FFXII Helper

[RPGW1ZaRD]

I didn't like stretching the window with zerogs as textures starts to look too crappy for my liking.

[rainbow]

This one is for thelveres. Thats shot of random soft crash just like in CG or after FMV. See the red thing.

Note: I have a feeling that stretching from 640x480 window looks lil' better than from 1280x960. Hmm maybe later i'll take a closer look at this:P

[thelveres]

Here is the screenshot you asked me to post. Hope this sheds some light on the shadow problem.







shadows.JPG

[Wortany]

That's normal in that area on the pcsx2, but you can still move and see the enemies on the map, so shouldn't be a problem.

[Thanakil]

My game freeze at the area shown in Thelveres screen, the PS counter doesnt actually go to 0.0, it keeps around 7700, I tried pausing the game and pushing X, it SEEMS like it does something, but only when I do that does the screen go black, and does the PS counter goes to 0.0...

I'll try starting a whole new game later I suppose, I tried going there with older save states but it didnt work.

[ifurkend]

may you tell us or capture some screen shot of your graphic plugin and option-CPU preferences and your CPU and displaycard spec? Because we can pass through this point without problem except for the graphical glitch.

p.s. the 6th screen shot is captured in Barheim Passage, where the only place occurs the greatest polygon glitch. But it is still playable with normal framerate.

p.s.2 International screen shot, but I don't think it has lot of programming difference regarding the graphic engine...

p.s.3 I finally understand that without switching on the (International version only) 4X acceleration, the framerate can maintain around 60fps. With its functional it halves the fps but the actual playing speed is definitely faster. Since the game temporarily disables the turbo while not walking on the field, you may notice that my screenshots of cutscene and conversation mode have double fps of combat and wandering mode.

[Metroid]

Originally Posted by leba2

Hi, Metroid. First of all, man you are FORMIDABLE. You proved that an "ingame" game can be finished anyway! According to the compatibility list, the only playable FFXII version is the Japanese one even in 0.9.4, and you finished the US one! You gave me hopes for also trying this wonderful game, although right now I'm in FFX.

But then , I have a little doubt. I understood from the compatibility list that "ingame" meant that you could begin a new game but you couldn't reach the end. Has "ingame" just aquired a new meaning? Or has it always meant that you could finish the game but with a LOT of patience and hard work? Because if so, I would like to try God of War when 0.9.4 is released! According to the guide, the US version of this game (a great game, btw) is "ingame".

My specs:
Laptop Dell Inspiron 1520
Windows Vista Home Basic
Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8 GHz per core
2 Gb RAM DDR2
Nvidia GeForce GT 8600 256 Mb
160 Gb SATA HD

Hi first of all thanks for joining up the thread and as any other Final Fantasy addicted I'm here to help the people with this wonderful game, as you said you are playing Final Fantasy X right now, but keep in mind after you finish FFX. You will be really excited to start Final Fantasy XII to complete the series.

Well PCSX2 is and advance program that emulates the Playstation 2 Hardware. The PCSX2 team created some advanced options for us to make our own settings. The ingame means it gets in the game and it freezes on a determined place. They put this Final Fantasy XII ingame because it does not go ahead with default settings. What I did was to use some strange techniques to make it fully playable, but keep in mind anybody that tries it, have to be really minded in the game.

If you really like God of War as I like Final Fantasy you should try make it playable, try different settings like change DVD to ISO or vice versa, Graphics plugins, put the sound off, make save states all the time try to pass by that part, come back to old settings, change some settings, and many other techniques, every try is worth to make your favorite game playable. I do not have much time right now but in the future, I pretend to help the community making some ingames playable and God of war will be one of them.

Originally Posted by Thanakil

Actually what I wanted to know was if the game could only be played with a gamepad, or if I could play it with a keyboard the only pad I could use at the moment would be the PS2 one, except I don't have it with me atm.

