[FF7PC-98] Higher Resolution - Part II (v1.00)(Discontinued, use Aali's driver)

[ragnarok13]

Beautiful patch, SaiNt!

BTW, have you checked these out (wink, wink ):

scale 2x
http://www.hiend3d.com/hq2x.html

scale 3x
http://www.hiend3d.com/hq3x.html

scale 4x
http://www.hiend3d.com/hq4x.html

100% asm optimized code is available (among other versions).

[Chrisu]

Cool, how to make the game filter the BGs like that??

[Shaher]

Well, I guess this is the 101% better way  
Especially because this code could be included in a new HighRes-Patch I think, so there'S no sharing problem with the ~180 MB-felvel-file (or "do it yourself").

[Chrisu]

So you mean this filtering must be included in a new high-res patch?

[spyrojyros_tail]

ragnarok13, those links are really amazing. Im crossing my fingers and hoping that you guys can work with it.

[Borde]

"Must" isn't the right word, Grisu. "Might" is closer to the reality. The Saint hasn't even said anything about it

[EmperorSteele]

Hmm...

I was going to say that this kind of thing might not work (As it relies on pixels being vastly different in color and haivng clear, defined edges, which a lot of shapes in ff7s backgrounds do not have), but then i realized that all this program is, is something similar to the DIFFUSE filter in photoshop.  I tried experimenting with a few scenes, and, apart from looking a little blurry, its actually quite an astounding improvement.

I wish i knew what offsets this code could be plugged into so that I could try it myself... I really cant wait to see if The SaiNt can impliment this or not =)

[Otokoshi]

This reminds me of the fractal interpolation idea I had that was shot down a few months ago.     Of course putting that code into an engine would take too long to render to be of any use.  This method is used in SNES and MAME emulators.  If this could be done I'm guessing the image could be rendered by the engine much quicker.  Ah, Yoshi's house from Super Mario World.  I haven't visited their in a while.

Do you have any screens of your experiment EmperorSteele?

[EmperorSteele]

My experiment was nothing mroe than playing with photoshop filters.  This could be totaly off-base, but here's what i predict the screen looking like:

http://www.ff7-universe.com/images/Bigtiger2.jpg

http://www.ff7-universe.com/images/Bigtiger1.jpg  (A "before" pic for reference)

With any luck, the 3d models would actually not be affected, resulting in the best of both worlds.

[Borde]

I think your experiment was a bit too optimistic. As fas as I know, FF7 backgrounds are produced by drawing 16x16 (or strecthed) squares on the screen. Those squares aren't software rendered (unless you are using Software renderer mode, of course). They are actually textured polygons like those you see in the 3D models. The diference is that they have filtering disabled. When The Saint tried to enable it, we could see why. It produced several wired artifacts arround some places. But there was one more problem. Since the filtering was applied to isolated tiles, the result was a bit disjointed. Personally, I think it was tolerable though. If you've played PSX emulators with filtering enabled, you will probably be used to this effect.
For those who missed the screens when The Saint posted them, here you have one:
http://img458.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bilinear36gg.jpg

[Shaher]

Um... in The Saints case... did he apply the filtering to the BGs only, or the whole image ? oO
Let's say this HQ2x-Filterthingy is applied over the whole screen... this should create a kind of AA.
Small question: Ehy is there no differene on the BGs when using AA ? They are the same level of "blockyness", or I do something very wrong oO
BTT: I think, that if the filterthingy is applied to the whole screen, it would not isolate single spots on the screen and the artifacts should be gone.
At least, this is my theory o.o
IMO this HQ2X should provide a better (less blurry) image, than any other method like biliniear or bicubic (except the spline-method, 'cuz I think, this filter uses it)

[Borde]

Jejeje... well, I remember about 3 years ago I turned on FSAA and it was applied to the whole image in FF7 (backgrounds included) and it looked good. Unfortunatelly, it looks like NVIDIA wasn't pleased with their FSAA method and they changed it for newer versions of their drivers. Now it doesn't filter the backgrounds at all. Yes, you could go back to the older version of the drivers, but they are way too old and don't support the 6000 series (in fact, I bet it doesn't even support the 5000 series). Don't ask me eaxctly which version of the Detonators I had back then since I can't remember.
As for the ATI users, I don't have a clue how it works there.

