Playing emulator through TV, graphics issues?

[Loveless]

Hi all, quite new to the forums so forgive me for sounding like a complete noob (it's because I am!). I decided to sign up because of the wealth of information I've found on this site having only been browsing for a few hours.

After several years I suddenly realised I wanted to play FF7 again . I went upstairs and dusted off a few boxes and found the lovely cd case Disc 1 is a bit scratched but I've had no problems making an ISO out of it and running the game so far.

I've read plenty of threads on here about people having troubles with the swirls before the battles and slowdown of music etc... I must say the swirls on mine are fine and whilst I've noticed a slight slowing during the beginning of a battle and the Exp. screen they're liveable problems.

My main concern is the following. I've connected the Toshiba laptop via VGA cable to my Sony Bravia 40" LCD (KDL40V2000). I noticed that the graphics looked particularly blocky (probably blockier than when I played it on the PSX all those moons ago). I'm not using Pete's GFX plugins or the configs I've seen posted but will do so when I get in. I'm hoping this will iron things out and hopefully make things look a little better...

Does anyone else run their laptop through their Tv at home? If so what resolutions do you use and settings etc?

Many thanks for any help in advance

[The Captain]

What resolutions does your Sony TV support? Using Pete's OpenGL/OpenGL2 plugin should really help with the graphics. Normally, psx textures are not filtered, so they look blocky. Pete's plugins should help with that, though.

[Loveless]

Thanks for the reply

Well it's an HDTV so supports numerous resolutions, I don't think it's an issue with the TV not being able to support the resolutions etc.. I could be wrong though.

Native res is 1366 x 768.

Supports the following PC resolutions:
1024 x 768 (XGA)
1280 x 1024 (SXGA)
640 x 480 (VGA)
800 x 600 (SVGA)

edit: just thought I would add. I have only tried playing FF7 using 1024x768. Nothing higher.

[Samor]

With a software plugin, using a higher resolution will have (nearly) no visual effects.
Also, the gfx appear more blocky than on a real PS because the VGA output is much sharper than composite or even SCART.

I'm pretty sure that Pete's GFX plugins will fix things.

[Loveless]

I hope so. I can't remember the name of the one I'm using at the moment. Is Pete's plugin pretty much regarded as the best all-round plugin to use?

[Samor]

definately.... usually the OGL2 one, but some gfx cards work less well with it. If that doesn't work, your second choice is the OGL plugin... if your card however tends to be much better with Direct3D, you might want to use the D3D plugin.

[Loveless]

well, downloaded both of Pete's plugins and neither of them wants to work

when using OGL2 the game fails to load (black screen).

When using OGL1 the game loads but is halfway up the screen, i can see other windows in the background (msn, etc..)

any ideas?

[Shendo]

How do you mean halfway up the screen?

What are your PC specs (CPU, RAM, Video card)?

If you don't know the specs read the following:
CPU and RAM: Press Windows key + Pause/Break.
Video card: Press right click on the desktop-->Properties-->Settings tab and you will see some monitor on some video card

You can also go to start-->run-->type "dxdiag".

[Hard core Rikki]

Check in your graphic card's driver settings.

With Nvidia cards, choose to CLONE output (if you want game displayed on laptop sccreen and tv), or select TV as the principal output, not laptop screen. The regular settings just stretch the desktop uselessly (makes it veeeery large, with half the desktop being shown on every screen)

[Samor]

yes, or hit that FN + key with monitor icon on your laptop keyboard until you get a picture on the tv....

[Loveless]

Okay, I tried the DX6 D3D plugin and the characters look a lot better. Much smoother. Only complaint now is that the text appears very pixelated and blocky. I have fiddled with the dithering/texture settings but couldn't get it looking good.

Trying to run all this on a Toshiba laptop. 1.4ghz. 512mb ram. The graphics are just Intel Graphics chip. I'll get the exact model when I get in. I also disabled AA/AF on it as well.

Shendo - by halway up the screen I actually mean halfway up the screen the text at the beginning (green copyright text) is half missing off the top of the screen. There is a huge gap (half the size of the screen) at the bottom. This was when using the OGL1 plugin.

[tuesday20102001]

have you tryed using a tv card for video out?

[Loveless]

Originally Posted by tuesday20102001

have you tryed using a tv card for video out?

I haven't. Just using a standard VGA cable. Mainly because the laptop doesn't have a TV card in it.

I'd ideally like to get it fully working on the laptop first. I'd be happy with that. Then get the pad working and then try to make the leap to getting it to work on the TV. I have a funny feeling though that the laptop isn't powerful enough to be honest.

Thanks for the suggestions so far guys, slowly getting there.

Oh yeah, whilst escpaing off the pillar in the Sector 7 slums I noticed that there were no sound effects during the FMV. I'm currently using the sound plugin thats at the top of the plugins list on the download page (name escapes me right now...).

It's just one problem after another I may purchase an old PSOne and be done with it

[arukAdo]

This will not help you (it seem at least)
But yesterday ive made same thing than you !!
Why, coz i founded that pete's new plugin allow you to use crazy pixel shader !!
So ive asked myself, what game i love with 3D.... FF7/FF8 !!
Ive tryed that with the pixel shader effect : Cartoon Shader classB III
AWESOME !!!
The whole game is now new, you are playing FF8 with graphics from the last dragon quest (zelda cube like), and no need to say it changed my life
I extremely recommand using the svideo or rca output to your tv instead of the vga cable (i dont have lcd tv, and no laptop, just nvidia+tvout, that why i cant help much)
And more, everywhere i read about pete's last plugin (readmes) it say you need to be in high resolution (like it mean lcd outpout...).
You can find cartoon effect pixel shader on pete's gpu page guest collection pixel shader :
http://www.pbernert.com/pete_ogl2_guest_shaders_v1.zip
Good luck and i hope you will enjoy as i do

Edit: ive got 78OOGS so i dont know if you need high gpu to handle pixel shader without flickering ect... maybe your laptop will not be suited... no idea of what hardware level is required to have it as smooth as i have... and you need to mess with some parameters to have full screen draw like pete say in readme(FF series fix options), try the plugin osd menu and change items, you can have a perfect emulated screen.

[Loveless]

I'm not sure if this thread should be moved to the game specific forum, as the problems I'm having relate to Final Fantasy 7. Namely:

- Poor menu/text graphics - very pixelated.
- Slow music when entering and coming out of battles
- no SFX during FMVs

[arukAdo]

Well all i can say is that with cartoon like pixel shader, it realy good looking (even 2D text sprites) but again ive got an old tv and just a tvout from nvidia7800gs, there is no graphic bug at all (after swaping some plugin menu items) and yes there is a slowdown at fight end (i dont have at start) reaching the exp screen, but i fell ok with that as no slowdown in game or battle.

[KanedA]

when I hooked my laptop to TV i set res to 800x600 while gameplay, looked good, but I didn't try that on HDTV one

[Loveless]

I've added my specs and the plugins I'm using in my sig, hopefully this should shed some light on the issue.

Going to have another tinker tonight.

[Shendo]

Ah yes... unfortunately you will have to stick with a Pete's DX6 D3D plugin.

• Peops for 2D games
• Pete's OGL2 for Geforce FX and higher, Radeon 9500 and higher
• OGL for Nvidia Geforce cards (any type)
• D3D for non 9xxx Radeons
• D3D DX6 for Integrated and other
• Lewpy's Glide for Voodoo cards

As for SFX during FMVs: make sure that 3 top boxes in the sound config are checked.

[Loveless]

thanks Shendo, at least I now know that's the one I'm supposed to be using

Will give the sound settings a whirl when I get in, I think 2 are checked.