Author Topic: Improving FFVII Resolution? (Read 21574 times)

Kazurin · « **on:** 2003-08-05 23:49:22 »

Okay, so once upon a time, I think I saw a utility that would increase FFVII's resolution up to 1024x768. I haven't seen for a long time, nor do I remember where I found it. If anyone knows any way to increase the res past 640x480, I'd love to know (and I'm sure plenty of others would too).

Also, is there any way to be able to just use the anti-aliasing in Animevamp's XP patch so that one doesn't have to worry about the music?

Aaron · « **Reply #1 on:** 2003-08-06 00:52:02 »

High-res? I don't think so, unless you're using a PlayStation emulator.

XP patch? Just install the 1.02 Riva/TNT patch from Eidos and our Chocobo patch and you should have the same thing.

PinkFloyd1965 · « **Reply #2 on:** 2003-08-06 01:09:15 »

I doubt that would work because certain things would be messed up in the game (like text). And the main thing that needs revamping, the rendered backgrounds, would still be 320 x 240. So, I don't think that utility exists because it sounds like some hoax.

Threesixty · « **Reply #3 on:** 2003-08-06 02:19:07 »

I think there is a patch that will allow to run with 32bit colors. Somewhere....

Rubicant · « **Reply #4 on:** 2003-08-06 02:22:35 »

There is. Ficedula made it. It works, but the movies are screwed up. Not worth it in the long run.

Alhexx · « **Reply #5 on:** 2003-08-06 15:06:16 »

Quote from: PinkFloyd1965

I doubt that would work because certain things would be messed up in the game (like text). And the main thing that needs revamping, the rendered backgrounds, would still be 320 x 240. So, I don't think that utility exists because it sounds like some hoax.

So why shouldn't there be an unoffical patch for higher resolution?
I agree with the rendered backgrounds, but think of the battle scenes, where everything happens in a real 3d area.
And I think that there shouldn't be any problems with messed up text or things like that...

- Alhexx

Mofokubik · « **Reply #6 on:** 2003-08-06 15:19:05 »

WHY?!?!....why....it wont make the blocky backrounds or skinnyelbows/hugeblockhands go away. It would help the battles a little. Antialiasing helps the low res, but not much. TVout on your vidcard helps alot.

I vote for a more needed patch. A 100% working winxp patch, and a mini-game slowdown patch... The game needs to be able to run before you can improve the quality of the graphics or music.

Rubicant · « **Reply #7 on:** 2003-08-06 15:19:42 »

Alhexx, why do you think they have 2 sets of fonts for the 2 different resolutions the game runs in? We could probably make a new set of fonts for the different resolution, or else scale them. But it all comes down to tons of work with very little payoff.

PinkFloyd1965 · « **Reply #8 on:** 2003-08-06 16:20:32 »

Yes, the 2 sets of fonts is my point. A better resolution would mess up text because the game uses small pictures instead of actual fonts as we know them. So, improving the resolution would make the 2D elements of battles get crappier and it would probably mess the camera up, too.

Edit:
I have a feeling that Eidos would have released this with at least 800x600 resolution if they could have without a lot of extra work.

Aaron · « **Reply #9 on:** 2003-08-06 16:54:36 »

You could just run FF7 in a PSX emulator, like ePSXe. Think about it...:

PROS:
- You can run in whatever resolution you want.
- The music should sound like the PSX music.
- You should be able to get the backgrounds to stretch with filters so they don't look so blocky.
- The minigames run at the correct speed.
- The game doesn't (shouldn't) crash at places we've been hearing about it crashing at.
- You can still find it in stores.

CONS:
- You lose the higher resolution in the text and menus, oh no.
- You can't use soundfonts.
- It may or may not be harder to get the game working right.

So I guess it just depends how you want to play the game. Heck, I think I might have just convinced myself to get a PSX version.

PinkFloyd1965 · « **Reply #10 on:** 2003-08-06 17:43:34 »

I've wanted to get FFVII-PSX but never got around to it... It's pretty cheap nowadays (I know my Blockbuster has one for $10). ePSXe does have some problems when you set it up, though. It took me probably 30 minutes to an hour to get Xenogears running the way I wanted (it uses framebuffer like crazy and slows down). And anti-aliasing is pretty bad on low-resolution sprites...

