FF8 PC vs PSX Emu

[liquidsub]

Is FF8 better for the PC, or the emulater?
I remember trying both and the PC version is perfect except for that damn music problem. Did anyone create a patch for that yet like for FF7? I hate .midi's.
Is it possible at ALL for FF8 to play FLAWLESSLY on the PS emulater? My sister wants to start a new game but I don't want to play on my PS2 cause it loads slow and I already went through the whole game already and now my damn sister wants to start from scratch...   :isee:
I remember trying it on the emulater and I couldn't get it to work perfectly, it was either running at super speed, or there were some missing graphics, etc. Does it just have to be configured perfectly? Or is FF8 impossible for the emulater? If so, I'll just wait for a music patch for the PC....

How about FF9? My sister needs to finish that game and FF9 loads slower than any FF game I have ever played. Its slowness makes me fusterated enough to scream in my berserker rage.  Can FF9 work well on the PC?

And last... my ATI (capture/tv out-in) plug broke, so I can't hook it to my tv... I can get another one right? Or do I have to buy a whole new card just for the plug? The damn pins in the plug are so fragile that they broke....

[tekwiz99]

to play it on emulator, it is a pain. thankfully, pete has 2 nice presets. if your comp is relatively fast, you can try "nice" settings provided by the plug-in. but bear in mind, you "might" not be able to use chocobo trainer to train your chocobo to the ultimate level.

to the story of FF9, you can have all 4 disc transferd onto harddisk. after loading, you will feel the power of your harddrive  

if your all-in-wonder card's plug broken, you can replace it. but if your multimeter said its fine, then it would be the time for you to make a major decision...... to be or not to be, oy, that's my rub :]

tek

[Goku7]

Is FF8 better for the PC, or the emulater?
I remember trying both and the PC version is perfect except for that damn music problem. Did anyone create a patch for that yet like for FF7? I hate .midi's.
Is it possible at ALL for FF8 to play FLAWLESSLY on the PS emulater? My sister wants to start a new game but I don't want to play on my PS2 cause it loads slow and I already went through the whole game already and now my damn sister wants to start from scratch...   :isee:
I remember trying it on the emulater and I couldn't get it to work perfectly, it was either running at super speed, or there were some missing graphics, etc. Does it just have to be configured perfectly? Or is FF8 impossible for the emulater? If so, I'll just wait for a music patch for the PC....

*cough*
Final Fantasy SoundFont Project
*cough*

How about FF9? My sister needs to finish that game and FF9 loads slower than any FF game I have ever played. Its slowness makes me fusterated enough to scream in my berserker rage.  Can FF9 work well on the PC?

Yes and no.  Yes, emulators like ePSXe can run the game without disasterous problems.....but.....you will need to play around the with the graphics options somewhat.

Why?

Framebuffer effects -- Battle swirl transitions, motion blur during the summons, stuff like that can take a chunk out of the framerate if the plugin's not configured right.

I can't really give you the correct options to use on Pete's plugins to get the framebuffer effects to run fast, because I use Lewpy's Glide Plugin for playing FF9, and its framebuffer setup is different, but just as effective at getting a good speed (good enough to give the illusion of running at full speed or slightly less that full, even with massive FSAA or high resolution).

In short, you'll just have to play around with the Framebuffer settings -- however, if I remember correctly, the setting listed as something like "Use Video card hardware and Software" should get you close to what's needed.

And speaking of speed, you'll need to purposely set the framerate limit to 60 (for NTSC) or 50 (for PAL), and DISABLE FRAMESKIPPING.  Frameskipping and FF9's battle swirl effects do NOT play nice together.

[liquidsub]

Thanks. I'll toy around with the options.
Um, what patch do I download for FF8? There's so many of them and I'm just confused.

[Goku7]

First, get the latest version of the Configurator available.  It'll make this stuff easier.

Second, I'd recommend getting Samuel's DLS if you can handle downloading such a big file.  Samuel's DLS is as close as PSX-quality as you can get at the moment.

If not, then go for the Revision 2 DLS update and the Improved Tracks patch -- its a smaller download, but some of the instrumentation in the music files are better than the stock set that comes with the game.

