Author Topic: FF7 in 32 bit? (Read 44780 times)

ficedula · « **Reply #25 on:** 2001-03-29 02:31:00 »

OK. A few things:

Firstly, I will be working on the music program at some moment. Not at the moment, however.

Secondly, when FF7 plays the midi's it *doesn't* just send the MID file to Windows and say "play this". It decodes the midi internally and a few times per second, sends a couple of midi messages to MCI. What does this mean? My patch can't easily make a midi "resume" in the middle since it only gets the data for each part of the music a second or two before it needs to be played.

However, it *could* do this for MP3's (or whatever plugin you're using) since it has total control over them. So it could resume them, make them repeat, only start at a particular point in the song - whatever you wanted, really.

The Skillster · « **Reply #26 on:** 2001-03-29 10:46:00 »

u know the map music on the PSX used to resume after each fight on the world map, that way u actually HEAR THE WHOLE DAMN TUNE WITHOUT WAITING FOR IT. hope u can implement that for those 2/3 particular midis.

Sir Canealot · « **Reply #27 on:** 2001-03-29 19:41:00 »

Sorry about that I was in a typeing mood.

The Skillster · « **Reply #28 on:** 2001-03-30 23:31:00 »

i hate to say this but...
BUG REPORT TIME!!!
ficedula this means u!!:
i thought id start allocating mp3s to the pat files sir canealot sent me...
i did 2/3 of it all then thought id try it out on ff7
lo and behold the midis still played and the mididumps still came, so i assumed the pat files r unique to every circumstance. so i started putting the right pats in
played the game OH NO! the map midi was running ONTOP of the mp3!!!! that was a mess, so i chenged the plugin settings, and then the game crashes when i got into a fight! then i swicthed from SXG to s/w midi, lo and behold the pat files are no longer working and i hve to do it again...
man this is alot of trouble

hope that helps abit cos i was looking forward to good music

ficedula · « **Reply #29 on:** 2001-03-31 00:02:00 »

OK, hadn't thought of that.

Basically a PAT file is specific to a music set (AWE, Standard, XG...) and I suppose will only work with AWE/Standard since they definitely use WinMM. I'll bear it in mind when I update it

On another note, Cosmo 0.80 uploaded (to my new site address only).

Sir Canealot · « **Reply #30 on:** 2001-03-31 00:24:00 »

Yea that happens to me. the midi plays over the mp3 for a few seconds. How ever the game dosent crash and here my midi config:
Midi Driver A: SB Live! MIDI Synth

Midi Data: Genaral Midi

Hmm I hope you wont need to set it to the Midi driver to use them pat files.

So whats up ficedula are them pat files useless except to me? Should I be prepared to start the game over?

ficedula · « **Reply #31 on:** 2001-03-31 01:20:00 »

If you've got General Midi selected as your midi data it probably means that those PAT files will only work if people set their midi data to General Midi. That's OK ... General Midi sounds fine on most peoples computers. I suppose we really should generate PAT files for all data's, but GM is the best one to do for the moment.

The Skillster · « **Reply #32 on:** 2001-03-31 03:02:00 »

thanks for the reply fice, i will try that
and sir canelot ill try that config too,
i sure hope it works....
nice to see cosmo running fresh!

The Skillster · « **Reply #33 on:** 2001-03-31 03:10:00 »

noticed a bug already

fice:
if u have other files in the same folder as cosmo, itll try and open them on start up causing "picture not valid"errors

Sir Canealot · « **Reply #34 on:** 2001-03-31 03:16:00 »

Curses! I get all the way to costa de sol and the thing crases sending me back to before Jenova!

Oh well time for bed.

ficedula · « **Reply #35 on:** 2001-03-31 03:39:00 »

Skillster: Sorry? Could you explain exactly what you mean?

The Skillster · « **Reply #36 on:** 2001-03-31 11:16:00 »

ok i uploaded a pic of the error messege.
note u can see that cosmo is trying to running the other apps available in its directory in this case timrip and timutil.exe 's
if u dont know what i mean then click here http://members.tripod.co.uk/TheSkillster/images/error.gif" TARGET=_blank>http://members.tripod.co.uk/TheSkillster/images/error.gif
and also another bug is with the increased compatibility some times the program will stop showing new previews when u are looking thru the "selelct level to open" box, even after checking/unchecking the preview option it wont change, and then if u open a level it refuses to process it, IE> it willclose the level select box and do nothing till u restart it.
ficedula: your new page d/ls like lightening! where is the server located? the uk?

edit: WARNING the image is on a TRIPOD server ! Dont expect it to always work (ive checked and it works!)

