FF8 Problem

[thisisme]

I'm new at using emulators and have a problem with ff8 getting a black screen with the music still running after running away from the first battle with the spider like robot outside the communications tower during the SeeD exam. I have tried using both an .iso and off the disc but it makes no difference on both epsxe 1.52 and 1.60.

These are my settings



Plugin: Pete's DX6 D3D Driver 1.1.76
Author: Pete Bernert
GFX card: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2400

Resolution/Color:
- 640x480 Window mode

Textures:
- Default
- Filtering: 0
- Hi-Res textures: 0
- VRam size: 0 MBytes

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

Compatibility:
- Offscreen drawing: 2
- Framebuffer texture: 0
- Framebuffer access: 0
- Alpha multipass: on
- Mask bit: off
- Advanced blending: none

Misc:
- Scanlines: off [0]
- Unfiltered FB: off
- Dithering: off
- Screen smoothing: off
- Full vram: off
- Game fixes: on [00000201]

not sure if the settings are right but it seems to work in FF7, FF9 and Suikoden.

[jonc2006]

these are my settings for the d3d dx6 plugin when i was using it:

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: 60

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: off [00000000]

btw i dont know if you were referring to the format or if you were just referring to it as a whole but if your image is in .iso format i suggest you get rid of it and make a new one in a format such as .bin/.cue, .ccd/.img/.sub, or mdf/mds because .iso is not a good format to use for psx games.

[thisisme]

tried the game with it in a .bin image format but it didn't make any difference. Also my epsxe had to shut down when i tried the video settings that you played with. Is there a better video plugin for my video card that would help or would run the program better or is windows vista making a problem?

[jonc2006]

you did get a .cue file with the .bin right? and you say got some sort of error message from epsxe? what did it say specifically? as for other plugins, you are using an ATI so im going to assume you will probably run into trouble using the OGL plugins, however if you read this thread (which also explains why i just said you will probably run into trouble, in case you are wondering) and you might find something useful to try. if you decide to use an OGL plugin, i suggest you stick with the OGL1 because im not sure if your card will be able to use the OGL2 which is designed for higher end cards due to some of the advanced effects it is capable of pulling off. other than that you could go with a software plugin if you dont mind the normal psx-like graphics.

i doubt vista has anything to do with this, although DEP has been known to cause epsxe to crash for some people (which is also possible under winXP, just not as often from what i know) but i dont really think this is the case for you. i think it would be smart to try another emulator like psx to see if this occurs in it as well. doing this would be able to tell you if the issue is something system-related, or something emulator/plugin/plugin settings-related.

[thisisme]

yes i got a .cue file with the .bin file. The error wasn't because of the file type it was because of the graphical settings because i tried it with some other games and the same error happened and the looking for possible solutions online window came up. I will try another emulator and then tell you if it fixes the problem.

[Phil]

have you tried re ripping the disc??

[thisisme]

it worked on psx 1.13 well at least it got past that point so far.

[jonc2006]

mess around with the compatibility settings with the d3d plugin but leave maskbit and alpha multipass enabled. while im not completely certain, its possible my compatibility setup wont work right due to your system and hardware, you might require a slightly different setup so try different variations and see if that does anything.

[thisisme]

tried copying the memory card file back into the epsxe to see if it would play on normally, but when i tried to use the siren GF it just hung in between the character summoning the gf and the gf animation appearing. But it seems to work fine on psx.

[Squall-Leonhart]

typical indication the compatibility settings are wrong, or the gfx card in use can't support them

being that your using a mobility, its probably got lackluster drivers which have piss weak support for most gaming.

[PowerslaveLA]

Plugin: Pete's OpenGL2 Driver 2.8
Author: Pete Bernert
Card vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
GFX card: GeForce 8600 GT/PCI/SSE2/3DNOW!

Resolution/Color:
- 1440x850 Window mode
- Internal X resolution: 2
- Internal Y resolution: 2
- Keep psx aspect ratio: off
- No render-to-texture: off

- Filtering: 6
- Hi-Res textures: 2
- TexWin pixel shader: on
- VRam size: 256 MBytes

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

Compatibility:
- Offscreen drawing: 1
- Framebuffer effects: 3
- Framebuffer uploads: 1

Misc:
- Scanlines: off
- Mdec filter: on
- Screen filtering: on
- Shader effects: 3/4
- Flicker-fix border size: 0
- GF4/XP crash fix: off
- Game fixes: off [00000002]

these settings run FF8 almost flawlessly for me .. my only gripe is sometimes the game will still run way too fast for no apparent reason.seems to only happen we i minimize the emulator to look at something online than bring it back up

im running a dual core 2.1 ghz setup if that matters.

[Squall-Leonhart]

thats a bug with dual cores, set the afinity.