FF9 Tweaking

[paddingtonbear]

Hi, I've been spending ages tweaking ff9, I have gotten far but theres 2 minor things left with the graphics that i'd like to fix up. I was wondering if anyone here knows how to get these glitches sorted out.

First of all these are screenshots (320 X 240) using Pete's OpenGL Driver 1.75.




and these are the same moments, but using the reliable P.E.Op.S. Soft Driver 1.16 for comparison.




so the first thing is the white strips on the world map when using open gl. I know that unchecking 'keep psx aspect ratio' gets rid of this but I would like to keep the aspect ratio to make the backgrounds look best. The second thing is minor but still... with open GL, the yellow translucent rectangle in the battle screen is in front of the text, rather than behind. This may be my eyes decieving me but i think it is. So does anybody know how to fix these two things? here are the settings im using at the moment for OpenGL.

Plugin: Pete's OpenGL Driver 1.1.75
Author: Pete Bernert
Card vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
GFX card: GeForce4 Ti 4600/AGP/SSE/3DNOW!

Resolution/Color:
- 320x240 Fullscreen - Desktop changing [32 Bit]
- Keep psx aspect ratio: on

Textures:
- R8G8B8A8
- Filtering: 0 - edge clamping supported
- Hi-Res textures: 0
- Palettized tex windows: on
- VRam size: 0 MBytes - 8 textures usable

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

Compatibility:
- Offscreen drawing: 3
- Framebuffer texture: 3
- Framebuffer access: 0
- Alpha multipass: on
- Mask bit: on
- Advanced blending: on (hardware)
- Subtractive blending: activated

Misc:
- Scanlines: off
- Line mode: off
- Unfiltered FB: on
- 15 bit FB: off
- Dithering: off
- Screen smoothing: off
- Screen cushion: off
- Game fixes: on [00001200]

My graphics card is a Geforce 4 Ti 4600. And i'm using epsxe 1.5.2 under windows xp. Switching to epsxe 1.6.0 doesnt solve the problems. Also i've tried other plugins including the directx ones and none have been as reliable as pete's open gl.

thanks in advance to those who can help.

[hushypushy]

WOW, how the hell do you play 320x240 fullscreen you might want to turn the resolution up juuuuust a little bit man.

"keep PSX aspect ratio" actually doesn't do what you think it does. all it does is keep the internal PSX ratio---which is then meant to be stretched out on a real PSX to fit your TV. the "real" aspect ratio is 4x3...which is the one you get when you uncheck "keep PSX aspect ratio"

i'll suggest some FF9 settings for you.

Plugin: Pete's OpenGL Driver 1.1.75
Author: Pete Bernert
Card vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
GFX card: GeForce FX 5600/AGP/SSE/3DNOW! << this is mine, of course yours is gonna say TI4600

Resolution/Color:
- 640x480 Window mode << put this to whatever you want....but come on at least go higher than 320x240, even if you are playing on TV out or something
[32 Bit]- Keep psx aspect ratio: off

Textures:
- R8G8B8A8
- Filtering: 4
- Hi-Res textures: 0
- VRam size: 128 MBytes << i changed that to 128 for ya

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

Compatibility:
- Offscreen drawing: 2
- Framebuffer texture: 0
- Framebuffer access: 4
- Alpha multipass: on
- Mask bit: on
- Advanced blending: on

Misc:
- Scanlines: off
- Line mode: off
- Unfiltered FB: off
- 15 bit FB: off
- Dithering: off
- Screen smoothing: off
- Screen cushion: off
- Game fixes: on [00000200]

make sure to use ePSXe 1.5.2 when you play FF9.

lastly....turn off odd/even bit hack. i have no clue why everyone likes to use that special game fix

[Alucard_X-35]

hmmm i think a GeForce 4 ti can do a little more, at least on resolution (dont hurt me hushypushy, im new)
my GeForce 2 MX runs:

Plugin: Pete's DX6 D3D Driver 1.1.75
Author: Pete Bernert
GFX card: NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 200

Resolution/Color:
* 800x600 Full Screen *
- 640x480 Window mode

Textures:
- R8G8A8A8
- Filtering: 4
- Hi-Res textures: 1
- VRam size: 0 MBytes

Framerate:
- FPS limit: on
- Frame skipping: off
- FPS limit: 60

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

Misc:
- Scanlines: off [0]
- Unfiltered FB: off
- Dithering: on
- Screen smoothing: off
- Full vram: off
- Game fixes: off [00000980]

does the GeForce 4 do 1024x768 res on TV out ? im think of getting own because my card only does 800x600...
i think odd/even bit hack is used for compatability w/ some games like Chrono Cross

[hushypushy]

yeah, that's what odd/even bit hack is for, that's why i dont know why people use it for every damn game

and yeah, the GF4 can run a bit more...crank it to 1024x768 or wahtever you wish. i usually play in a window at 640x480, and when i go fullscreen i'm at 1152x864 (my desktop res). i also like OD/FT/FA to be 2/0/4 so you can get the better looking battle swirls.

[paddingtonbear]

hi guys, thanks for the replies and configuration suggestions, unfortunatley those just introduced more glitches for me. By the way, I only made the resolution 320x240 for the screenshots to be the same size. Anyway, I have now switched my video plugin to Pete's OpenGL2 Driver 2.6 and thankfully there are no glitches.

does the GeForce 4 do 1024x768 res on TV out ?

yes it does.