My Characters are Disapperaing with FF9

I haven't seen this problem posted yet, so I think I will post it now...

I am playing the US version (I think) of FF9, and I have been doing fine until Disc 2, when all of a sudden the characters started disappearing from the battle menu. They were fine in Disc 1 but when I enter a battle, the characters disappear (everything else is OK) and the battle does not progress. I tried using Pete's OpenGL plugins, his D3D plugins...and it seems to work when I have it go superfast (frame limit of 200) but the game crashes soon after that. I am at a loss of what to do, so if anyone can help me, it would be greatly appreciated.

By the way, these are the plugin specs (I'm running an AMD Athlon 1.2G, 256DDR, 64MBDDR Geforce 2 Ti, Sound Blaster)

Plugin: Pete's OpenGL Driver 1.1.57
Author: Pete Bernert
Card vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
GFX card: GeForce2 GTS/AGP/3DNOW!

Resolution/Color:
- 800x600 Fullscreen - Desktop changing [32 Bit]
- Keep psx aspect ratio: off

Textures:
- R8G8A8A8
- Filtering: 0
- VRam size: 0 MBytes

Framerate:
- FPS limitation: on
- Frame skipping: off
- FPS limit: Auto

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

Misc:
- Scanlines: off
- Line mode: off
- Unfiltered FB: off
- Dithering: off
- Full vram: off
- Game fixes: off [00000000]

[Kane]

Try settin Offscreen Drawing to 2. That may help.

Thanks for the tip, but I'm still having problems...all the graphics are there (enemies, background) but the characters are not...the music keeps going as if it were a battle, but that is it, there is nothing else...there is no sound effects when I select menus (that I can't see)...I tried to set the offscreen to 2 with both D3D and OpenGL, but it didn't work. Could it be the disc I'm using (even though its a retail version)? This wasn't a problem in disc one, so I'm at quite a loss of what to do.

[Zephon]

Try using P.E.Op.S gpu plugin only to test. If the graphics problems persist even with this plugin, then there is great chance the cd is bad. If it works fine, then most probably you have to change something in the OpenGL plugin configuration.

get the newest pete's 1.1.58

Thanks for the info guys, but I still can't get it to work. I tried all sorts of things, but I still have the problem of my characters disappearing. I tried doing it ISO but the game didn't even run...I may try and borrow another CD, but somehow I doubt it will work...any other suggestions?

[Recca]

Does your cd have massive scrathes

Sigh...

The CD isn't majorly scratched. I've downloaded Pete's Open GL and D3D, both 1.58, with no luck. It seems like a random thing, but sometimes, the characters come up and I think it'll be OK, but the menu (especially Quina's Blu Magic menu) screws up, and when I win the battle, epsxe crashes. This problem occured first in Disc 2, at the tree trunk in Cleyra (when I had to go against the Antlion), and has been a recurring problem ever since. It especially became a problem in Fossil Roo, and well, I can't get to Conde because of the battles in between. I'm surprised that nobody else is having this problem...hmm...I wonder what the problem could be...

[Andronicus]

Can you send a screenshot for this problem

Ok..here is the screenshot. Everything is fine (the enemies move, the music plays) but no characters.

[si_ok]

try these setts :P
Plugin: Pete's DX6 D3D Driver 1.1.58
Author: Pete Bernert
GFX card: NVIDIA Vanta/Vanta LT

Resolution/Color:
- 640x480 Fullscreen - [16 Bit]

Textures:
- Default
- Filtering: 0
- Garbage collection: on
- VRam size: 32 MBytes

Framerate:
- FPS limit: on
- Frame skipping: off
- FPS limit: 85

Compatibility:
- Offscreen drawing: 2
- Framebuffer texture: 2
- Alpha multipass: on
- Mask bit: on
- Advanced blending: none

Misc:
- Scanlines: off [0]
- Unfiltered FB: on
- Dithering: off
- Screen smoothing: off
- Full vram: off
- Game fixes: on [00000200]

[si_ok]

remember, always set ur vram size one above what your vram is. i have a 16mb vanta card, so i set to 32 :P also, offscreen drawing to 2 for best results

[Andronicus]

If you set Offscreen Drawing to 2, the will be some missing graphic(maybe no one noticed it). It is the best to set it to 3.

Try to use latest Pete's plugin. Check if this problem accurs with P.E.Op.s.

Hey everybody that helped me!

Thank you very much, I got the game to work...although it is running extra fast...so I'm wondering if there is a minimum framerate that FF9 likes...I know that the problem solved itself when I set the framerate really high, but I couldn't get it to work at 55, or autodetect.

Thanks again, for helping me.

By the way, if I wanted to use P.E.Op.s just to test it out, what setting should I set it at? I tried it once, but the same problem occured...so maybe there is a step or something I'm missing?

the normal fps for the us version would be 60 but i dont know why autodetect doesnt work...

I don't know why it doesn't work either...I'll try it again..but I used 55fps and I had that problem, I'm not sure 60 will make a difference, but thanks for the suggestion. I will let you know if it works. Would this also fix the problem if I used Pete's Open GL (changing the framerate)?

[DarkAurora]

I notice you don't have the latest version of pete's plugins. Update them to the latest version. You probably don't have the latest version of epsxe either because you didn't write down screensmoothing as an option.