Qhimm.com Forums
Miscellaneous Forums => Archive => Topic started by: StarkRaven on 2005-06-08 06:08:04
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Sorry if this has been covered, I checked the FAQ and did a quick search and didn't see anything.
Has anyone had success cleaning up the movies in FF7?
I tried opening them in VirtualDub to do some filtering and see if I could do some resizing, but it reports that it needs a VFW (video for windows) tm20 (true motion 2.0) codec, not just a directshow codec which is what they distribute with the game. Anyone have the TM20 VFW codec, or a different video editing program that can use a dshow filter?
Alternately, has anyone found a way to use a different directshow filter with some better post-processing to play the movies in game? Something like FFDSHOW would be awesome with all of it's filtering options.
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to open in virtualdub you need this
http://aaronserv.dyndns.org/!!stuff/qhimm/duck.exe
Truemotion toolkit
But you won't much success as the movies appear rubbish due to new grapahics cards and bigger monitors. Also the current codec isn't that good either. It has been suggested that divx 3.11 works but I have no success.
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All of my friends had trouble running the game with divX 3.11 videos at first. In fact, I had too. But it looks like installing fddshow usually helps to solve those probelms.
About the idea of resizing the videos, I'm sorry to say that I think it won't work. I remember I once tried a video which hadn't the same resolution of the original one and the image was simply croped (the game didn't resize it to fit the screen). But maybe i'm wrong :-P.
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Thanks borde now I can use divx movies with the ff7 tech demo as my opening.avi
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Thanks for the info. As you said, I've had no luck with getting resized video to work. (All I tried was doubling the size, to 640x480). Encoding at the original resolution with XVID has worked fine so far though. (I have ffdshow installed, which may help.)
I've been playing around with different virtualdub video filter combinations, trying to find one that gives less blocky results than the original video. No real luck so far. Here are some cool looking shots though from one attempt at using a guasian blur. Looks kinda cell shaded.
(http://theotherguy.com/~david/web/snapshot20050608184527.JPG)
(http://theotherguy.com/~david/web/snapshot20050608184600.JPG)
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Why don't you use FFDShow's processing to fix it up?
Set post processing to 100% or so, IDCT to integer or reference...use the x-sharpen filter...
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Just figured out how to load up ffdshow filters in virtualdub so thats what i'm doing now. Whats IDCT about? I found a DCT setting in my build of ffdshow but it just gave me a series of boxes with numbers in them and no help on how to adjust them.
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oops, found the IDCT setting under misc. settings. I have it set to auto. What does changing it do?
What I'm really trying to do is smooth out the video. The jagged edges from the in-game resizing is what is bugging me the most. But I don't think that any amount of filtering the files will fix the crappy in-game stretching.
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IDCT helps clarity quite a bit. IMO, Integer looks best across the board.
The filtering won't save it from the bad stretching, but it will make it tolerable, for sure. Post Processing should fix any blockyness, IDCT should improve that by a small margin and enhance the motion, and X-Sharpen should clear it up and get rid of any noise.
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I converted game movies with "STOIK Video Converter 2" to "Indeo video 5.10" format and I tested it in game without any problems also video quality seems improve.
Sorry for my english.
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Just for info, i've managed to use the PSX version of the FMVs in ff7pc (The visual difference is definatly noticable); however, there's no sound. So i messed around and extracted the sound from the pc versions and encoded them as wavs into the psx version movies.
Good news is, it worked! Bad news is that the files were too large in K/Mbytes and the video wound up laging behind the audio ingame (worked fine in winamp though, gofig/obviously).
I've not yet tried recompressing the videos (or compressing them while extracting), though compressing them would screw with video quality, and i'd essentially be back at square one, theoretically.
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Alright, I have spent an entire afternoon and evening trying to get the videos to look decent. For some reason, mine look REALLY BAD ingame. See for yourself:
(http://nayusdante.mybesthost.com/hosted/ff7BAD.JPG)
BAD!!!! I havent the slightest idea what to do. First of all, I wanted to use the PSX videos, but I couldnt find a converter for the .mov files. The STR files were fine, but that only accounted for half of the total.
Next, I tried to re-encode the videos in divx or some better format. Still, no matter what filters I used, they looked like crap. I tried that duck.exe thing, but that didnt help and I couldnt find any new filters or anything from it. Then I tried the FFDirectshow filter thing. I got some cool filters set and they worked in Windows Media Player, but when I went ingame, everything still looked the same.
I really dont know what to do. I got all the other problems fixed (though I would LIKE to be able to use FSAA without garbled text, but i can go without it for now). Can someone help me find something I havent tried?
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Its a problem with ff7. It only renders color in 16 bits (And not 32), so you'll only have half of all available colors, which results in yuckyness. If somoene can find away to enable 32 bit color support for the FMVS (ff7s movie rendering engine ahte 32 bit color, and it chops up the movie), then we'd be in beeswax =)
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I think I heard that the movies are actually done in 8-bit. Urrrgh. They look better loaded into WMP.