Srethron Askvelhtnod · « **Reply #11 on:** 2003-08-06 19:19:52 »

Quote from: Rubicant

Not worth it in the long run.

...except for making the in-game screenshots I take look better so I can impress my FF7PSX friends.

Quote from: Alhexx

I agree with the rendered backgrounds, but think of the battle scenes, where everything happens in a real 3d area.

I haven't worked much with the battle scenes, but the way I understand them is that just about every one is just a simple 3D cube with textures slapped on the walls that make the environment *look* more 3D (even though it's not, just the walls are.)
My point? Just a nitpick, really, I guess: I'd think Higher-res would help the battle models, but not the scenes themselves.

Quote from: Mofokubik

and a mini-game slowdown patch... The game needs to be able to run before you can improve the quality of the graphics or music.

Well, in theory, improving the resolution would probably slow the game down somewhat.

Quote from: PinkFloyd1965

I have a feeling that Eidos would have released this with at least 800x600 resolution if they could have without a lot of extra work.

I doubt it. Eidos was just the publisher and didn't really do any of the actual porting. The team of Square programmers who ported it (who were not the original FF7 team) cared very little about there project and were given a very small amount of time to get it working. They actually considered modifying the battle models because they were too "high-res" (a high-level machine back then was a Pentium 200.)

Quote from: Aaron

- You should be able to get the backgrounds to stretch with filters so they don't look so blocky.

I agree...Getting somebody who can write an Eagle filter or whatever would probably be the best way to solve the background problem on FF7PC as well.
More cons with FF7PSX:
- The notoriously bad translation is actually worse than FF7PC's because the PC translators cleaned things up a little bit. On the PSX, you're back to Aeris saying, "This guy are sick."
- More limited saves.
- It's not as easy to edit the game.
- For me, at least, every emulator I've tried doesn't display FF7's menus (makes battles very hard.) Of course, that was over a year ago. =P Hopefully that's not a problem anymore.
-Srethron

Rubicant · « **Reply #12 on:** 2003-08-06 19:27:30 »

Quote from: Srethron Askvelhtnod

Well, in theory, improving the resolution would probably slow the game down somewhat.

Yep, definately, but not by too much. The only way we'll be able to do it for now is by underclocking our video cards. It can easily be done with Powerstrip. I wonder how hard it actually will be to cap the FPS in the minigames. To be honest, I really don't even see it becoming a reality. FF7PSX is the way to go if you just want to play it without having problems. To me, FF7PC will always be the only way I imagine FF7. The motorcycle chase going by in 50 seconds will always be how I imagine it. Since it's always a learning experience getting things to work, it ends up helping me anyways.

Now eagle filter....that would definately shape up those backgrounds.

Mofokubik · « **Reply #13 on:** 2003-08-06 19:45:43 »

Well, ill try ff7 on xbox (psx emu) see how it runs. I hear most games run perfect at higher resolutions and filtering textures, etc...

Goku7 · « **Reply #14 on:** 2003-08-06 21:29:38 »

Quote from: Srethron Askvelhtnod

For me, at least, every emulator I've tried doesn't display FF7's menus (makes battles very hard.) Of course, that was over a year ago. =P Hopefully that's not a problem anymore.
-Srethron

It's not. The problem you ran into, was one of off-screen drawing. These days, all you have to do to get 'em to show, is set the "Off-Screen Drawing" level to "Standard" or higher on Pete's D3D/OGL plugins; or if you have a Voodoo card and can use Lewpy's Glide plugin, you simply enable "Experimental Flipping"...though you should probably set "Off-Screen Drawing" to "Extra+FBR", as it may help with getting the battle screen transitions to work (i.e. "swirly-screen"), because it triggers a full framebuffer read when an attempt is made to switch from pre-rendered scenes + polygons to only drawing Polygons (which basically is what happens when you enter a battle in FF7...this mode was actually designed for FF9, though...)

Alhexx · « **Reply #15 on:** 2003-08-07 18:01:01 »

I'll see if I can find anything interesting when debugging FF7...

- Alhexx

- edit -
It seems to be quite easy...
FF7.exe has to call either CreateWindowEx or ChangeDisplaySettings (or any related function) to switch to fullscreen mode. The width and height is given as a parameter there. So I'm trying around to intercept that function call and change the resolution ... let's see...

Goku7 · « **Reply #16 on:** 2003-08-08 01:42:49 »

Quote from: Alhexx

I'll see if I can find anything interesting when debugging FF7...

