FF8 Launcher - Custom resolutions and 8-bit paletted textures fix (patch)

[Danitheman]

By the way, i get a tiny bit of lag when i walk around normally and when i get into fights, and i get a huge amount of lag when in the world map.
Why is it like this, and how do i fix it?
/ Dani

[Ossott]

Do you have a nvidia card? Geforce something?

Odds are you do, and you're using the non-geforce .exe from the archive you downloaded. Re-download and copy over the gf package. It should take care of that hard graphic lag.

[Danitheman]

I have an NVIDIA GeForce card yes, i tried out ur solution, but it did not work.
Any other ideas?
/ Dani

[w33dEC]

First of all, what system do you have?
And second, check the antialiasing settings in the Nvidia Control Panel to see at what setting it is. At a resolution of 1024x768 and above, FSAA 2x is (more than) enough

[Terid__K]

I get 60fps on the menus, 30fps on the world map and towns and 15fps in battles. I think it's supposed to be this way, since they remain constantly the same. It's the same thing in FF7 as well. Seems to be a built-in frame limiter the game has.

[Danitheman]

Ive written my system in page 3, so please check there.
By the way, what does FSAA mean anyway?
Appreciating any help on this topic!
/ Dani

[w33dEC]

FSAA = FullScene AntiAliasing. In some games it's simply AA, in others is FSAA. The FSAA is used to sharpen everything that is rendered on screen (very usefull at low resolutions, at the cost of performance).
As I said earlier, try playing with the settings in the Nvidia Control Panel, an AA of 2x and an AF (anisotropic filter - used to enhance the quality of the textures especially at distance) to 4x or 8x.

[Danitheman]

Nope that didnt change it.
I think ill start playing the PSX Version or maybe go install it on my older computer.
Thank you for all help and great program!
/ Dani

[Terid__K]

Not sure if this is a bug related to the program or not, but some of the effects in Diablo's summon animation are invisible (like the bats and yellow electric waves). Just to let you know.

[yuuyan]

Is it possible to put the loader on a different sever (such as Mediafire) for me?

Rapidshare is being a pain.

[squallsiow]

Somebody help mi!!! i oredi try the lucleonhart method but the 8-bit texture still didnt fix!!! I still can saw little cutting on the back ground....it seems like the ff8 1.3 launcher doesnt working throughly... Another thing is i wonder why the lucleonhart use NON geforce patches for his ge 6200?? IS he type wrong?

[Lucleonhart]

No, i was confused, too. I've downloaded them both, but the nvidia fix was doing nothing to me, except of breaking the game while loading.
The non geforce patch worked perfekt. straaaaaaaaaaaaange! ^^

[squallsiow]

btw, my comp is
win vista 32
geforce 7300GT
2.2ghz
1400x900 screen

[Truth Unknown]

Is it possible to put the loader on a different sever (such as Mediafire) for me?

Rapidshare is being a pain.

ff8_launcher_v1.31.rar Here's a temp mirror until magixts says otherwise. It's permanent since its only a US Quarter to keep it there almost forever. Donated 20 bucks so I have a lot of tokens at hostfile.org  .

EDIT: PS: This Launcher is the best.

[magixts]

Is it possible to put the loader on a different sever (such as Mediafire) for me?

Rapidshare is being a pain.

ff8_launcher_v1.31.rar Here's a temp mirror until magixts says otherwise. It's permanent since its only a US Quarter to keep it there almost forever. Donated 20 bucks so I have a lot of tokens at hostfile.org  .

EDIT: PS: This Launcher is the best.

I don't mind at all with it being uploaded or hosted on different sites.


On another note I haven't been able to work on the launcher a lot since version 1.31. I have windowed mode working in 16-bpp but in 32-bpp the game crashes frequently during the "battle swirl" due to a texture memory addressing issue in the FF8 executable (hardcoded). From what I can tell D3DWindower and similar programs must somehow force the game to run in 16-bpp even when the display is set to 32-bpp.

I've modified the launcher to work moderately well with FF7 but since I have a GeForce 8800GTX it has proved almost impossible to run the game to do some test runs. In Vista the Nvidia drivers keeps crashing every few seconds until the computer bluescreen and in XP all character/npc models textures are black and the game is very unstable.
Been looking into converting all the Final Fantasy DirectX calls to DirectX 9 to try and circumvent this but it's a long process and nowhere near complete.

I’ll try my best to have the launcher source (C/C++, Visual Studio 2008) up for download before the end of next week for anyone who is interested.