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(...)I wanted to use the PSX videos, but I couldnt find a converter for the .mov files.(...)
You can try PSXMC (http://homepage2.nifty.com/~mkb/) to convert them.
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Alright, that works. I had tried an OLD version I found and it sucked, but this is good. I can now convert the files to whatever format I want and it looks better than the PC versions vids.
So whats the best codec to use? I want the best quality possible ingame.
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So whats the best codec to use? I want the best quality possible ingame.
Best quality? No compression...
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XviD is generally a very versatile codec, though I'm pretty certain MPEG4 encodes use more of the CPU than Duck True Motion ones. Not sure wether this would affect in-game playback on a modern computer.
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Alright, Im doing them all uncompressed and they look pretty nice ingame. Still a bit fuzzy, but i doubt theres a way around that. Can someone give me a list of which videos need music added to them? Also, is it a problem if the files are several seconds longer than the PC version files? When I add the audio to the file in virtualdub, it cuts the video after the end of the audio, essentially making them the same length as the PC version vids. Should I just swap the audio on all of them?
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So whats the best codec to use? I want the best quality possible ingame.
Best quality? No compression...
yes, but then they run slow. trust me, i've tried =(
Alright, Im doing them all uncompressed and they look pretty nice ingame. Still a bit fuzzy, but i doubt theres a way around that. Can someone give me a list of which videos need music added to them? Also, is it a problem if the files are several seconds longer than the PC version files? When I add the audio to the file in virtualdub, it cuts the video after the end of the audio, essentially making them the same length as the PC version vids. Should I just swap the audio on all of them?
They're not longer: they just run slwer becasue they're not compressed. And dont bother adidng music: It'll make the files so large that the video and audio won't synch up in-game. trust me, i've tried killing the psx FMV audio, adding the PC' FMVs audio, and putting it in game: The video lage bahind and just gets slower and slower.
But, just the first and last fmvs need music. Most of the rest have sound effects alredy inbedded, OR the game plays a midi file on top of the video.
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So whats the best codec to use? I want the best quality possible ingame.
Best quality? No compression...
yes, but then they run slow. trust me, i've tried =(
yes, but it won't lose quality :P
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yes, but then they run slow. trust me, i've tried =(
yes, but it won't lose quality :P[/quote]Well you really can't improve on the original s resolution. This is because it was rendered at 320x224 for both platforms. There are no higher resolution versions. Without the original data you can't improve on it. :)
And the video shown at the gaming convention for the PS3 is a complete redo of it using the new models for cloud etc.
The only way to improve the video is rerending the entire sequence and using that instead LOL.
Cyb
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I'd compress either way - you need the perfect balance between filesize and quality - just going for quality wouldn't cut it, as it'll be huge if uncompressed.
We're talking gigs here. :p
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yes, but it won't lose quality :P
Yes they will, in a sense: FF7 still wont display all the video information, AND it will run laggy. Frames will skip, and thefield characters which are written over FMVs will run completely out of synch with the movie backgrounds.
And that's unacceptable.
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yes, but it won't lose quality :P
Yes they will, in a sense: FF7 still wont display all the video information, AND it will run laggy. Frames will skip, and thefield characters which are written over FMVs will run completely out of synch with the movie backgrounds.
And that's unacceptable.
Guess you're right :roll:.
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You won't get anywhere with VirtualDub's or FFDShow's filters. Nether of them are smart enough to filter the huge amounts of noise in FFVII's movies and leave any detail.
Your only hope is some very smart filtering with AVISynth, and possibly a lot of PhotoShop work. Nether of which are ever going to happen.
For instance, in the intro movie when the camera pans out over Midgar, the whole screen becomes a mass of blocks. There's not really any way to clean that very well on such a low-resolution image.
And even if you planned to tackle this, I'd highly recomend working from the PSX movies — the PC movies were re-encoded from the PSX ones, so the PSX movies are closer to the original source. You also get MUCH higher quality audio — the audio on the PC movies is HORRIBLE.
Edit: though, if I remember rightly, the PSX movies have a slight green hue for some strange reason... :/
Also, if you don't want compression artifacts in your re-encoded movies, try a lossless codec like Huffy or CorePNG. CorePNG might work well.
I might try to tackle this again at somepoint (when I have a bucket of time free). There are newer filters these days that might be used to do a somewhat decent cleanup. But like I'd get through all the movies anyway. And "serious PhotoShop work" still looms, and I suck at PS.
I think I heard that the movies are actually done in 8-bit. Urrrgh. They look better loaded into WMP.
Edit: This is because FFVII seems to skip anything modern like "post processing" or "a decent resizer" (FFVII uses point resizing, I think).
Perhaps FFVII's movies could be bettered just by doing what a media player would do for the movies: some sort of filter for some of the noise, and a bilinear resize for the movies (which would blur them out and remove a lot of the noise anyway).