PPS: joonas has lost all his cosmo work after a computer break down, he wont resume till summer if someone wants to pick it up and carry on contact him to get the remaining infos

[This message has been edited by The Skillster (edited March 31, 2001).]

ficedula · « **Reply #37 on:** 2001-03-31 14:15:00 »

OK; the newer version of Cosmo does try to open all the other program files in its folder. This is so you can upgrade it without having to download the full half-meg archive. For example, if I just increased compatibility a bit, you'd just download a 30KB DLL and Cosmo would automatically find it and start using it....
but it does mean you really shouldn't have any programs other than Cosmo in the Cosmo folder. Sorry; I should have mentioned this in the readme.

As for level previewing...hmm. Didn't know about that. I'll take a look at it today.

EDIT: Uploaded a newer version. Actually, I couldn't get the level preview bug to appear on my PC, but I did find two or three small errors in the code. My PC just carried on OK when it encountered them, but they might have caused yours to crash. Fixed.

Oh, and the new server is European, though not English. More importantly, it's not overloaded like Tripod seems to be fairly often...

[This message has been edited by ficedula (edited March 31, 2001).]

The Skillster · « **Reply #38 on:** 2001-03-31 18:09:00 »

thanks
ill try and find the files that caused the previewer bugs...
i see that u use a qhimmlzs.dll
is that cos u r using HIS LGP decoding and recoding infos? cos i remember u tried your own one? or is it the other stuff like background viewer and and sound editor?

HAS ANY ONE FOUND ANY INFOS ON THE BATTLE FORMAT YET?

ficedula · « **Reply #39 on:** 2001-03-31 19:08:00 »

That file's just used for Qhimm's LZS compression code. I've got my own code written in Delphi for everything - it's just that his compression works a different way to mine, so it's much faster. I handle the other stuff myself (you can use my compression, of course, but it's damn slow).

The Skillster · « **Reply #40 on:** 2001-03-31 19:34:00 »

thanks
nice to see TWO updates in one day...
cant remember the last time, i think it was in January!
it looks like u r turning to using a more external modular approach like using dlls more and stuff.
i agree totally that it helps reference DLLs to multiple Apps (much like runtime DLLS) and also aids upgradability and allows for a smaller EXE) (hey just got an idea! how about looking into a "plugin" system ie; a plugin for various file formats thus preventing messing up one feature when trying to improve compatitbility with another format: just a thought tho

)

so thats wot youve been working on these past few days....

ficedula · « **Reply #41 on:** 2001-03-31 21:41:00 »

Well, the code in most of my programs already was completely modular, just built into one EXE file. Really, it's so easy to write modular code in most OOP languages you find yourself doing it automatically...

The only difference in the new approach is that while Cosmo has all the routines it needs built into its own EXE, it will scan other EXE/DLL files to see if there's a more up-to-date version of the various routines. So yes, it's kind of like a plugin system. It can also do this for files - use a version built into the EXE by default, or a more recent version stored as a separate file. That's why the latest version of LGP Tools no longer has all those "LGP.xxx" files with it - they're built into the EXE. If you copy a file into the folder with the right name, though, it automatically uses that instead of the internal version. You can see that happening if you look at the debug messages in Cosmo.

The nice thing about these methods is that I've built them into a reusable module, so it's very easy to make any code I write use the "automatic upgrade" type system. It's not really any slower than writing the code normally, now I've got it working.

The Skillster · « **Reply #42 on:** 2001-04-01 16:25:00 »

i got some bad news about the pats they still arnt working at sblive! and GM selected in the config, i hope that was the wrong settings sir canelot? cos if it wasnt that means that the mididumps r unique to each system configuration

Sir Canealot · « **Reply #43 on:** 2001-04-01 21:28:00 »

Oh S**T.

Try makeing a pat of the battle music or something and send it to me to try will ya?

The Skillster · « **Reply #44 on:** 2001-04-01 22:00:00 »

on its way zipped of course

The Skillster · « **Reply #45 on:** 2001-04-01 23:16:00 »

sir canealot emailed me telling me he couldnt get it working either! ficedula, wot do u thing is wrong?

ficedula · « **Reply #46 on:** 2001-04-01 23:52:00 »

I already posted a reply to this ... why didn't it show up?

Anyway, maybe each PC does produce it's own unique PAT files. In which case I need to think of a different way to identify midi's.

The Skillster · « **Reply #47 on:** 2001-04-01 23:54:00 »

hmm u think u can find a way around this?

ficedula · « **Reply #48 on:** 2001-04-02 00:56:00 »

Oh, there's always a way ... don't know if I'll find it or not. Got other stuff on at the moment (FF7 Editing is more interesting than MP3 playing).

Sir Canealot · « **Reply #49 on:** 2001-04-02 20:26:00 »

I wonder if I were to reformat my coputer would the oat files play I wonder?