FF8 Fix Request

[aldanon]

So it's rather well known that (FF7 & 8 PC Version) uses 8-Bit palleted textures for the backgrounds.  Unforunately the new ati/nvidia cards haven't supported these textures for quite some time now.  Of coarse Rivatuner would be a great fix for this problem but it's not compatible with DX9.

I think it's awsome that FF7 is being reverse engineered.  So I was wondering if any of the dev's have considered working on a project for FF8 to fix some of the native issues like this. 

[Aaron]

FF8 runs fine without 8-bit palleted texture support (even though it lists as "failed" in FF8config).  If you are having problems with black boxes all over the backgrounds, that is a different issue.

[aldanon]

Thanks for your reply Aaron.  Yeah that's exactly what the problem is.  So all of us FF8 fans have been suffering since Nvidia and ATI decided to stop supporting 8-bit palleted textures.  I do know for a fact it's in the drivers though.  If there was a way to tweak them into using 8-bit the problem would be resolved. 

You are correct that FF8 runs fine as it is, but those ugly black boxes ruin it to the point that I among thousands of other people don't want to play it like that.  If you did a search on google over the issue you'd see what I mean.   I know you can change the settings in FF8 to software rendering which fixes the problem but the game is so ugly at that point that there is no reason to play.

The sad thing is there was never an official patch that addresses this issue because back when Eidos was still patching the game people had graphics cards that still supported those kinds of textures.  Nowadays you will never find a game that requires 8-bit palleted textures so Nvidia & ATI disabled the feature in their drivers.

I guess I thought I would post this here because I noticed you guys are doing alot with FF7.  I know it's a long shot, but I'm hoping someone will find a resolution.

[Aaron]

What I meant was, the black boxes are not caused by 8-bit Palleted Texture support being absent in the drivers.  It is a separate problem entirely, and at this point, unsolved.  (Though it is a graphics driver problem, you are right.)

There is a range of cards (GeForce3-5 ish and some ATI cards) that had the same behavior in FF8Config (failed on 8-bit Palleted Textures) but run the game just fine.

[Edit]
Some digging reveals that on the NVIDIA side, 8-bit palleted textures weren't supported from (at least as far back as) the TNT2 all the way until now, but FF8 works fine on many of those cards.  It broke around the GeForce 6.  If you have a card older than the GeForce 6, you can play FF8 (but you may need to use older drivers).

For instance, I have a laptop with a GeForce FX 5200 and it works fine on Windows XP with drivers in the 60.xx range, and 8-bit Palleted Textures is definitely listed as "Failed" in FF8Config.  (I haven't tried newer drivers, since the manufacturer stopped providing updates around then and the driver's from NVIDIA's site don't support laptop cards.)  The behavior was the same back when I had a GeForce 4 Ti4600 in my desktop.

[aldanon]

Yeah so I don't even know if I'm really barking up the right tree here really.  Just a wish list for FF8 as it were heh.  With a game this old I guess the idea of re-texturing is probably a lost cause.   

I'd probably rather play this on the PS2 then have to change out my graphics card and d/l old drivers.  Maybe we'll get lucky and someone will release a 3rd party patch that resolves the problem.  Darn those translucent textures!!

Anyways Aaron if you come up with anything in the way of a patch post it here eh?  I've got this thread on notify. =) 

[Aaron]

Ha ha, if a patch comes, it probably won't be from me. 
Anyway, you may want to look at the PlayStation emulation scene, if you picked up a PSX copy of FF8 it's not too hard to get it working well on your computer that way.

[aldanon]

True there is emulation.  Actually it makes FF8 look better then it does on the actual console and definetly  better then the 640x480 that you get on the PC.  I guess I'll just have to use it.  Here's a couple of screenies for anyone interested in partaking in emulation: