Final Fantasy 7 question

[Easty]

I apologize if this has already been covered, but I was wondering how BIN and ISO images fare on this emulator. I'm currently using ePSXe, but I can never seem to get it working perfectly for me. There's always performance slowdown and if I view full-screen, the computer takes WAY too long to process the images.

Since I now know that piracy is a big deal for those of you here, this is when I'm happy to inform you that the images that I'm using came from my own, personal, store-bought, FF7 disc...not from Joe off of LimeWire.

Thoughts? Thanks.

[Gamesoul Master]

It will play both image formats. However, cue/bin images lack subcode data, which is always nice to have (pretty sure FFVII will play without it though). ISO shouldn't have any problems, but that too depends on whether it contains that subcode data or not (as I recall, it may or may not, depending on the program and settings used to rip the game). Your best bet, if you were to choose an image format, would be either ccd/img/sub, or mdf/mds. Those hold all the disc's necessary data and work perfectly fine in pSX.

But to answer your question a little more directly... both those image formats are supported by pSX. It'll also probably run a bit faster for you than ePSXe, even with graphics being software rendered (just as long as your processor is over 1 GHz and you have at least 256 MB of RAM, you should have no slowdowns regardless of what you play, except in the rare case that you play a game that has problems with pSX).

I've played FFVII (original discs, and mdf/mds images, which are what I use) on pSX with no problems.

[patrickp]

And the .ccd/.img/.sub format works perfectly for me for my PAL version of Final Fantasy - I'm pretty sure GM's version will be NTSC-US.

[jonc2006]

I apologize if this has already been covered, but I was wondering how BIN and ISO images fare on this emulator. I'm currently using ePSXe, but I can never seem to get it working perfectly for me. There's always performance slowdown and if I view full-screen, the computer takes WAY too long to process the images.

Since I now know that piracy is a big deal for those of you here, this is when I'm happy to inform you that the images that I'm using came from my own, personal, store-bought, FF7 disc...not from Joe off of LimeWire.

Thoughts? Thanks.

where specifically is this slowdown happening? is it in certain parts or does the entire game show lag?

[Easty]

where specifically is this slowdown happening? is it in certain parts or does the entire game show lag?

It happens when the RNG sparks a battle sequence, middle of battles, sometimes even running through an area. It's just bugging me since I know my computer can run it much better than it is right now.

[patrickp]

FWIW ePSXe has always demonstrated slowdowns in places for me, regardless of plugins used, configuration, operating system (Edgy, Feisty, Gutsy, Windows 98(SE), 2000 Professional & XP Professional). My guess is you could probably overcome this on a fast machine, but it would have to be pretty fast.

pSX works very differently. It doesn't have the facility ePSXe does, with some plugins, to run games at faster speeds than the game should run at (except for slowdowns...), but it runs games much more reliably. It usually runs at pretty much 100% of the game's correct speed and, most importantly, doesn't produce slowdowns.

This, coupled with the fact that picture rendering is much more accurate than ePSXe, produces what I call 'transparency.' That is, it's like playing on a console: nothing distracts from your experience of playing the game - no slowdowns, no artifacts - just the game as it was intended to play by the developer.

Edit: yes, Easty, Final Fantasy VII does typically show slowdowns in ePSXe in the places you mention. pSX doesn't, except on pretty low end machines - and, on machines where it runs a little slow, ePSXe would be seriously lagging.

[Easty]

FWIW ePSXe has always demonstrated slowdowns in places for me, regardless of plugins used, configuration, operating system (Edgy, Feisty, Gutsy, Windows 98(SE), 2000 Professional & XP Professional). My guess is you could probably overcome this on a fast machine, but it would have to be pretty fast.

pSX works very differently. It doesn't have the facility ePSXe does, with some plugins, to run games at faster speeds than the game should run at (except for slowdowns...), but it runs games much more reliably. It usually runs at pretty much 100% of the game's correct speed and, most importantly, doesn't produce slowdowns.

This, coupled with the fact that picture rendering is much more accurate than ePSXe, produces what I call 'transparency.' That is, it's like playing on a console: nothing distracts from your experience of playing the game - no slowdowns, no artifacts - just the game as it was intended to play by the developer.

Edit: yes, Easty, Final Fantasy VII does typically show slowdowns in ePSXe in the places you mention. pSX doesn't, except on pretty low end machines - and, on machines where it runs a little slow, ePSXe would be seriously lagging.

Well, I just DLed it, I'm trying it out now. Curious, is there a specific configuration that it needs or am I good to go right out of the box, so to speak.

[Gamesoul Master]

It really is good to go right out of the box. You honestly don't need to set anything. Any adjustments you make are more to cater to your preferences, and are not needed to get things running. The only exception would be using it on certain Linux setups, or a *really* slow computer.

A couple recommended things to set though... Make a new memory card (or simply load one that you use in ePSXe, since those work fine too). Also be sure to set your controller buttons. Nothing on the Graphics or Sound tabs need to be changed, and really shouldn't, except maybe fullscreen resolution if you want to set that (I use my desktop resolution as my fullscreen resolution).

[jonc2006]

for epsxe have you tried using settings as similar as possible to these?

Plugin: Pete's DX6 D3D Driver 1.1.76
Author: Pete Bernert
GFX card: NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GS

Resolution/Color:
- 1920x1200 Fullscreen - [32 Bit]

Textures:
- R8G8A8A8
- Filtering: 4
- Hi-Res textures: 0
- VRam size: 256 MBytes

Framerate:
- FPS limit: on
- Frame skipping: off
- FPS limit: 65.0

Compatibility:
- Offscreen drawing: 3
- Framebuffer texture: 2
- Framebuffer access: 4
- Alpha multipass: on
- Mask bit: on
- Advanced blending: hardware

Misc:
- Scanlines: off [0]
- Unfiltered FB: off
- Dithering: off
- Screen smoothing: on
- Full vram: on
- Game fixes: on [00000001]

and do you have any type for forced vsync enabled by any chance? not just in one of the emulators either, i mean like as a global video card setting, do you have something enabled that forces vysnc onto an application or game? i just tried those same settings i posted but with vysnce forcefully enabled and i did notice lag that is never there when its disabled. so im guessing its possible vsync could be a factor in your issue. you could also try defragging that specific folder where you store your ISO's. another thing to you could try disabling any unneeded background applications and/or setting the emulator's cpu priority to a higher level in the task manager. and if the slowdown is bugging you that bad you could try gradually raising the FPS limit higher until the slowdown becomes less noticable.

[Easty]

for epsxe have you tried using settings as similar as possible to these?

Plugin: Pete's DX6 D3D Driver 1.1.76
Author: Pete Bernert
GFX card: NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GS

Resolution/Color:
- 1920x1200 Fullscreen - [32 Bit]

Textures:
- R8G8A8A8
- Filtering: 4
- Hi-Res textures: 0
- VRam size: 256 MBytes

Framerate:
- FPS limit: on
- Frame skipping: off
- FPS limit: 65.0

Compatibility:
- Offscreen drawing: 3
- Framebuffer texture: 2
- Framebuffer access: 4
- Alpha multipass: on
- Mask bit: on
- Advanced blending: hardware

Misc:
- Scanlines: off [0]
- Unfiltered FB: off
- Dithering: off
- Screen smoothing: on
- Full vram: on
- Game fixes: on [00000001]

and do you have any type for forced vsync enabled by any chance? not just in one of the emulators either, i mean like as a global video card setting, do you have something enabled that forces vysnc onto an application or game? i just tried those same settings i posted but with vysnce forcefully enabled and i did notice lag that is never there when its disabled. so im guessing its possible vsync could be a factor in your issue. you could also try defragging that specific folder where you store your ISO's. another thing to you could try disabling any unneeded background applications and/or setting the emulator's cpu priority to a higher level in the task manager. and if the slowdown is bugging you that bad you could try gradually raising the FPS limit higher until the slowdown becomes less noticable.

Well, I did try those settings but they don't seem to help. The ISO's are currently stored in a portable HD, do you think that transferring them to my C drive would help the game run a bit faster? And I just tried looking for that VSync you were talking about, but couldn't find it.

[jonc2006]

its possible, i would try it just to see if there is a difference. if it doesnt you can always transfer it back over.

[patrickp]

Trying to get the emulator to run faster won't fix slowdowns. First, even if you manage to raise the speed of the slowdowns, the game generally will be running faster, so they'll still be just as noticeable - and your game may now be running uncontrollably fast.

But, even with the game running at normal speed, it should also have been running at that normal speed during the slowdowns. This suggests that ePSXe on your system isn't capable of running those sections any faster than that. This means that, in practice, increasing the the speed of the emulator won't make those sections run any faster, so speeding the game up will just make the slowdowns even more noticeable.

ePSXe is old now; it was a fine, groundbreaking emulator in its day - and I used it happily for 5 or 6 years. However, it's 4 1/2 years since it was last updated and it's very unlikely it ever will be now.