- Alhexx

- edit -
It seems to be quite easy...
FF7.exe has to call either CreateWindowEx or ChangeDisplaySettings (or any related function) to switch to fullscreen mode. The width and height is given as a parameter there. So I'm trying around to intercept that function call and change the resolution ... let's see...

Here's wishing you good luck.

I'm also hoping you'd find some way to squash the movie player bugs while you're doing this....as I'm now getting a blank screen with sound every time I launch FF7.....and I'm convinced that something changed in how the program is supposed to use the Codec, and thus isn't displaying correctly....

Faeranicus · « **Reply #17 on:** 2003-08-08 03:31:41 »

Hey, Goku7

Mine -JUST- started doing that too, I dont know what happened, but I guess I should try reinstalling.

Goku7 · « **Reply #18 on:** 2003-08-08 04:03:43 »

Hmm...did you by any chance update to DX9 recently, and if so, was that when it started to do that?

I'm wondering if the codec and DirectShow9 can't interface correctly....

Sir Canealot · « **Reply #19 on:** 2003-08-10 03:55:48 »

Quote from: Srethron Askvelhtnod

Quote from: Rubicant
Not worth it in the long More cons with FF7PSX:
- The notoriously bad translation is actually worse than FF7PC's because the PC translators cleaned things up a little bit. On the PSX, you're back to Aeris saying, "This guy are sick."
-Srethron

yup... Psx version: "back then I just scrapped my knees..."
Pc version: "back then I just scarred my knees"

Pc version script >>>> Psx version script

Theres also the point of mouths.. they gave all the characters little mouths for the Pc version, which actually look quite nice. Playing the Psx version with no mouths looks very weird these days...

Rubicant · « **Reply #20 on:** 2003-08-10 04:22:30 »

Quote from: Sir Canealot

Theres also the point of mouths.. they gave all the characters little mouths for the Pc version, which actually look quite nice. Playing the Psx version with no mouths looks very weird these days...

Did sephiroth still have his wide-open mouth in the psx version? It looks like he's gonna swallow a fly any second.

Boy, you kinda butchered those quotes, Canealot.

Srethron Askvelhtnod · « **Reply #21 on:** 2003-08-11 01:27:01 »

Quote from: Alhexx

FF7.exe has to call either CreateWindowEx or ChangeDisplaySettings (or any related function) to switch to fullscreen mode. The width and height is given as a parameter there. So I'm trying around to intercept that function call and change the resolution ...

That *almost* sounds like Ficedula's patch that switches FF7 to windowed mode (although I can't get Cetra to work...or Cosmo for that matter, so I can't test it.)

Quote from: Goku7

It's not. The problem you ran into, was one of off-screen drawing.

Nice to know it's f1x0rd.

Thanks for the info.
-Srethron

Mofokubik · « **Reply #22 on:** 2003-08-11 03:39:34 »

I tried ff7 on pcsx for xbox, it runs perfect until you go into battle, it locks up as soon as its supposed to do that smeary screen thing. I tried it with epsxe on my pc with 4 other plugins, fooled around with them a bit, still looks like crap... I guess ff7pc is my only option for now...

Goku7 · « **Reply #23 on:** 2003-08-12 23:17:15 »

Quote from: Mofokubik

I tried ff7 on pcsx for xbox, it runs perfect until you go into battle, it locks up as soon as its supposed to do that smeary screen thing. I tried it with epsxe on my pc with 4 other plugins, fooled around with them a bit, still looks like crap... I guess ff7pc is my only option for now...

Sounds like the XBox just got "pwned" by PSX framebuffer access routines!

Although, I thought the latest versions of ePSXe and the GPU plugins by Pete were able to fix up the whole "swirly-screen" problem in FF7?

...I dont' have the PSX version, so its not like I can test it myself....

Lord Kane · « **Reply #24 on:** 2003-08-13 07:25:25 »

FF7's swirlys are a right bitch that's true. If you are using an NV3x or a R200 or above card, you can use Pete's OpenGL2 plugin (which isn't OpenGL 2, but it's his second OpenGL plugin) which apparently sorts this issue. If you are using an NV2x card and running Win2k/XP, you are screwed unless nVidia sort out what appears to be a bug in thier drivers.

Author Topic: Improving FFVII Resolution? (Read 21574 times)

Kazurin