[liquidsub]

Ah crap, I lost the PC version and I'm too lazy to download it and too cheap to buy it. I'll just use the emulater. On the bright side at least I get surround sound, and better quality FMV's.
What do you guy's prefer anyway? FF8 on emulater or PC?

[trickstar66]

Well I think I speak for all of us when I say that they both have their advantages and disadvantages. I personally think the PSX version is the best but only when played with the emulator EPSXE. Use DirectX on it and it's just sweet. The graphics of the PC version with the surround sound and better FMVs of the PSX version. The PC version is mostly just for novelty purposes for me. I didn't like the PC version too much as it takes more to run it than it does to run the PSX version. Use Connectix Virtual Game Station or EPSXE if you want to live.

CVGS can be found on Kazaa or sites that offer abandonware. The demo of CVGS isn't too bad either. It is just crippled a bit. Bleem! was very good too but was sued the crap out of by Sony. It exists in the same places as CVGS. It even has some cd-key hacks lying around the net. No, it's not illegal because both company's don't exist anymore. It is illegal however to use ISOs of games you don't own on these emulators by way of patch.

[liquidsub]

Damn, it doesn't fix the loading at all. FF9 is just a slow game no matter what, and this means FF8 will load slow as well. Gonna have to find FF8 for the PC again....
Which is too bad, cause I just found out how to configure it to run perfectly on the emulater.

[Goku7]

Alright, hold up a second, which parts of "loading" are you talking about?

As in battle scene loading?  Or just nearly everything (Field screens, menus, etc.).

FF9 runs at a nigh-constant 60fps for me -- but on the other hand I had bought my computer with  the intention of running ePSXe and FF9 in mind, so that might be why.  

Additionally, I'm getting these decent loading speeds despite running it off of the CD.

What are your computer specs?  If its anything above 1Ghz, you should be doing fine.  Attempting to run ePSXe on a 500mhz (or less) computer is not exactly the ideal way to do it -- believe me, I tried it on a 233Mhz P1 before I got my current computer.  Despite having a 3D card, the emulator ran slow, because the perfomance of emulation programs is more dependent on CPU speed instead of being dependent on however fancy your video card is.

[liquidsub]

Big enough mofo computer.
AMD Athlon XP 2200 1.35 GHz 1.50 GB of RAM. All in Wonder Radeon 8500DV.

Yes, loading as in the time it takes to load a new screen (like entering a new area -- like when you enter a place from the field or when you walk into a house) Loading a battle takes just as long still. That long black screen when you enter a battle.... ugh.
It loads exactly like the psx version no more or less.

Even when it's set to low quality mode, it's still the same (actually it's worse since I lose graphics and such).

[data_lore]

Hrm, I've fiddled around a LOT with this kind of stuff with EPSXE, if you configure the plugin just right, then it should be okay.  I tip for getting up the framerates, raise the framerate limit just a tad (say, 65 or 70 fps) and see if you get a speed boost.  Also, don't try to put ALL of the super special options on, because most of the require fat amounts of ram (I have 512MB, so I don't have many problems). If you're running anything under 256 megs of ram, you are gonna have LOTS of problems, because these emulators require 256 megs and recommend 512 megs (although, if your computer is fast enough, you shouldn't have too many problems with 256 megs if you configure it correctly).

Also, try and use the hardware options as much as possible with your card, software options will only make it worse.

[Threesixty]

Slow? your speaking of emulation? your not trying to play off the disks are you?....That's not how you emulate..you need to make image files of the Cdrom, and play off those. Just pretend your going to burn a disk, by making an image file to your harddrive...and play off of that file.

[Goku7]

Slow? your speaking of emulation? your not trying to play off the disks are you?....That's not how you emulate..you need to make image files of the Cdrom, and play off those. Just pretend your going to burn a disk, by making an image file to your harddrive...and play off of that file.

Hey....running off the disks is how one can emulate -- as then the computer would be really mimicing what the PSX does in that it reads off the CD on-the-fly instead of eating up godly amounts of disc space (granted, hard disks are huge...but come on, even with a 32x speed CD drive, you can get some pretty small loading times without committing hard drive space....IMO, of course).

Of course, if his speed issue is with Framebuffer Reads, then no amount of disk read speed will help make it faster -- the video card architecture itself would be the bottleneck.

[Threesixty]

From my experence, it makes a huge difference.