Those screenshots are both from the same mode (hardware). trust me, i know, i REALLY hate that look. i'll get a screencap of proper software mode later, i'm not on my laptop right now.
but actually, you're right. seems the textures in the PSX version are at a MUCH higher resolution than in the PC version.
and all i meant my "smoothing textures" is just blurring low-res textures to cover up loss of detail. which is the effect you see in the Direct3D rendered FF8PC's world map.
...but now that i've seen the PSX FF8's world map textures, i agree we should find the texture file(s) from the PSX version and somehow transfer them, they have to have at least double the detail the PSX version has.
and actually, i probably wont be able to play FF8 again until we do.