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Your all wrong! ^_^
Theres several seconds of still frame at the end of the psx videos. After adding the PC audio to all of them, they work fine in game, syncing BETTER than the PC videos. If you dont believe me, rip the intro vid and replace the audio with that of the original PC intro. Watch the guards as the view pans in. They actually sync with the video.
After realizing how big the files were, I decided to compress with the Indeo 5.10 codec. They look great, AND ARE SMALLER THAN THE ORIGINAL VIDEOS! All files for disk 1 ended up over 50MB SMALLER than the PC videos (280mb vs 340mb).
As for quality, there is a DEFINITE INCREASE! The cloudy noise that looked like soap over the entire video is almost gone, with only minimal pixellation when ingame.
My videos went from unbearably bad quality to looking pretty darn good. Heres a list of the steps I did for those that want an easy little guide to get them working.
1. Rip all the videos from the PSX disks as "Uncompressed" or whatever the All Frames option is
2. In VirtualDub, open each movie from the PC version individually and "Save Wav" for each one
3. Open each video you just ripped from PSX in VirtualDub and click the Audio menu at the top. Select "Wav Audio" and select the appropriate file ripped from the PC videos.
4. Click the Compression option under Video and select Indeo 5.10 (or whatever codec you want, though this is what I used and got low filesizes and great quality ingame).
5. Save the file with the proper filename.
6. Repeat for each video file (took me several hours and im only done with disk 1.
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Sounds intruiging ... will the game really process any video format that has Windows-wide codecs installed?
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Your all wrong! ^_^
Theres several seconds of still frame at the end of the psx videos. After adding the PC audio to all of them, they work fine in game, syncing BETTER than the PC videos. If you dont believe me, rip the intro vid and replace the audio with that of the original PC intro. Watch the guards as the view pans in. They actually sync with the video.
After realizing how big the files were, I decided to compress with the Indeo 5.10 codec. They look great, AND ARE SMALLER THAN THE ORIGINAL VIDEOS! All files for disk 1 ended up over 50MB SMALLER than the PC videos (280mb vs 340mb).
As for quality, there is a DEFINITE INCREASE! The cloudy noise that looked like soap over the entire video is almost gone, with only minimal pixellation when ingame.
My videos went from unbearably bad quality to looking pretty darn good. Heres a list of the steps I did for those that want an easy little guide to get them working.
1. Rip all the videos from the PSX disks as "Uncompressed" or whatever the All Frames option is
2. In VirtualDub, open each movie from the PC version individually and "Save Wav" for each one
3. Open each video you just ripped from PSX in VirtualDub and click the Audio menu at the top. Select "Wav Audio" and select the appropriate file ripped from the PC videos.
4. Click the Compression option under Video and select Indeo 5.10 (or whatever codec you want, though this is what I used and got low filesizes and great quality ingame).
5. Save the file with the proper filename.
6. Repeat for each video file (took me several hours and im only done with disk 1.
Would you be prepared to upload them in a pack?
I ahve my Movies running from HDD atm.
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I don't think anyone wants to host or Dl a 800 megabyte "pack"
Besides which fact is, it would make the lives of those "Ultima edition" DLing fuckers lives easier, so i vote no =P
And Nayus: I meant that the movies run worse when UNCOMPRESSED. Compressing them isn't something i had tried yet, and i DO beleive someone aked hopw the UNCOMPRESSED FMVs played.
*shrug*
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I don't think anyone wants to host or Dl a 800 megabyte "pack"
Besides which fact is, it would make the lives of those "Ultima edition" DLing fuckers lives easier, so i vote no =P
And Nayus: I meant that the movies run worse when UNCOMPRESSED. Compressing them isn't something i had tried yet, and i DO beleive someone aked hopw the UNCOMPRESSED FMVs played.
*shrug*
With you on this one the ppl who have dl this game are going to use this. If you host all of them but can i have the intro movies cos im not home for 10 days and i would like to see what you done.
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Why the hell would you use the PC audio?
Use the PSX audio, and add audio delay or something.
The PC audio is like 22khz wave or some crap like that. The PSX audio is well... doesn't sound like crap ^^
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I didnt notice much of a difference in audio, except for the silent parts where the PSX synth was supposed to be playing music. I had to put the PC version audio in to have any music in those parts. I wasnt sure which parts had music though so I just did it to all of them. Theres several seconds of stillness at the end of the PSX videos so this cut them to the proper length to play ingame.
I would be glad to upload the files if someone were to give me the storage. I *could* host the files myself, but I share bandwidth with my parrents and they complain that their wireless connection goes out a lot. If someone could download them from me at night and host them...
So far, Disk 1 is complete and compressed. (I noticed NO loss of quality between Uncompressed and Indeo 5.10) If you all want me to upload everything, I can have it all done sometime tomorrow evening. Let me know if you can host these files and I will talk to you later this evening. I have school and crap so my time to rip is limited.
