FMV Troubles FF8

[PokeParadox]

This is not me wanting no cd cracks etc! I have my FF8 CDs, and the only problem is the movies stutter ever so slightly, but enough to really bug me.

I want to be able to play the movies from the hard disk (in the hopes it will run more smoothly)

I've tried changing the the registry setting which points to a certain cd drive for the data to a folder in which I copied the files from disc 1 and 2, but it seems to confuse the game into which disc is in >_<

any suggestions?

by the way, it used to play the fmvs fine before using the same cd drives I have currently (which is why I'm slightly confused about this)
thanks in advance
-Poké

[Seifer503]

i have the same problem.  the into movie is the worst, but the other ones stutter a little.  does anyone have a solution to this?

[Aaron]

There's no way to run the movies off your hard drive, unless you want to dump the CD to an image on your hard drive and use a "Virtual CD-ROM Drive" when you play the game.

Try setting it to low-res movies in the Config utility.

[Seifer503]

nothin i try helps.  changin the movies to lo-res doesn't have any affect.  neither do any of the graphics or sound options. Here's my setup:

Windows XP Pro
DirectX 9
Athlon XP 2200+
ABIT KX7-333R
2 40 Gig Maxtor HD's in RAID 0
SB Audigy
GF 4 4400

Both the audio and video stutters, especially during the intro.  Is there some CD-ROM setting that i can change?

[Galadyn]

Same here.  Whenever my CD drive loads the movies for FF7 or FF8 (probably other games too, haven't tried), it starts spinning REALLY loud on my brand-new computer, and stutters/skips a lot unless I just image it and run it from Daemon Tools.

[Goku7]

Same here.  Whenever my CD drive loads the movies for FF7 or FF8 (probably other games too, haven't tried), it starts spinning REALLY loud on my brand-new computer, and stutters/skips a lot unless I just image it and run it from Daemon Tools.

When a CD-ROM drive spins loud like that, it usually means it's reading the disc at speeds higher than 36x.  My drive does that too, however, part of the software that came with my drive allows me to "throttle" its reading speed, which both makes the drive quieter and can extend the life of the drive (or so they say).

On my comp, the FF8 movies stutter a LOT when I use the hi-res ones.  That's really sad when you consider that I'm running it on a P4 1.5Ghz with 256mb of RAM.  However, in my case the problem has been tracked down to a 3Dfx driver incompatibility (which is present in all of the later driver sets, including the 3DHQ 1.09 beta7 drivers for win9x) with the Bink player's refresh rate when it uses DirectX to display its output; since the lower resolution movies don't have this problem, and I get the same problem on other games that use the Bink codec/player.

[Aaron]

You might get better performance from your CD-ROM drive if you enable DMA.

To do this in Win9x/ME:
Right-click on My Computer and go to Properties.
Click on the "Device Manager" tab.
Click the "+" sign next to "CDROM."
Double-click on your CD-ROM drive.
On the Settings tab, check the "DMA" box.
Repeat this for any other CD-ROM drives in the device manager, if you have more than one.
Restart your computer.

To do this in Win2K/XP:
Right-click on My Computer and go to Properties.
Click on the "Hardware" tab and choose the "Device Manager" button.
Click the "+" sign next to "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers."
Double-click on the Primary IDE Channel.
Under Advanced Settings, change both Transfer Modes to "DMA if available."
Repeat this for the Secondary IDE Channel.
Restart your computer.

[Seifer503]

I've had DMA enabled the entire time.  I also tried different refresh rates and still no change.  I've tried both hardware and software w/ high res and lo res movies.  It's obviously a cd-rom related issue.  I have a Lite-On DVD 40x, I think.  There's gotta be a solution to this.  This is not the only computer i've had this problem with.

[Tiesto]

My advice, noted on another topic, use virtualCD v4, it makes an image of the game for you and stores it to the hard drive, one problem tho, you need to install the game again from the virtual cd, meaning transfer all disks to the hard drive and do it that way. If you dont you will encounter the problem of the game trying to find the cd. HF

[NetHead]

...You need to install the game again from the virtual cd, meaning transfer all disks to the hard drive and do it that way. If you dont you will encounter the problem of the game trying to find the cd. HF

Couldn't you just regedit the datadrive value?

[Caddberry]

yes you could.. but how many keys would u have to change? it may wind up being easier just installing it again..

[Goku7]

Most likely just one key, if the datadrive value works the same way FF7's does.

I've never had a reason to not use the CDs, so I'm being theoretical here.

-edit-
Er, I meant to add the an "if" in there.....  -_-

[NetHead]

Yeah, 1 key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > Software > Square Soft, Inc > FINAL FANTASY VIII > [Version#Here] > DataDrive

[Panzerfaust]

Use Iso buster (or whatever program you like the best) make iso:s of the CDs, then load 'em in daemon tools! (or whatever.....)
I do this myself too, My CDrom sounds like a fucking harley-davidson (pardon my French), and it speeds up all the time making extremly enoying sounds.

[Aaron]

The rules say...

Don't resurrect old topics. When people stop posting in a topic, it's usually a sign that everything of value has been said. Thus, if nobody's posted in a topic for more than a week or two, consider it dead and don't post in it (unless you have an important follow-up or question exactly on-topic, and the topic is still recent). If you post just a comment on something somebody said ... chances are no-one will care because it's been a while since everything was posted.

As you're new to the boards, please take this into consideration.

[NetHead]

Forgive me for posting this...

I went ahead and installed FF8PC on this new XP DX9 box, and strangely enough, it has the stuttering problems... Doesn't happen in the Bink Video Player or on the other computer running 98 and DX8.1.

Tried replacing the bink dll file in the game directory with the one from Battlefield 1942, but it (not surprisingly) didn't work.

[Aaron]

Try running the movies in low-res mode to see if the stuttering goes away.  Or you could try playing the game from you hard drive using something like CloneCD's Virtual Clone Drive.

[NetHead]

Nope, in low res or high res I still hear stuttering. Can't be CPU load either. The game is running off the hard drive using Nero's ImageDrive, so that's not the cause, either.

The weird thing is that it stutters only in the game. RAD's Bink Player plays the files perfectly.

[Goku7]

As I said earlier in the thread:

Could be a refresh rate difference between what the video driver wants to sync to and what the Bink Player that's being used in-game wants to do....I'm kinda encountering the same problem myself:  Back when I was using some older 3Dfx drivers, other bink movies would run fine in-game (this is in games other than FF8pc), but ever since I had updated to one of the newer driver sets, I get stuttering in ANY bink movie....and it annoys the crud out of me.

Anyway, the point is that it is possible for the actual video card driver itself to be causing this problem, and yes, I know that that suggestion is gonna get a big "Duh", but I might as well get it out there anyway, LOL.

Another thing this may be related to is your sound card, especially if you're using a hardware buffer for acceleration (which is usually a good thing, its essentially the sound card equivalent of hardware TnL, in terms of offloading the CPU).....anyway, despite the fact that FF8pc's problem on my machine with running the hi-res movies could be related to that video driver incompatibility, I found that turning my card's hardware buffer off somehow fixed it, but it comes at the cost of the fact that that also means EAX support is disabled, as it relies on the hardware buffer to function.