Edit : Playing around with the Lily plugin, works awesome, thanks alot!

I use a PS2 Controller with an USB adapter to play it. If you want play it with a keyboard, you just need to configure it to work with the keyboard also I use a program called JoytoKey that emulates keyboard inputs, it can be downloaded it Here.

Lily's plugin is nice but I recommend JoyToKey as a general program for all emulators.

Originally Posted by thelveres

Greetings all, just joined the forums

Here is my system config:Amd64 3500+ 2gb ram, geforge 7800 winXPsp2

Ok here is my problem: the fps count on the animation seems ok (around 80-100), but they are extremely glitchy, and sound skips in a weird way.

I managed to get to the end of the starting scene were the guy with you comments on your age then kicks ass - as soon as the scene ends the sound plays normally, but i get a blank screen (I dont think this is a crash exactly since in game pause seems to work and i can hear stuff if i press buttons)

I tried tweaking with almost all options, and tried both versions of the emulator (memory wise)

I am using SCPH-70012_BIOS_USA_200 BIos, with the US version of the game.

Any guidance would be appreciated

p.s its kinda crappy cause i do own a ps2, (bought it as soon as it came out) but I am having problems running games with it (have to try 8 times for some games to work- maybe cause the machine got old-, kinda weird considering my NES still runs ^^)

Well first try to skip Videos if it keeps freezing or start sounds problems, make sure when you see any Video is highly recommended you load it by your memory card before you see it. I did not have many problems regarding video or sound problems. Do not play this game with fullscreen option because it is always good to see errors generated in the console. So you can determine what was the error happened and fix it with different settings.

Originally Posted by Thanakil

Hmm, I'm not sure what is happening, but at the start of the game, after the first fight against a few random soldiers and a mechanical flying thingie, the characters enter some kind of palace, walk a little in a hallway, talk a little ''Don't talk of him like that, he laughed in the face of death too many timeblabla (or something like that)'', after that they seem to hear something in the distance, and run away... Except the camera simply stay fixed toward the hallway and... Nothing happen.

I wait and wait, but the camera simply stay fixated toward the hallway =/ any idea what to do? I tried using my savestates from before the characters went inside, tried disabling MGTS, Dualcore, ect, but other than my FPS dropping to around 30fps, there isnt anything different. =/

First target is the game stability and thereafter speed and after that comes the quality with AA filtering. The first thing you must do is save it anywhere, the memory card save is clean, save states are dirty but much helpful when you try to find any error happened. So save it anywhere, close PCSX2 try to close some heavy programs in the background if you have anyone. open PCSX2 load the game by the memory card and voila done it, let me know how you are getting into.

Originally Posted by thelveres

Ok here is what happens: in the scene you can see soldiers running towards the building then the camera focuses on your character it fades out, (during this time ps goes to the thousands 8-12k, then to 0) and the game freezes after the screen has faded to black.

i tried using that key combo but it wont work.

The best thing to do is a clean save by the memory card, make sure just one instance is running also check the console and tell me the error that you got.

Originally Posted by RPGW1ZaRD

Here's one of my hints for a speedboost in this game for NVIDIA gfx users, grab the latest beta ForceWare 163.67. Latest WHQL driver for example gets a memory leak or how you should say it and stresses down your GPU like mad for no reason. 163.44 beta also worked fine but seems 163.67 is even a bit faster and has fixed the slowdown issues especially with 8800GTS cards in pc games.

Also another interesting thing I found out (don't know if it's driver version related or not) but fullscreen runs slower than windowed mode. Even using same resolution. I tried using 1280x960 and window mode and in window mode the fps was 83-85 FPS in the starting position after have choosed new game. Going full screen FPS went to 63-65 FPS. Also tried with 640x480 res with same result, 83-85 fps in windowed mode, 63-65 fps fullscreen. (However my desktop res is set to 1280x960 so I should try with 800x600 and see if fullscreen mode runs faster then which it might do. But it would be best to run 1280x960 windowed mode than fullscreen anyways.