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I would really, really advice against sharing anything copyrighted. Even more so, because it would give movies to people using the "Ultima" edition, like EmperorSteele pointed out.
EDIT: Freaking signature. Again.
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"Misery is very much like mass; gather enough of it in one place and it starts to attract more. Gather really big load and it will turn into a black hole, not only attracting more, but never letting it go."
~ Me
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Isnt FFVII 7 Abandoware?
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Are you asking seriously?
Or should I start from the "There is no such thing as abandonware"-angle? Because there really is not, handful of old commercial games have been released as freeware, but that's just because people who own the rights wished to do so. To improve the sales of their sequels, most often.
But other than that, games don't mysteriously turn into abandonware, nor do legal people know anything about thing called abandonware as a concept.
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"Misery is very much like mass; gather enough of it in one place and it starts to attract more. Gather really big load and it will turn into a black hole, not only attracting more, but never letting it go."
~ Me
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I have an idea. If we distribute the movies, password the zip file with an ENTIRE text doccument from the install disk. Or maybe someone could write a program to check for the cd?
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I think your guide and a few more people's experiences will be enough for anyone interested and perfectly legal.
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Why the hell would you use the PC audio?
Use the PSX audio, and add audio delay or something.
The PC audio is like 22khz wave or some crap like that. The PSX audio is well... doesn't sound like crap ^^
Because when extracting the movies from the pcx version, the sound doesn't come with the video. It's somewhere else and i can't be arsed to find it. So i use what's readily avialble: MP3s ^_^
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The sound works, its just the music that the PSX vids leave out because its being played in the background. The PC version has music as part of the videos.
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Hmm.? I've played some of the avis in media player and music is nowhere to be heard there.
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Music? No... Sound effects? Yup.
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I think the main ones would be the intro and possibly the ending. Just to be safe, Ive been doing every single vid. Im gonna go through them again though and use the PSX audio for the ones without music, since I listened again and there is a slight increase in audio quality.
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Is there anyway to get these edited videos to actually be played from the game itself?
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Yep, just alter the registry value for the Movie Path and put the new movies in whatever directory you specified. Make sure theyre the right filenames.
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Here's the sad part. I own the Pc version but not the PSX version, and I very much would like to have better looking cutscenes :(
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Hey Nayus, mind explaining that to me?
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Search this site for the method to accessing the movies from the hard disk. After that, use PSX video rips in place of the original movies.
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I couldn't find a topic about that using the search, so I went to the FAQ and presto it was there. The info you need it placed here: http://www.ff7-universe.com/Downloads/FF7Movietweak.txt
Also note that the FF7 PC movies are not that bad. In-game they play bad because it is 16-bit or 8-bit (with some weird color pallete loaded that doesn't change for the movies). In 32-bit they all look pretty well. The problem is that, altough you can get FF7 to run in 32-bit, the movies will look weird as well as some backgrounds do (Cetra has a 32-bit patch & a FF7 window patch).
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the 32bit patch makes a big black bar in the vids for me. Also, just looking at the vids in winmediaplayer, the PSX ones are a lot better looking. Then again, if you dont want to go through all the work, the PC ones are acceptable...
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the 32bit patch makes a big black bar in the vids for me. Also, just looking at the vids in winmediaplayer, the PSX ones are a lot better looking. Then again, if you dont want to go through all the work, the PC ones are acceptable...
Yes the 32bit patch does the same for me. If someone could fix this, or just made it so the duck-decompressor is bypassed, we're in business.
I wouldn't mind going trough the work (which isn't all that much work if you have the PSX discs & PSX Multi Converter) if I would know how to get them to play in-game without having the FF7 movie playing engine fuxoring them up badly.
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Couls someone help me?
I have filtered a video of ff7 and changed resol. to 640x480,is there a way to make the game play the movie now?
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No, the internal engine can only play movies up to a resolution of 320x240.
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Are you asking seriously?
Or should I start from the "There is no such thing as abandonware"-angle? Because there really is not, handful of old commercial games have been released as freeware, but that's just because people who own the rights wished to do so. To improve the sales of their sequels, most often.
But other than that, games don't mysteriously turn into abandonware, nor do legal people know anything about thing called abandonware as a concept.
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"Misery is very much like mass; gather enough of it in one place and it starts to attract more. Gather really big load and it will turn into a black hole, not only attracting more, but never letting it go."
~ Me
the whole idea of abandonware is that the company that made it stopes supporting it and for the game to not be in production anymore (meaning you can't go to a store that sells pc games and buy it but have to buy a 2nd hand copy from somebody on ebay)
Since the last patch made for the game was made a few years ago ( not sure when 1.02 was released)and you can't even find anything on it on squares website :( So I think this game can fall under that category.