It's very noticeable that the two most successful - and advanced - Playstation emulators now in active development, pSX Emulator and Xebra, have both abandoned the plugin system and are concentrating on accuracy rather than enhancement. I've never tried Xebra, since I'm a Linux user and there isn't a Linux version, but you'll find pSX speaks for itself - it runs so much better than any of the old plugin based emulators, and it doesn't take long to realise how much enhancement, nice though the concept may be, interferes with your playing experience. Even when the very first version of pSX came out (I was still using Windows then), I was impressed by how much nicer (in the literal sense) it was to play games on and switched pretty much immediately.

@Easty: pSX generally runs games even from CD at full speed. So access to your external drive should be fast enough. If you do have problems in that direction, try moving just one image onto your hard drive and see if that makes a difference.

BTW as myself and GM have said, .ccd/.img/.sub (CloneCD (http://www.slysoft.com/en/)) and .mdf/.mds (Alcohol (http://www.alcohol-soft.com/)) are the best CD image formats to use. Failing that, .bin/.cue should be used; this should be fine for non-protected games. Alcohol do a free version of their Alcohol 52% application that will rip to any of these formats.

However, one difference between ePSXe and pSX is that you should start the game by selecting the .cue file for the image: that's the .ccd file for the CloneCD format (if there is a .cue file with it, ignore it) and, I think, the .mds file for the Alcohol format - .bin/.cue should be obvious! This is one difference to ePSXe, of which the plugins don't appear to read .cue files at all. With ePSXe, you will have to create a new file from the CD to run 'problem' games (i.e. those with multiple tracks or protected games), whereas pSX will usually run these directly as long as the necessary components are there and you start with the .cue file.

[Easty]

Well, I tried pSX with my save, and it ran like crap. But that was on the ISO file, so now I'm ripping the .ccd images of the game and am going to try those out. I'm happy to announce that the battle start spiral effect is now working, something that I've been wanting to work since day 1.

So far it's shaping up to be a promising replacement for my ePSXe emulator, but only time will tell.

EDIT: IT WORKS! IT WORKS!!!! Everything is running 100% smoothly. Thanks guys!!!

[jonc2006]

hmm. if thats the case perhaps i will give psx another shot.

[patrickp]

That's great to hear, Easty! BTW, I don't think you've posted your system specs - what sort of machine are you running on?

And, jonc2006, looking at your system specs, pSX should run slicker than you-know-what... ;)

You both might be interested in Ultima's pSX Frontend (http://psxemulator.proboards54.com/index.cgi?board=news&action=display&thread=1156715263); it's one of the most comprehensive frontends for a Playstation emulator I've seen. Because it changes startup parameters by modifying pSX' configuration file as well as with switches, it can change pretty much every setting you might want to change from game to game, including BIOS settings etc, and some settings pSX itself doesn't offer, such as window size if you want to play in a window.

Like pSX, the frontend also has a Linux version; it's not quite as full featured as the Windows one, but still sets pretty much everything you might want it to set.

[Easty]

My specs, nothing special, but they get the job done.

CPU: mobile AMD Athlon(tm) XP2800+
CPU speed: 2.12 GHz Performance Rated at 2.80 GHz
RAM: 446.5 MB
OS: XP w/ SP2
Video card: RADEON IGP 320M
VRAM: 64 MB
DirectX: 9.0

[jonc2006]

yeah i can see why you might have been getting lag with epsxe with certain features enabled, no offense of course. then again that could have been happening due to an issue with a single component you have rather than your pc as a whole, i cant say for sure though. if that was the case and i had to guess i would say your video card might have been it, but i havnt used an ATI card in a while and i havnt been keeping track of their stuff so i dont know what the rough nvidia equvilant of that card would be. good to hear you got it working though.

[patrickp]

On the other hand, that spec is easily enough to run pSX perfectly.

The videocard is not that important for pSX, since it does all the emulation in software. Pretty much as long as the card can do 3D, pSX will work fine. About the only spec where I can imagine ePSXe running better than pSX would be on a machine with a slow CPU and not much memory, but a fast, capable videocard: in that case, ePSXe could offload quite a bit of processing to the card, whereas pSX couldn't. But that would be an exceptional case: it would be unusual for a system like that to have a videocard with much poke in it...

[Gamesoul Master]

for epsxe have you tried using settings as similar as possible to these?