EDIT: Changing desktop resolution to 800x600 didn't change anything still 63-65 in fullscreen mode and 83-85 fps in windowed. So it seems windowed mode runs faster and changing desktop resolution won't either affect the fullscreen fps rate you get either so running windowed mode is best for now in this game.

Well fullscreen option is not recommended with this game, forgot to add in the beginning of the guide, thanks for the heads up, probably I forgot to add it because by the fact I had never played with that option.

Originally Posted by thelveres

Anyone having problems with shadows? After killing the first boss, you go in this corridor, in which all floors seem black to me, and shadows cast on some characters seem to turn them completely black :/

That is normal because the GFX is not accurate there, disable the bilinear mode helps, but as long as you can see where you character is moving, it seems to be fine.

Originally Posted by RPGW1ZaRD

I didn't like stretching the window with zerogs as textures starts to look too crappy for my liking.

Well stretching it over 640x480 seems to be quite unappropriated.

Originally Posted by rainbow

This one is for thelveres. Thats shot of random soft crash just like in CG or after FMV. See the red thing.

Note: I have a feling that stretching from 640x480 window looks lil' better than from 1280x960. Hmm maybe later i'll take a closer look at this:P

Yes you are right because the PS2 resolution is up to 480i, more than that means lower quality.

Originally Posted by Wortany

That's normal in that area on the pcsx2, but you can still move and see the enemies on the map, so shouldn't be a problem.

Yes got it right. Well as the game still with many glitch problems and instability is important not to abuse of that. Well people just make sure you are getting well with the game, console problems are good, please report them all. I have the fix for all of them.

Originally Posted by Thanakil

My game freeze at the area shown in Thelveres screen, the PS counter doesnt actually go to 0.0, it keeps around 7700, I tried pausing the game and pushing X, it SEEMS like it does something, but only when I do that does the screen go black, and does the PS counter goes to 0.0...

I'll try starting a whole new game later I suppose, I tried going there with older save states but it didnt work.

If you have the game saved in the memory card is fine you do not need to start the game from the beginning.


Please people it is higly recommended that any of you report the console error when the game freezes or crashes. It will be easy to fix it.

Hope this helps,

Metroid.

[Thanakil]

I couldnt use a save from the memory card, was too soon in the game to save in any other way then Save states.

I had tried before disabling pcu options or lowering the gfx options to the bare minimum, but never both at the same time (I always kept at least interlace or the linear/something filtering), after disabling every but the bare minimum in both gfx and cpu the game actually managed to get past that point without freezing. There wasnt any cinematic or anything, so I'm not sure with it would freeze that way, but at least now it works.

Kinda sad that the gfx are buggy like that (with characters and environnement sometime being all black and everything else), makes me wish my mini-ps2 was still working, but it's already amazing what this emulator can do, definitly one hell of a good job. Can't be a easy job to emulate a PS2 on the pc.

[ifurkend]

The all black character texture seems to only occur in this particlar area. Aside from this, the character texture usually appears to be wrong mapped when certain camera angle adjusted, but this is no major impact to the gameplay.

Bilinear filtering (BF) has something to do with the framerate, better texture resolution. But I only turn it on while capturing screenshot.

[RPGW1ZaRD]

Originally Posted by metroid

<Insert long reply here.>

Metroid.

I like your dedication of this FFXII optimization guide. So many hints.

But I would like you to add that for NVIDIA users they should update the forceware driver to at least 163.44 but 163.67 is even better though (or for older cards stick to 93.71, 92.91 etc or older if those are better drivers for your card). Because otherwise you'll have a texture management problem which results in a significant fps loss. For more info check this thread: Possible NVIDIA PCSX2 bug - NVIDIA owners please look here

[rainbow]

Hmm one more thing about 'locking up' screen. Do NOT use Kurtz mod. U won't speed this game up with it. For me it sounds exactly like FF XII prob with Kurtz mod. Stick to the normal version of PCSX2.

