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

[Aali]

If you provide the .exe's, I'll make it work.

[Franck19520]

If you provide the .exe's, I'll make it work.

Hi!
thanks for your answer : here is the megaupload link:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Y2HCOL9C
Hope it works soon
Thanks again

[Gemini]

Oh, you're open to supporting other languages, like for FF7. So, would you do it for the Italian version as well? This is the exe. Thanks in advance!

[Aali]

Found out why it ends up with 1/3rds of pixels sometimes.. Wish I hadn't
The entire 2D sprite system still works in native PSX resolution coordinates. That is, 384x240.
The conversion to PC was done by multiplying those coordinates by 1.6666666 and 2.0 respectively.
This is why everything menu-related looks like crap on the PC, while it's nice and sharp on the PSX.

Native PC resolution:


Adjusted to match PSX resolution:


Some hacks were necessary to make the second image, simply changing resolution will not make menus look any better for you.

[Hellbringer616]

everything in the second shot seems a little fatter. like it was stretched a bit for widescreen

[Terid__K]

everything in the second shot seems a little fatter. like it was stretched a bit for widescreen

Actually, no. If you look closely, the first picture was the one that was stretched vertically (lol) to fit the screen. The second picture is in the correct aspect ratio.

[Hellbringer616]

everything in the second shot seems a little fatter. like it was stretched a bit for widescreen

Actually, no. If you look closely, the first picture was the one that was stretched horinzontaly to fit the screen. The second picture is in the correct aspect ratio.

Oh, My mistake.

What does this mean though Aali? That you're going to have a b*tch of a time fixing it?

[Aali]

It means that by undoing the things they did properly for the PC version, we can have FF8 on the PC in it's original 16:10 widescreen glory.

The other option is a lot less tempting; rebuilding all the menus to look good in 4:3

[Hellbringer616]

and i JUST got a 16:9 monitor..... <censor for offending words>

Oh well, i say do it. Will the models look normal? Or Fat?

Cause i was running PCSX2 with FFX today and they were lookin kinda chubby in Widescreen haha

[Terid__K]

It means that by undoing the things they did properly for the PC version, we can have FF8 on the PC in it's original 16:10 widescreen glory.

By that you mean you're going to get rid of the black bars on the top and bottom of the screen, right? Wouldn't that introduce glitches?

[seifertemp]

This is what I have been waiting for.  Finally!  The damn text looking correct!

[Aali]

It means that by undoing the things they did properly for the PC version, we can have FF8 on the PC in it's original 16:10 widescreen glory.

By that you mean you're going to get rid of the black bars on the top and bottom of the screen, right? Wouldn't that introduce glitches?

No, those would still be there, the viewport would just get wider. And yes it does introduce tons of glitches right now, so for the near future expect only menus to actually occupy that extra space.

[Prince Lex]

No, those would still be there, the viewport would just get wider. And yes it does introduce tons of glitches right now, so for the near future expect only menus to actually occupy that extra space.

A bit like the menus in FF7, then? I can't wait for this one Aali, it'll finally look like it should (technically).

[drfeelgud88]

*sigh* can someone tell me what happened here?

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=fcbfab3cf7a0a29aaaca48175a79d1c3e04e75f6e8ebb871

[Aali]

A bit like the menus in FF7, then? I can't wait for this one Aali, it'll finally look like it should (technically).

I guess, except the black borders will be bigger and on the sides.

drfeelgud88: Random memory corruption, most likely, the crash happened in some music related code but thats probably not what trashed the memory in the first place.

[drfeelgud88]

A bit like the menus in FF7, then? I can't wait for this one Aali, it'll finally look like it should (technically).

I guess, except the black borders will be bigger and on the sides.

drfeelgud88: Random memory corruption, most likely, the crash happened in some music related code but thats probably not what trashed the memory in the first place.

hmm, how do i get around to fixing it? its crashed twice in that same scene (where the President introduces the Sorceress)

[Aali]

At the TV station in Timber? If so, I have played through that section without any issues. Perhaps you have a corrupted file somewhere and/or bad media?

[drfeelgud88]

At the TV station in Timber? If so, I have played through that section without any issues. Perhaps you have a corrupted file somewhere and/or bad media?

yeah, in that exact area when the broadcasting is happening... but will only re-installing fix this? cuz i really dont want to play thru it again... 

[myk]

I'm running ff7 and ff8 under wine (version 1.1.26) on Gentoo Linux, and wanted to give your driver a try.

For FF7, ff7_opengl-0.7b.zip reports that no-cd versions are not supported.  However, the no-cd version is the only one that will work for me, since my computer can no longer read the original CDs.  I searched through about 20 pages of this thread, but I didn't see the reason for this version not being supported.  Was this an ethical or technical decision?

For FF8, ff8_opengl-0.2a.zip crashes on startup with the following app.log:
INFO: Auto-detected version: FF8 1.2 US English (Nvidia)
INFO: NVIDIA Corporation GeForce 8800 GTS/PCI/SSE2/3DNOW! 3.0.0 NVIDIA 185.18.31
INFO: OpenGL 2.0 support detected
INFO: Found swap_control extension
INFO: Original resolution 640x480, window size 1920x1200, output resolution 1600x1200, internal resolution 1920x1440
INFO: FBO extension detected, using fast scaling/postprocessing path
MATRIX INITIALIZE
INITIALIZING SOUND...
  initializing direct sound
  EAXDirectSoundCreate
ERROR: unhandled exception

I had changed the resolution to 1920x1200, but the crash happens all the same with a default ff8_opengl.cfg file.  I base64-encoded the tgz file containing the app.log and crash.dmp at http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0ASOZpnjE0eKOZGN3emc1c3NfMHR4YnhiNDM4&hl=en

[Kranmer]

myk if your PC cant read the original CD's how did you install the game ?
Well there is a few things you could do but the easyest method would be to make a fake ISO with the label FF7DISC1 (or 2 or 3 depending on which your on) and mount the ISO on the same drive the game is looking for.

[halkun]

I agree, it's really quite simple to mount isos  under linux

[myk]

I have wine installations that have been sitting around for years (I've played through ff8 in software rendering mode and I've been trying to get ff7 working for ages).  The CDs are here, but can't be read for some reason by my cdrom drive.  It's not even recognized as a CD when I put it in.  Looking at the registry, I seem to have modified it to point to the hard drive so it doesn't even look for the cds.  Assuming I can get the ISOs (perhaps another computer can read the CDs), I'll probably need to restore the registry to look for a cd drive.  What does a pristine "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Square Soft, Inc" tree look like for ff7 anf ff8?

[Aali]

Other people have gotten it working in wine without using a no-cd .exe so I don't see why you shouldn't be able to.

As for FF8, make sure you have the real eax.dll in your system dir.

[Curlyoxide]

For FF8 Make sure you have the correct 1.2 patch Geforce i had that same error then i used this and it worked.

[Terid__K]

Update on my situation on the FF8 driver:

Turning off shaders on the cfg file fixed the speed problem. The game now always runs at full speed, which brings up a question: I'm a 100% sure my card supports OpenGL 2.0, so why would 1.1 be faster? Also, do you lose any detail graphics-wise with the OpenGL 1.1 backend?

Diablo's bats and blind effect are still missing, but this isn't a big deal for now.

EDIT: Just tried the same thing on FF7, and the results were surprisingly positive too. No more slowdowns whatsoever.