Plugin: Pete's DX6 D3D Driver 1.1.76
Author: Pete Bernert
GFX card: NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GS

Resolution/Color:
- 1920x1200 Fullscreen - [32 Bit]

Textures:
- R8G8A8A8
- Filtering: 4
- Hi-Res textures: 0
- VRam size: 256 MBytes

Framerate:
- FPS limit: on
- Frame skipping: off
- FPS limit: 65.0

Compatibility:
- Offscreen drawing: 3
- Framebuffer texture: 2
- Framebuffer access: 4
- Alpha multipass: on
- Mask bit: on
- Advanced blending: hardware

Misc:
- Scanlines: off [0]
- Unfiltered FB: off
- Dithering: off
- Screen smoothing: on
- Full vram: on
- Game fixes: on [00000001]

and do you have any type for forced vsync enabled by any chance? not just in one of the emulators either, i mean like as a global video card setting, do you have something enabled that forces vysnc onto an application or game? i just tried those same settings i posted but with vysnce forcefully enabled and i did notice lag that is never there when its disabled. so im guessing its possible vsync could be a factor in your issue. you could also try defragging that specific folder where you store your ISO's. another thing to you could try disabling any unneeded background applications and/or setting the emulator's cpu priority to a higher level in the task manager. and if the slowdown is bugging you that bad you could try gradually raising the FPS limit higher until the slowdown becomes less noticable.

Just a comment I feel the need to make about those settings... more than not, they seem to be settings that would make the emulator as slow as possible. Just a few that really stand out to me:

- Color depth: 32 Bit (better at 16 Bit, since the difference isn't enough to bother with anyway).
- Gfx card vram: 256 MBytes (better off set to 0 (Autodetect)).
- FPS limit: 65 (setting higher than what it should be, usually 60, doesn't do any good).
- Framebuffer access: 4 (0 always seemed the better choice, or probably any other option *except* 4).
- Screen smoothing: on (waste of resources, and usually quite slow... best to leave this off, except on a high-end desktop).

A thought... The "Special game fix: 0x4000" might help you out a little, since you have an ATI card in there. It's definitely not certain, but rather... it's one of those options that a person would have to try to see if it does them any good.

A few other settings bugged me, but they're more minor. And... any reason why such an old version of the plugin is listed? Does it work better than all the newer versions or something?

Might be worthwhile to ask what plugin and general settings you use for sound too... depending on the situation, it's certainly possible that your sound settings may be wasting more resources than it could be.

And yes... I know much of this may not be relevant since pSX seems to be working better for him. But I always like to think that an irrelevant problem solved is better than unsolved, and you never know if he may want to use ePSXe here and there for other games or uses. So I figured I'd add my input... :D

[jonc2006]

the emulator with those settings runs fine for me, even at tha high of a resolution. i usually have the VRAM set to auto as well, i dont remember why but i must have changed it for some reason. the only issues i get are very minor glitches in some games, but nothing noticable for the most part. those settings seem to be very versitale, for me at least, i dont have to go around tweaking them every time i play a different game.

the plugin version im using is just one of the plugins that came with the epsxe download, ive never really bothered to look around for other or newer plugins/plugin versions since im pretty well satisfied with the performance and all i have now anyway, so i dont know what the differences between them would be.

as for the framebuffer access, i dont really remember what that does exactly anyway, i think i just used that specific setting based off a suggestion from someone else a while back.

[Gamesoul Master]

Well, the changes I mentioned are just as versatile, but I listed them because they will allow the emulator to run faster, with little quality loss, on a lower-end system. I'm more used to that mentality because, for quite a few years, I had to use my computer with a Celeron @ 1.0 GHz and 512 MB of RAM (well, I have that in *this* computer too, which has a P4 @ 2.93 GHz). Not to say your settings aren't good, but I'm thinking that for his system (especially considering his RAM and Graphics situation), using lower settings may very likely enhance his experience overall in relation to speed.

[patrickp]

Seems to me the plugin may have been a typo, GM - jonc2006 wrote v 1.1.76; he probably meant 1.76, the current version.

However, jonc2006, when you say "the emulator with those settings runs fine for me, even at tha high of a resolution," you've got a fairly fast machine there - certainly a lot faster than mine or Easty's, and I'm pretty sure faster than GM's, as well. The emulator certainly should run fine for you; something would be very wrong if it didn't. But not everyone has systems as fast...

[jonc2006]

right i know, i gave him those as an example sort of on how to get rid of some of the glitches that are common in FF7 such as the green lines. in another thread i told him that it wouldnt be a good idea to use those exact settings if super nice performance was his main goal, specifically the screen smoothing due to his setup, but for me those are the settings that allow FF7 to run with the least amount of graphical issues. sorry for the confusion there.