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the whole idea of abandonware is that the company that made it stopes supporting it and for the game to not be in production anymore (meaning you can't go to a store that sells pc games and buy it but have to buy a 2nd hand copy from somebody on ebay)
That is what people distributing this "abandonware" would like you to believe, yes. Thing is, it has nothing to do with law. If you get caught with "abandonware", you'll be just as guilty as if you were caught with a pirated copy of Half-Life 2.
No, I have nothing against distributing old games that you really can't get from anywhere. Like Master of Magic, good luck finding it. Getting Final Fantasy VII is not even hard, though. You can get even a brand new copies with few clicks (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00000JRSB/qid=1133332486/sr=8-4/ref=pd_bbs_4/103-6235914-1540661?v=glance&s=videogames&n=507846) of a mouse. Don't like the platform? Tough luck, but it doesn't justify piracy.
There is another kind of "abandonware" too, but you might call it freeware as well. Some old games, such as Betrayal at Krondor, GTA 1 & 2 and few others have been released into the freeware domain by the people who have the right to do so.
Since the last patch made for the game was made a few years ago ( not sure when 1.02 was released)and you can't even find anything on it on squares website :( So I think this game can fall under that category.
Big surprise, considering that Square never released it for PC. Better try the people who did (http://www.eidosinteractive.com/games/info.html?gmid=44).
Besides, what's this "last patch made for the game was made a few years ago"-justification, anyway? The companies can't seriously be expected to support every title in their back catalog indefinitely. They would need ever increasing horde of programmers to just take care of titles that are not bringing in any cash.
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you have have some good points, but this site mostly deals with modding the pc ver (say improving the char models and creating a harder mode and such), but it is only for the pc ver. Say someone wants to try out some of this stuff they can only do so with a legal copy (there is a tread saying you only support legal copys) Since the PC ver is not sold at any stores anymore how can someone buy a legal copy to try some of this? (of course this would make a good argument why to suport downloaded copys, but that will be left for another day)
Also they make patches for games when bugs arise in the game that needs to be corected. Well I can understand how they can't come out with patches all the time for everone of there games, they can at least deal with any major problume that do pop up they could have at least delt with the bugd that happen if you use a computer that is way above the system specs (the super fast motercycle minigame and the chocobo racing)
So I would have to say
*If they stoped making and selling the PC ver of the game in stores
*they stoped suportin the game and releasing any patch the fix the bugs that pop up
then I think it can and should be called abandonware
ps: also this game was made for windows 95! and microsoft recently stoped suportion 98 (I think a year or 2 ago)
ps: on the faqs for there site
http://support.eidosinteractive.com/GI/CustomerSupport/FaqAnswer.jsp?faq=972&altList=true&game=79&platform=3&problemType=8
it said about replacement disks
Please Note: The following titles have been discontinued, replacement disks or manuals are no longer available.
and guess what Final Fantasy VII (7) is on that list.
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you have have some good points, but this site mostly deals with modding the pc ver (say improving the char models and creating a harder mode and such), but it is only for the pc ver. Say someone wants to try out some of this stuff they can only do so with a legal copy (there is a tread saying you only support legal copys) Since the PC ver is not sold at any stores anymore how can someone buy a legal copy to try some of this? (of course this would make a good argument why to suport downloaded copys, but that will be left for another day)
No, it would not make a good argument. Face it, there is no such thing as good reason for supporting pirated software.
I guess that you'll have to buy second hand then, if you can't find new ones. Available for example from the very same Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/offering/list/-/B00000DMAA/all/ref=dp_pb_a/103-4807570-2462204?s=videogames) I just linked to. Very likely also available from such places as eBay (http://cgi.ebay.com/Final-Fantasy-VII-PC_W0QQitemZ8236693441QQcategoryZ62053QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem).
Also they make patches for games when bugs arise in the game that needs to be corected. Well I can understand how they can't come out with patches all the time for everone of there games, they can at least deal with any major problume that do pop up they could have at least delt with the bugd that happen if you use a computer that is way above the system specs (the super fast motercycle minigame and the chocobo racing)
Read my post above for a very good reason why there are no patches coming.
If people really want a lifetime support, they should be suggesting a support contracts with a monthly fee to the game makers. Then it might make a sense to support old games that do not generate cash anymore.
ps: also this game was made for windows 95! and microsoft recently stoped suportion 98 (I think a year or 2 ago)
ps: on the faqs for there site
http://support.eidosinteractive.com/GI/CustomerSupport/FaqAnswer.jsp?faq=972&altList=true&game=79&platform=3&problemType=8
it said about replacement disks
Please Note: The following titles have been discontinued, replacement disks or manuals are no longer available.
and guess what Final Fantasy VII (7) is on that list.
*sigh*
Dude, can I "borrow" (steal) the first vintage car I happen to see? Because one of my army buddies has a really nice '59 de Ville, quite a gas guzzler, but looks nice. Surely he wouldn't mind if I just took it?