[ragnarok13]

EmperorSteele:
yes, the HQ works just like a filter - drop in an image and get a larger version of it. Scaled in a special way that retains sharpness and smooth lines. The examples you and Borde showed, are very blurred. I'd say that HQ works much better than that. I'll try to post an example tomorrow (if I'll get it to work).

Borde:
backgrounds are a collection of polys... That sure complicates things. But I don't think any kind of filtering on them will produce a good result, especially when you take those edge artifacts into consideration.

Shaher:
Exactly. HQ would work best if you just gave it a low resolution image and let it do the scaling. An extra layer, to put it simply. So, that kind of patch would be different than what SaiNt made. It would only take the original 320 or 640 image and scale it, so it would work as a wrapper, that adds an extra layer. I think it would work like a charm, especially since FF7 would leave a lot of free CPU on today's computers. Unfortunetely, I'm only a beginner programmer and have not the knowledge to make it.

[Chrisu]

[ragnarok13]

Here's a screenshot of a scaler, that is based on hq2x. I don't know if that means it's the same, but here goes:

http://freeweb.siol.net/rmihor/scalers/2x%20vs%20hq2x.png

Note that here the original image was hand-drawn and the result might be better for FF7.

[Chrisu]

Experimental Billinear Interpolation (Not activated in this patch cause it looks ugly]

The_Saint, i like this filtering, could you give me a version of the patch that does it, or would this be much work?
Thanks, Grisu

[Chrisu]

Noone knowing how this could be done?

[Salk]

The Saint,

first and foremost, thanks for what you've been doing and sharing with us all.

Second, I'd like to report you how the game goes with your patch on. I am running it succesfully on a LCD Monitor using the 1280x1024 patch.

I might update this, if you like, as the game goes on.

Issues:

* The initial credit screen is completely messed up. (UPDATE: Sorry. Only now I realize this is already reported in the first post!! Sorry again!)

* The two guards at the station (prologue) are in midair when the train approaches and "float down" to the ground once the train has come to a halt.(UPDATE: Having the Movies load from Hard Drive prevents this to happen!)

[spyrojyros_tail]

Im not 100% on this salk, but I believe that the glitch where the guards float down is actually in the original game, not on the patch.

[EmperorSteele]

Its actually because the movies seem to run slower with this patch; however, SaiNt has gone on record sayingt hat he will not be fixing up the movie rendering code.

if you want, try using one of the other versions of the Duck Codec... there's a thread about them someplace around here.  Some peopel have reported success with the codecs increasing rendering speed =)

[KojiroTakenashi]

Ragnarok13, we were over this over a billion times in the old version of this thread. While I still believe that background filtering can work with a little elbow grease and some free time, the HQ filters ARE CERTAINLY NOT going to look very good on FF7. The HQ filters were meant for SPRITES and very low-colour applications. Go ahead, try applying HQ to a photograph, it's not going to look very pretty. For FF7, other forms of interpolation would be needed - like maybe 2xSaI (which works better for more detailed backgrounds).

[Salk]

EDIT: Stupid question/request already covered in the readme file. Sorry.

[EmperorSteele]

*Bitchslaps Salk*

Dude, this patch is NOT to be played in a window or quarterscreen... TNT fullscreen ONLY!  He says this in the first damned post =P

Well, maybe not about the windowed part, but it kind goes without saying =P

[Salk]

EmperorSteele,

my question was not covered by the FAQ. There The SaiNt doesn't say that the game can't be run in windowed mode. Just that the PC must be able to display a resolution of 1280x960 or 1280x1024.

His readme mentions though that he'll never support quarter screen nor original resolution because the code of the patch overwrites the codes of those areas, so I apologize for asking something stupid.

[Zedstorm]

Looks like I'm a bit late in finding this; I hope someone still scans these forums and can answer my question.

I downloaded and installed the 1.02 patch as well as this beta, which successfully installed on top.  I ran the game and the beta patch worked fine, except for one large problem...




I figured the "bricks" were in the background due to stretching, so I installed the x1024 to get rid of it.  That didn't work, and now I'm unsure how to uninstall that.  Regardless, that's not really important... my question is, what the hell are the "bricked" lines all throughout my background?  They're either green or black or transparent at any given time, no matter what location I'm in.  Does anyone have any idea how to fix these?  (The image has been halved in size.)