Note: hmm i got past 3 fmvs w/o probs lately, that's odd:P

Note 2: if u r not using Kurtz modded version and still have probs, try to get past that place in a different way. Like, change the frame skipping mode to normal or one of skippy ones. Take different path and use different angles of camera. I've encountered some random crashes like this <except hearing actions from using buttons> and different path + camera angle usually helped.

[Metroid]

Originally Posted by RPGW1ZaRD

I like your dedication of this FFXII optimization guide. So many hints.

But I would like you to add that for NVIDIA users they should update the forceware driver to at least 163.44 but 163.67 is even better though (or for older cards stick to 93.71, 92.91 etc or older if those are better drivers for your card). Because otherwise you'll have a texture management problem which results in a significant fps loss. For more info check this thread: Possible NVIDIA PCSX2 bug - NVIDIA owners please look here

Well I like helping the emulation or gaming community for a fact of joy. Your thread is now linked, good find out there.

Originally Posted by rainbow

Hmm one more thing about 'locking up' screen. Do NOT use Kurtz mod. U won't speed this game up with it. For me it sounds exactly like FF XII prob with Kurtz mod. Stick to the normal version of PCSX2.

Note: hmm i got past 3 fmvs w/o probs lately, that's odd:P

Note 2: if u r not using Kurtz modded version and still have probs, try to get past that place in a different way. Like, change the frame skipping mode to normal or one of skippy ones. Take different path and use different angles of camera. I've encountered some random crashes like this <except hearing actions from using buttons> and different path + camera angle usually helped.

Updated.

[yamibone]

guys can anyone help... when i start this game on the emulator it starts with 30-35 FPS but the game is jittery/glitchy (video AND audio) and a bit laggy like the graphics/audio. I guess maybe its video tearing? Anyway my specs are 2.2ghz t7500 core 2 duo, 2gb ram, nvidia 8600mgt (latest drivers). Im not running patches or anything maybe this is the problem?

also some of the text is upside down... wtf?!

also when the movie sequence finishes and the game starts, i can't see any of the character models! I can hear them speaking but they are not visible! Im using the same plugins as described in post 1.

[rainbow]

1st: Ur proc probably won't give u fullspeed. Switch MTGS <till crash hehe> and DC on. For GS plugin use ZeroGS w/o BF and AA. For SPU2 all options should be set to fastest, do not use SPU2 irq, or thread mode. Movies and sounds r lilttle glitchy, that's true but they r not that bad:P

2nd: Upside down... u mean something like this, this, and this? In 0.9.2 there is nothing u can do about it.

3rd: Remember to use VM version <pcsx2.exe>! It's much faster than TLB <pcsx2t.exe>, and in TLB one u can't see the characters, so probably that's ur prob.

4th: Read the whole thread to get answers for incoming probs with FF XII:P

[coolaid]

are these methods still required in order to finish the game as of 0.9.4?


thanks.

[ifurkend]

The prob you will encounter in FF12 mostly applicable in other games running in PCSX2. Since any kind of freezing cases still occur in most games in 0.9.4. What hints this thread tells are basically applicable to FF12 running in 0.9.4. FF12 in 0.9.4 generally gives you better FMV as in other games. You may enable the the 1st two options in sound plugin first so you would get a smoother (though not perfect) FMV than the older version PCSX2.

[jacky89]

Can anybody play the FMV without the flickering black screen every 1 second and sound stutters? I can play in-game very smoothly on a 3.6ghz C2D with 8800GTS 640meg.

I also have a problem going back into windows after playing in full-screen mode. ctrl-alt-del and alt-tab and esc does not work. I need to do a hard reboot on my computer.

[rainbow]

Try to change frameskipping mode to normal or limit <config->cpu or just press F4 while ingame>.