I'm pretty sure that support for it from a Cadillac dealer is starting to be pretty non-existent these days. And you can't buy a new one from the stores, either.
Thus it's abandonware, right?
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you have have some good points, but this site mostly deals with modding the pc ver (say improving the char models and creating a harder mode and such), but it is only for the pc ver. Say someone wants to try out some of this stuff they can only do so with a legal copy (there is a tread saying you only support legal copys) Since the PC ver is not sold at any stores anymore how can someone buy a legal copy to try some of this? (of course this would make a good argument why to suport downloaded copys, but that will be left for another day)
No, it would not make a good argument. Face it, there is no such thing as good reason for supporting pirated software.
I guess that you'll have to buy second hand then, if you can't find new ones. Available for example from the very same Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/offering/list/-/B00000DMAA/all/ref=dp_pb_a/103-4807570-2462204?s=videogames) I just linked to. Very likely also available from such places as eBay (http://cgi.ebay.com/Final-Fantasy-VII-PC_W0QQitemZ8236693441QQcategoryZ62053QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem).
Also they make patches for games when bugs arise in the game that needs to be corected. Well I can understand how they can't come out with patches all the time for everone of there games, they can at least deal with any major problume that do pop up they could have at least delt with the bugd that happen if you use a computer that is way above the system specs (the super fast motercycle minigame and the chocobo racing)
Read my post above for a very good reason why there are no patches coming.
If people really want a lifetime support, they should be suggesting a support contracts with a monthly fee to the game makers. Then it might make a sense to support old games that do not generate cash anymore.
ps: also this game was made for windows 95! and microsoft recently stoped suportion 98 (I think a year or 2 ago)
ps: on the faqs for there site
http://support.eidosinteractive.com/GI/CustomerSupport/FaqAnswer.jsp?faq=972&altList=true&game=79&platform=3&problemType=8
it said about replacement disks
Please Note: The following titles have been discontinued, replacement disks or manuals are no longer available.
and guess what Final Fantasy VII (7) is on that list.
*sigh*
Dude, can I "borrow" (steal) the first vintage car I happen to see? Because one of my army buddies has a really nice '59 de Ville, quite a gas guzzler, but looks nice. Surely he wouldn't mind if I just took it?
I'm pretty sure that support for it from a Cadillac dealer is starting to be pretty non-existent these days. And you can't buy a new one from the stores, either.
Thus it's abandonware, right?
a car and a pice of software are 2 diffrent things. With cars there are x ammount of them around, but with software or games you can make copys of them all day long. They can make copys of a gmae a lot easer then a car. Alsoif you bye a game second hand the company that made the game dose not get 1 cent from the sell so to them it is the same as downloading a copy off say bit torrent becuase the only thing that would mean is your disks look prittier thats it. Besides you don't know what kinda of shape the disks will be in if you are getting a used game.
ps: I think I remember hearing about some kind of law or something about selling used pc games in the usa am I crazy or is there something like that?
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a car and a pice of software are 2 diffrent things. With cars there are x ammount of them around, but with software or games you can make copys of them all day long. They can make copys of a gmae a lot easer then a car.
Of course they can. I was just pointing out that "not supported anymore" is not a valid reason for stealing something.
Alsoif you bye a game second hand the company that made the game dose not get 1 cent from the sell so to them it is the same as downloading a copy off say bit torrent becuase the only thing that would mean is your disks look prittier thats it.
Car manufacturers don't get a dime from second hand sales either, for that matter.
Actually, the car analogy is valid here; by downloading a copy you are depriving some owner of FF7 the possibility of selling it and thus making the used game less valuable (in money).
Besides you don't know what kinda of shape the disks will be in if you are getting a used game.
Life's a bitch and then you die, as they say. In other words; that's an excuse and not a very good one, either. Yes, some people sell discs that should have been destroyed long time ago. But eBay and the like have seller rating systems, so you can check if they have done such things in past.
Hey, if you are really worried about such things, let's trade places. I'll happily worry all day long about people selling scratched discs, if you take my worries. Deal?
Besides, I recall hearing lots of complaining how certain downloaded versions don't work. You could say something about poetic justice, but you could also say that these downloaded versions don't seem to be much better than the possibility of getting discs that have been used as cat's toys. :)
ps: I think I remember hearing about some kind of law or something about selling used pc games in the usa am I crazy or is there something like that?
Don't remember hearing about such thing, but I wouldn't be totally surprised if it was true. Considering all the DMCAs and other nice stuff. Still, these things are worth investigating further because often there are lots of unfounded rumors going around; like the 'it's legal to try this software for 24 hours, if you delete it afterwards' and 'fansubbing is legal'. Neither of them are true, yet lots of people still believe that the latter is.
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am I crazy
To answer your question, no you may not be crazy. I don't think you understand copyright or ownership of licences. It seems you are trying to justify downloading a game illegally just because it is old. The fact is, whoever owns the rights to Final Fantasy VII owns them until they die or they sell the rights to another. They can allow a game developer to create a remake of the game at any time, then make a deal with a publisher to get it back on the shelves in time for Christmas.