[patrickp]

I'm curious, though, that with your setup you aren't using Pete's OGL2 plugin, jonc2006. If you have a videocard and system that will support it well, it will usually run better than the plugins that are suitable for lower spec systems. In fact, even with an ATI 9700 or 9800, it's the only ePSXe plugin that works well for me in Linux; the others have too many problems; most notably not going full screen properly.

And I have to say - glitches that are common in Final Fantasy VII? Not in pSX, mate! ;)

[jonc2006]

i just havnt tried it, im kinda lazy i suppose.

[Gamesoul Master]

Well, I figured that he must've been using an older version (and that it wasn't a typo), because a couple of the options he mentioned used an older naming scheme that was changed more recently in those plugins, and an option that doesn't even seem to exist ("Full vram"). Well, my original question about that still applies... Is the newest version the best version, or is there an older version that works better?

I really do wish I could use OpenGL plugins/options. But my 9250 just can't handle it, as it seems to have horribly incomplete compatibility with OpenGL (enough so that OpenGL usually won't run on it). Unfortunately, my video card was recently fried, so now I'm stuck with the Intel integrated crap, probably until I buy or build a new computer (I'll probably just buy a cheaper computer and upgrade it... I have absolutely no use for a quad-core processor, or even a dual-core processor, I just need a PCI-Express graphics card and a decent amount of RAM). Being limited to regular PCI at this point leaves me with no worthwhile options, since I'll be getting a new computer in under a half year either way.

With a newer card that fully supports OpenGL, is OpenGL *faster* to run, or does it simply provide nicer graphics to look at?

[Strike105X]

I would say nicer garphics and when it comes to pete's opengl2 plugin better compatibilitie to but if you want the best out of opengl stay away from ATI :))

[Gamesoul Master]

Hmm... I may have to stay away from OpenGL then. I've always strongly preferred ATI over nVIDIA, especially after seeing that nVIDIA wasn't capable of properly rendering many of my older games, while all of my ATI cards, new and old, were able to perfectly fine. I've gone this many years without OpenGL, so I suppose that, down the line, having mostly functional OpenGL with full retro support is better than full OpenGL with lacking retro support. Thanks for the heads up.

[Strike105X]

Actually latelly ATI drivers seem to have gone worst i loved them 2 until now when they started messing things up big time in drivers i also liked 2 more especially how ati performed in 2d games and aplications like photoshop. I may move to Nvidia if they continue like this or buy X360 and forget about my PC at all :))

[patrickp]

Well, in Linux ATI support is actually improving quite a bit since AMD took them over. I'm sticking with mine. I never liked the 2D quality and colour values on Nvidia cards either, strike105x. And, of course, in Linux it's OpenGL all the way. ;)

[Strike105X]

Well i wanted to change to linux 2 wanted to change to ubuntu but the lack of a good DC emu stops me (my DC doesent have long to live i think :)) its making verry strange noise when reading Roms actually it broke my DOA 2 good thing it wasnt my DOA2 LE disk :)) ) So until a decent DC emu's launch on Linux i dont think i'm going to try it and i must be onest i'm a little afraid 2 that i wouldn't know much in it :))

[patrickp]

You can dual boot, strike105x. In fact a lot of Linux users do this; one of the most common reasons being to continue to play Windows only games, particularly ones that won't run in Wine etc.

Personally, I keep a Windows installation running, but really just for ripping DVDs and CDs; CloneCD and CloneDVD won't run in Wine, I know of no Windows ripping application that will rip to subcode-including formats that will, and there are no Linux ones. :(

But dual-booting is easy. Install Windows first (it's not nearly as good as Linus applications at sorting out dual booting) then install Gutsy, which will set up dual booting for you. You get a menu that comes up when you boot up that gives you the option of which installation you want to boot into (easily customisable).

Since Gutsy now includes full NTFS read/write capabilities, you can put all the data you want to share (eg Playstation emulator images, BIOSs, saves etc) on an NTFS partition for it to be accessible to both installations.

[LiquidAcid]

Both CloneCD and CloneDVD work well in VMWare. I have a small W2k installation setup in a 4gig container which I use to rip discs, WHEN it's needed (I usually rip audio discs, where I can use EAC through wine). Keep in mind that the VM setup is a bit weird, you need SCSI passthrough when you want to use CloneCD/DVD.

[patrickp]

That's ineresting, LiquidAcid - I'm going to have to look at VMWare, thanks.