get a warning message and then it will fall back the OpenGL 1.1 backend, that should move most of the workload to the CPU.
Not a good permanent solution but if this helps I'll know what to do for the next release.

Is that the only way to force the OGL 1.1 backend on, or will it default to it if it notices the card can't do shaders (like mine?)  'Cause I'd been thinking about removing the shader lines in the config, but I thought the "enable postprocessing = false" line had it fall back to OGL 1.1 also.

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Troubleshooting / The APZ Cloud Project!!!!

« on: 2009-06-02 16:00:45 »

I agree with Kudistos Megistos about the angle of the arms, but I think only rotating them a few degrees closer in toward the body might be able to subtly make it look more relaxed without it looking too different.

Also, I've always thought default animation "stance" is a shared thing, and that if we change it, ALL characters will now have closer arms and screw things up if they're still original chibis with the huge forearms....?

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Troubleshooting / The APZ Cloud Project!!!!

« on: 2009-05-31 17:26:41 »

Lovely screenies! that buster sword is also great! A darn shame you'll have to replace the sword... I would like it to be the ultimate sword too.
Also, where did that vincent model come from? I looks pretty good too

Thank you.  I had another shot of his model in the middle of the spellcast animation, but it came out looking like he was, like, pelvic thrusting or something.

Anyway, that Vincent model is the stock model that comes with the game -- hence the lols you're getting from others.  I must have shot his good side.

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Troubleshooting / The APZ Cloud Project!!!!

« on: 2009-05-31 07:47:26 »

Hey APZ, I've got a couple of nice screenshots of the battle model at 4x FSAA that I figure would look nice in your screenshot collage:





However, since I'm more of a sound guy than a photo/video guy, I think I should leave any image cropping to you.

-edit-
Forgot to add the link to the actual second picture. I had the first one linked twice.  Doh!