Alsoif you bye a game second hand the company that made the game dose not get 1 cent from the sell so to them it is the same as downloading a copy off say bit torrent becuase the only thing that would mean is your disks look prittier thats it.
Are you serious? Once a person buys any product, they own the rights to that product. That is why it is perfectly legal to by a CD or even a vinyl record and rip them to a mp3 format. You own the rights, so you can manipulate your property at your own free will.
Scenario:
Let's use your logic with the example of a car purchase mentioned earlier. John steals a car, then sells the car to Fred. If Fred knew the car was stolen property upon purchase, when caught, he would share a cell with John in prison. If Fred didn't know the car was stolen property, it would still be siezed by the authorities.(At least in the United States.)
The ownership of those "prittier disks" is the difference between being a consumer and a criminal. If you buy the game second-hand than thats between you and the selling party. They could choose to give you the game at no charge. They no longer have value in the property for their use, they feel they don't need your money, and don't want to bother trying to sell it to another.
Attaining ownership comes down to just simple economics, supply and demand. I understand that a price for the PC version is high. Amazon has used ones starting at over $55. I remember a few years ago when the platinum edition sold for like $20 at Costco, but that's they way it works. Limited supply (discontinued publishing) and an obvious demand for the product creates its current price in the market.
The only time a product becomes "abandonware" is when the owner to the property releases it to the public. Sad Jari made a fine example with the release of older GTA games. Electronic Arts has also released old versions of their sports games. I remember a release for NHL '97 a year or two ago.
So I would have to say
*If they stoped making and selling the PC ver of the game in stores
*they stoped suportin the game and releasing any patch the fix the bugs that pop up
then I think it can and should be called abandonware
ps: also this game was made for windows 95! and microsoft recently stoped suportion 98 (I think a year or 2 ago)
Once a game developer releases its product, it does not have to patch the product. They do this to save face and to keep the consumer happy. Your idea of a never ending patching process for every game, and if stopped therefore dubbed abandonware, is ludacris.
What does Microsoft support for their operating system and an Eidos Interactive game have to do with anything?
The game was not made for windows 95, but it is supported by it. The American release date for the PC version was May 31, 1998. The game is supported by Windows 95, 98, ME, and 2000.
Sorry, there is no way you can make an argument that justifies piracy.
EDIT:
I'll get back on topic. I don't think you could make a pack using the psx videos. There is no way to prove the one downloading it owns both the psx and pc version of the game. Someone could just make a really detailed tutorial, if it's really needed. The fact that this works is great news anyways.
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I also got some EA re release about a year ago, for not too much more then I bought the original released by Eidos many light years ago.
I hate to say it, but the guys here who release all these patches and edits and also the guys not supporting piracy is unintentionally inflating the price of the game and could possibly be creating money for Eidos/EA/Square from any retail copies that are still around.
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I do agree that the patches and edits made to the game add great value to the game. If the price is being inflated, then that is just the market at work. To support piracy is to support something illegal.
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Sorry, I am not Condoning Piracy.
I am against Piracy, and personally have stopped wasting valuble time downloading PC games/apps (although I hate sony and I differ about ps2 games/apps).
A quality game like FF7 should always be purchased and pirate copies should never even be given such a large look at, I was personally very disgusted when this ultima/ultimate edition and I do remember seeing on sites like sharereactor were always full of people asking for FF7 or releasing it.
No matter what platform I always believe in buying quality games.
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Whoops! I hope my last post didn't sound too much like I was law enforcement or something. :D And I am also not the biggest fan of Sony right now, especially after that whole big brother "anti-piracy" initiative. That's great, help your paying consumers be more prone to viruses. Smart marketing! :D
Sorry, I'll get back on topic. I already have done the registry hack and my movies run a lot smoother. Now I wanted to try to enhance the movies. I've used VirtualDub in the past and I'll try those downloads that people have requested to make it work. Just wondering if anyone else has tried a different codec lately or filter. Maybe show some screenshots of your labor.
One more technical question. The SaiNt has mentioned possibly adding 32bit support to his HI-Res patch if time permits. If this is added to the game, will it also make the movies 32bit? If he could change the game resolution, is it also possible to change the movie resolution? Sorry, I'm not too familiar with this game engine. I just know that it uses pixel doubling for the movie display, so I wasn't sure if it were possible to disable the doubling and set a new movie resolution size. I'm guessing this is not probable. If this was, I'm sure someone would have redone all of the 2D backgrounds in the game by now.
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The 32bit in the Hi Res patch has already been replied to by The SaiNT and he said it would mean rewriting every bit of code which he has patched, so it was on his 'things to do in my next life' list - if you see what I mean.
Sony's rootkit issue is something just waiting to happen to the music industry.