[Shades]

Got FF8 to run on Vista x86 without any Graphic Glitches
You need:

FF8 ^^
1.2 Patch (for me,i needed the NON GeForce Patch for my GeForce 6200!!!)
The Loader from Magixts, v1.3 or higher (great tool.. GREAT!)
The Visual C++ 2008 runtime from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9b2da534-3e03-4391-8a4d-074b9f2bc1bf&DisplayLang=en
A new eax.dll .. i've downloaded from http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?eax

Now installing:

Install FF8 normally, EAX will install itself at the end of the installation
Copy 1.2 patch files to installation directory (no Game subfoler at all!)
Copy the loader files to the installation directory
Install the Visual C++ 2008 runtime
Got to the software deinstallation in the control center and UNINSTALL eax unified
Extract the new downloaded eax.dll to {Windir}/system32 (NOTE by magixts: It's also possible to put the .dll directly in the ff8 installation directory to achieve the same result)

Now the fun:

Run FF8_Loader.exe, Set Resolution to whatever, check the 8bit paletted texture fix checkbox, click PLAY and enjoy!



thanks for the tip, it does work until you get to Timber then it crashes...any ideas why?

[kite.hack]

Hi ! Thank you for your super launcher(patch) ! i love it  . there are only some issue with the menue with some sort of currupted line when i use the ati catalyst ctrl. center... i wonder it does that well, i'll find out !
EDIT : I found the problem  i just had to disable the expert mode ^^ now it works like a charm yay !

Converting all the final fantasy 8 DirectX calls to DirectX 9 like you say, could take a while but we'll wait ^^. BTW what it'll do ?? I suppose you'll be able to put the ''color quality'' up to 32-bpp 

Well , what would be the best but I know it won't happen before a while, is that someone will convert the texture to be way less ''pixalated'' and tuning up the character/monster model to be more realistic but it will take a long time before someone do it . I however hope that some sweet people will do it  .

See ya and good job 

[Jamoid]

i've only just installed, so not even sure i need this yet, but i just wanted to say thanks. many many talented people on this forum.

glad i found it. it's hard to find final fantasy forums that aren't either full of plain idiots, or guys pretending to be cutesy anime girls.

edit: turns out i did need it, and it works perfectly. thanks a lot. (:

[S_BryaN_M]

Hi my name is Bryan, i am running xp home sp2, nvidia geforce 6800 series graphics card, my actual display properties are at 1024x768 with 32 bit color quality i have my AA set to none because when i had it on 2x it had a bunch of lines in the picture, and my AF is set to 8x, in my final fantasy original config file FF8Config i have 3d hardware acceleration on, high quality videos and text on and 640x480 (full screen) selected, when i run the FF8_launcher i have 1024x768 selected with the 8bit pallet fix but when i run the game and get to first seen with squall laying down it has a bunch of black boxes, i cannot find out how to fix this problem its making me upset. if someone could help me it would be greatly appreciated.

[Terid__K]

S_BryaN_M: Update your FF8.exe to version 1.2.

Also, am I the ONLY ONE who is getting missing effects on Diablos' animation?

[S_BryaN_M]

I did update my exe it is 1.2 geforce version. i have done everything it says to, also it wont let me change the FSAA setting in the
FF8_Launcher. I dwonloaded rivatuner but that hasn't helped either would somone help plz.

[w33dEC]

S_BryaN_M: Update your FF8.exe to version 1.2.

Also, am I the ONLY ONE who is getting missing effects on Diablos' animation?

You're not the only one, it happens to me too.

@S_BryaN_M: You'll problem with the Black Box can be caused by the OS and/or the Direct X. Try installing Windows XP Professioanl with SP2 and update your DirectX 9.0c version to the latest (November 2007). It could help. Also, try to play with all the settings in the Nvidia Control Panel -> Manage 3D Settings. Also, try to change the video cards drivers. I use the 169.21 drivers for my 8500GT and everything runs without a problem.

[S_BryaN_M]

Is it free to upgrade from home to pro? and also do i want it to be on software renderer or hardware renderer because it didnt fix the black boxes when i used hardware and the AA, also couldnt find a way to switch to FSAA it wouldnt let me dont know why.  And should i use this custom launcher? And if i am using software mode and i change my nvidia settings specifically for the FF8.exe will it change the way it runs even though its in software renderer mode?

[kite.hack]

To Bryan : If you put it to Software renderer, it will work, BUT you won't have the AA(FSAA) neither an 'higher' graphic(texture in the background and character) quality. Hardware renderer use your graphic card and use the effect we like, like the AA and I think it also use AF but I'm not sure about that.

So to come back to your problem,I'll suggest you to :
 - Upgrade the Directx if it can help...
 - If you downloaded the 1.31 version of the launcher, check if the expert mode isn't activated(it helped me),
 - Also you may want to download your latest driver for your graphic card. 
 - You can put a more detailled specification of your computer if you want more people to help you...
 - Then check if you have selected the 4:3 stretch, maybe u have a 4:3 screen and if so u should disable the 4:3 stretch if it isn't already off.

If that doesn't work then ask magicxts if he can help you with that, after all he's the one who created that launcher

[S_BryaN_M]

Tryed all of that im not worried about it anymore im just gonna put up with the shitty software renderer.