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

[Terid__K]

d33eniz: I can think of only one reason it's black and white. Your computer is sendind an NTSC signal and your TV is outputting a PAL signal (or vice versa). If you bought the TV in North America and you live in Europe, for example, you run into this problem. Some TVs have multiple signal compatibility, so all you have to do is change it in the menu.

[d33eniz]

Mmmmh- never tought about this. Maybe. But I don't care because I just wanted to show what you COULD do with a S-Video Cable. The resolution is max, but the quality of the picture is almost bad.

Like I said before:

I bought a cable designed for this job and thank you Aali to make this possible

[Bango Skank]

You have my thanks for your hard work on your FF7 replacement driver.  It has gotten me much, much further in the game.

With that said, it runs very slow on my PC, maybe 80-90% of normal speed.  And during the very first airship sequence, it slows to a crawl.  How slow?  Like during a conversation I'm getting 3 letters every 30 sec, and it takes 5-10 min to reload the screen when I go from one room to the next.  I actually can't get any further in the game, with or without the driver, because I simply can't get through the convo's necessary to get to a savepoint. 

Here is a link to my savegame (it starts at the savepoint preceding the Tifa gas chamber sequence):
http://www.filefactory.com/file/ag5db9h/n/save04_ff7

[DLPB_]

It is definately smoother in vsync.  The game now runs in 30 fps at 75 hz as well.  Although fraps recording drops to 25fps, but this is prob a fraps issue

The immediate issue of 25 fps with my system when at 75 hz is gone.

[d33eniz]

Yeah, I noticed that slowdown too!

What's going on? 1 or 2 beta's ago it was not slow downed like that!


But Aali knows what he's doing He will improve that too

[Aali]

Played all the way through that scene, until you get to the world map again, no slowdown. Please try the earlier betas and find out where this started.

[DLPB_]

Aali what does FF7 use as its main timer?  Timegettime? 

[Aali]

Previously it used rdtsc with a timeGetTime calibration loop, the driver replaces this with QueryPerformanceCounter and overrides the calibration with QueryPerformanceFrequency.

[DLPB_]

I was going to suggest Queryperformancecounter   well done  (looking at the debug info I would have realised this).  That doesn't need to invoke timebeginperiod(1)  which timegettime does.  I think it is purely based on processor speed

Although I did hear some older processors had problems with Queryperformance 

http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=357918 < debate there about it also.  Seems to be newer not older processors

edit:  also, I take it it is much more difficult to change the FF7 timebased calculations and use frame based?  (I know this isn't so desirable with PC games, but processors/gcards these days are surely fast enough for FF7?)

I am assuming ff7 uses time based calculations.... actually I am not sure, since frame based ones would mean no glitches with the minigames??

[Chrysalis]

aali thanks for the update.

0.6.7 so far been very stable for me, I will upgrade to 0.6.8 next time I fire up the game (some time today).

I have anti aliasing on in my nvidia panel which smoothes out the jaggies on the models in battle scenes and field but backgrounds and attack animations remain blocky at high res, is this what to expect and anti aliasing cant fix?

[Aali]

Antialiasing cannot improve textures.

For the next release I've made the QPC timer optional, with the other option being the much less accurate, but "always" stable timeGetTime.

[Chrysalis]

ok I have tested and works good, can someone verify that the game caps frame rate to 30fps on field screens and to 15fps in battles? or is that my pc been sluggish.

aali and thanks for answering my question on the textures.

[DLPB_]

Antialiasing cannot improve textures.

For the next release I've made the QPC timer optional, with the other option being the much less accurate, but "always" stable timeGetTime.

I know this is daft because you no doubt know this, but timegettime must invoke timebeginperiod(1)  on systems other than win 95 or it won't run properly.  Still you have probably done this (or original programmers did)

[DLPB_]

ok I have tested and works good, can someone verify that the game caps frame rate to 30fps on field screens and to 15fps in battles? or is that my pc been sluggish.

aali and thanks for answering my question on the textures.

yes it does....  

15 fps movies and battles
30 fps field
60 fps menus and battle swirl
30 fps minigame with fix (I think)

Although I have no idea why all these are different (aside from movie).....  It seems to be a bit half assed

[Aali]

Battle usually has just about twice the amount of polygons on screen compared to field. That is no coincidence
Everything was precisely tuned to match the PSX's capabilities, and they didn't bother reworking it for the PC version.

And I'm well aware of timeBeginPeriod, but thanks anyway.

[DLPB_]

Did they do better with FF8 port?

[Terid__K]

Did they do better with FF8 port?

Huh, no. It's basically the same as the FF7 port, but it uses DX6 instead of 5.

[DLPB_]

Did they do better with FF8 port?

Huh, no. It's basically the same as the FF7 port, but it uses DX6 instead of 5.

I meant the issue of timings and use of timers etc....  Not the overall "how it looks"  if that make sense?

[Marc]

Tested this out with default options (no tweaking of config files) on my laptop (crappy integrated GMA graphics from intel) and everything was just like the original except for the first chest in the game in reactor 1 which flashed oddly after being opened (flashing a greenish hue).

Apart from that minor glitch, it was perfect.

Great job.

[Aali]

You're lucky, it's completely out of whack if I try to use shaders on my intel based laptop. I can even hang the system completely by loading the right (wrong) shader.
Basically, intel cards have some serious problems with both drivers and chipset, so don't be surprised if it doesn't work.

If the laptop is not using shaders, be aware there are some glitches in the latest release. Sometimes it wont do the right color conversion and you end up with swapped red and blue channels.

[Chrysalis]

will the dumbed down shaders have any affects on good graphics cards? like reduced quality etc.

[Aali]

If that were the case, I would've provided separate shaders for intel cards.

[Prince Lex]

Just tried this for the first time (I reinstalled my FF7 and moved the folder to a non-program files region, its just so much easier that way). It's truly an amazing piece of work. Works perfectly on my 1280x800 ATI HD Mobility Radeon 3400 laptop (i set the custom resolution to this). Mightily impressed!

Thanks Aail.

[moses7]

@Aali

may I ask if the preserve_aspect = true works on your intel based laptop?
Coz my PC ain't intel based but preserve_aspect = true still doesn't work.

and also if the battle continues at 1024x768 resolution. Coz that also doesn't work for me.
The swirl will take about 5hrs before it finishes I guess at 1024x768.

[Marc]

Tested the new release on my laptop.  Works great.  No issues that I've noticed.  Great job.

Now if only there was something that could be done about those horribly pixelated backgrounds ...