It is so hungry for money they do not deserve just to please shareholders and directors, it is up to the consumers to put their money where their mouth is and not buy in the first place.
Piracy existed in the days when you would record to tape a song from the radio, and of course exists today.
The only way to discourage piracy is to counter it with innovative and value added content delivery systems.
I dont go and buy a fake/low grade graphics card that claims to be a Geforce 7800GTX and says "made in china" on it do I?
People go buy genuine when it is quality and value for money they are getting.
I for one would love to see a video wrapper/hack or a beginners guide to replacing the videos in FF7 - PLEASE :)
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I completely agree with your standpoint on Sony. Like they say, "Show them how you feel with your wallet." If you don't like what they are doing, boycott sony, epic, bmg, and any other affiliates I'm forgetting. There are now even more online venues where people do nothing but b*tch about Sony. If that is anyone's hobby, there not hard to find. :D
That wrapper idea for the videos sounds great. Just look at the great improvement ff7music got. Just imagine, get a couple of skilled modelers together and go to work with 3ds max or maya, and there you go. I have only scratched the surface with 3ds max, but I'm sure there are people here more than capable of such a project.
The only trouble I see is getting the ff7music and the fmv wrapper patch to work nice together.
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I for one would love to see a video wrapper/hack or a beginners guide to replacing the videos in FF7 - PLEASE :)
I don't think, this would be that easy:
I am only guessing, but I think that for the internal engine the movies are in fact nothing more than another animated background layer. Since the whole background with all its layers is prepocessed and then just pixeldoubled to 640x480, you would have to rewrite the whole engine just to improve the movies as well.
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As for the tutorial, maybe I'll do it, when I have enough time, which would not be the case in the near future.
I used PSMPlay to extract the movies and XVID as Video-Codec.
I didn't choose PSXMC, because some movies, which are actually longer, than they are played in the game (e.g. the opening movie), tend to pause at the end, when I extracted them with PSXMC.
You only have to take special care of three movies: OPENINGE, ENDING2, ENDING3.
The PSX-versions of ENDING2 & ENDING3 are acutally in a half-letterboxed 640x192 format, which the PC version can't play, so I resized them using some filters in VirtualDub to full-letterboxed 320x224 like the PC-originals.
Furthermore, as some people already mentioned, ENDING2 and OPENINGE don't include music on the PSX, only soundeffects.
You can either choose to use the low quality sound from the PC movies instead or remix the PSX track with the original soundtrack (like I did).
It is a little bit tricky to cut and insert the music at the correct position, but the results are far better than the PC track.
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Thanks for the PSMPlay tip! I was having trouble with PSXMC, so I'll give that a try later on my home pc. And kudos to you if you make a tutorial for the movie enhancement. Great idea to remix the PSX with the OST. I'll take a look at the movies I've already done and see if maybe some new music could be put in its place.
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yay i found a site where you can download all the movies from the ps1 game YAY!
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Heh, I can't believe this thread is still alive. I've barely visited the site since I started the thread half a year ago. I love this site.
For those people who don't own the psx version, I've had good luck filtering the PC video in VirtualDub to eliminate jagged edges and compression artifacts.
Two filters have been particularly helpful. I don't think either one comes with virtual dub, but a google seach should find them.
*WarpSharpen by Avery Lee.
*FFDShow for Virtual Dub
I'm still playing around to find the right settings but things look nicer.
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show us some pics lol
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Can you guys confirm that the PSX version is missing some of the movies that are in the PC version ?
Some names...fship2.avi, lastmap,avi, last4_2.avi, last4_3.avi, white2.avi, explode.avi, sqlogo.avi and some more...
Thanks!
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wintermute,
I have resized with Virtualdub the ending2.avi and now the file (uncompressed) is 300 Mbs bigger than it was before.
Using the Resize filter, I also added Bilinear filtering since it improves the quality and the file size doesn't change at the end. Do you think there would be problems in the game because of it ?
Thanks
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UPDATE: I noticed that two files called monitor.avi and gold6.avi have different sizes in CD1 and CD2/CD2.
Did you guys also notice that ? Do you think it's a postproduction mistake when they had to select which avi files fit into the CDs or...?
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IMHO if you're replacing pc avi files with your psx ones converted from str you're wasting your time.
I dumped the psx files to mpeg from my psx discs and compared with the avi's from my pc version, they are identical.
The only reasons the pc version videos look worse is because of stretching (which you can't avoid)
and if you use new ffdshow codecs it will decode them instead of the true motion codec, this results in the colours being overbright and more pixelated than they already are.
to disable the ffdshow decoding open up the ffdshow decoder options (for me this is accessible in the k-lite codec pack folder in the programs folder in the start menu:
(http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/5420/ffdshow29eb.jpg)
Wuz.
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You can set FFDShow to do the stretching for you, you know.
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what difference does it make?
i find the grainyness quite bearable, especially since i sit back to play.