Final Fantasy 7 Problem

[Agetian]

I'm trying to run Final Fantasy 7 on pSX (original NTSC version SCUS 94163). I tried it on all versions of psX from 1.7 to 1.13 (both running off of original CDs and ripping it to ISOs and running it from an ISO of disk 1) and I encounter the following problem: the game executes fine till I get to choose "New Game", as soon as I choose "New Game" I end up with a black screen and pSX reports the following in the log:

play_xa: unhandled xa mode 000000d1
play_xa: unhandled xa mode 0000000a
etc. etc.

all I can hear in my speakers is random static, and nothing ever appears in the emulator window. Is there any solution for this problem? Thanks in advance.

[patrickp]

It could be that your first CD is damaged at that point, Agetian - what sort of condition is it in?

Aside from that, this is not a game people usually have problems with. My version plays perfectly, although that's not a fair comparison as it's a PAL version.

Could you post your system specs and what changes you've made from default on the graphics and sound tabs?

Also, is/are the CDROM setting(s) set to auto?

[Gamesoul Master]

I just tested my NTSC FFVII (with original disc and a ccd/img/sub image), and it played perfectly fine on v1.13. I last played it around v1.11, so I know it worked then too. It most definitely has to be a problem with your CD, settings, or the disc drive having problems with the disc.

Do you have an alternative drive to try and run it from?

[Agetian]

My system specs: Pentium 4 2.8Ghz / 1024MB RAM / GeForce 6600 256MB

I haven't changed anything in the pSX settings, my CD-ROM settings are set to "auto". The CDs look fine as they are, last time I tried 'em on a real PS1 they worked fine (don't have a PS1 handy to check it again, but I'll check it out soon just to make sure). I'll also try running it on my laptop and see if that fixes the problem.

So far, nothing I tried has proven to work...

[Gamesoul Master]

Well... it seems that it'd be most likely the drive that's the problem. Or at least... not the emulator itself or the disc. I was rather hoping it was something simple like that though. When it relates to the drive, it can be quite a pain to fix, since you'd either have to update/change your firmware or use a different drive.

On that thought, have you tried updating the firmware on the drive? Either the most recent version or some hacked firmware... whichever one may "unlock" more capabilities of your current drive. What kind of disc drive is it?

[Agetian]

Unfortunately, it seems to be the disc, guys. My friend's NTSC PS1 console didn't read it either and ended up with a black screen and spinning CD as well (no sounds of static though). The CD doesn't have any visible scratches or anything, yet it doesn't work for one reason or the other... Ah well.

On a side note, does anyone know a place that would still sell original NTSC FF7? It's a great game, and buying it again won't be a waste of money for sure (this time, I'll make sure I make a backup though...).

[patrickp]

If there are no shops in your area selling new Playstation games, Agetian (apparently in the US it's not uncommon for games shops to sell them - new, shrink wrapped and cheap!), try ebay or Amazon. Certainly, in the UK you can get copies on ebay for £10 or so plus a couple of quid postage - that's £12, or about $24 US - and I would imagine prices would be cheaper in the States.

On one occasion I had a copy of Final Fantasy IX with one faulty CD (bought it second hand in a local hole-in-the-wall...) and managed to find someone on ebay selling new individual CDs for that game!

Edit: for some reason, Final Fantasies VII, VIII and IX do seem to be very sensitive to CD damage. I've had trouble with a Final Fantasy IX CD, as above, and a similar problem with a Final Fantasy VIII CD. Both looked in reasonable condition, with only one or two light scratches that I wouldn't have expected to cause problems - come to think of it, I think they're the only Playstation CDs I've had problems with.

[strike105x]

I had same problem with FF IX disk 1 (with other FF's i didnt had problems) that CD was so damn sensitiv

[patrickp]

Are you using an NTSC or a PAL version of Final Fantasy IX, strike105x? The PAL version, I know, is copy protected and pretty heavily so: you need a CD drive that can read the subcode to play it. There are reports that the NTSC version is protected too; in this case, it's probably mod protection. Try playing it in an -RW optical drive rather than a -ROM one; a good -RW drive is generally best at reading non-standard formats. In Windows, try using ASPI rather than IOCntrl. I find that in Linux, my DVD-RW will read the game fine, while my DVD-ROM won't, and in Windows (don't usually use this much any more, but I wanted to check this out) neither drive will read this game under IOCntrl, the DVD-RW one will under ASPI and the DVD-ROM one won't.

All the native Playstation Final Fantasy games, VII, VIII and IX, whether protected or not, seem to be quite fussy about playing: even slight scuffing (which I've never known stop other games playing) will put the kibosh on it - always buy and rip/play new versions of these games, or at least use known good copies.

[jmadridano]

Just a question... i got a FF VII downloaded from a torrent site,,, it contained lots of rar compressed files.. how can i play it with ePSXE?

[patrickp]

Downloading Playstation games is illegal, jmadridano, and you won't receive help from reputable forums for illegally obtained games - plus, if an admin spots this, you may well be in trouble.

Downloading games is also dumb, because they're frequently badly ripped, and won't play properly - or won't play at all. And it's all the more dumb because it's so easy to buy brand new Playstation games cheap. Final Fantasy VII, for instance, can easily be found on ebay, amazon or any of many online retailers for only a few quid (or dollars), and perhaps even cheaper if you have a local cheap games retailer near you.

Edit: and what's almost as dumb is that this is the pSX Emulator section of the forum. ePSXe is in a different section of the forum and pretty out of date by now.

[seph29]

"Brand new", as in sealed, unopened, copies of FFVII go for hundreds of dollars and are extremely hard to find. I'm assuming you actually mean "used" copies of games, which are much more reasonable. Even then, a used copy of Final Fantasy VII will still easily cost about $40+, unless you get lucky. Good luck trying to find it at a local game store. Just so it's clear, I'm not condoning piracy, just pointing out the PSX games can still go for decent money. Well... the really popular ones anyway. Obviously most games would go for much, much less than this, and sometimes you can get a "brand new" copy of a game for about $10, but more often you will have to buy a used copy of a game for around that same price. You just managed to find the one example that was an exception

Also, ePSXe is hardly considered "dated". It's still an active community even though development has basically stopped. Emu programmers are just moving on to bigger, better things since PSX emulation works pretty well as is.

[Gamesoul Master]

Well... they don't go for *hundreds* of dollars new... but $100 is a pretty average price for a new copy of FFVII. $40 - $50 is pretty average if you buy the used game online, though it's still possible to find copies for under $20 at local stores that still sell used PS1 games. Luckily I own a few copies of the game, so I'll never have to worry about that.

And yeah... ePSXe still has an active community, but there are still lots of bugs and compatibility issues in the two latest versions that will probably (unfortunately) never be fixed. I don't find it likely that any emulator will surpass ePSXe anytime soon (pSX already has), at least not any that use plugins (Xebra will probably surpass ePSXe too, if it hasn't already). So I'm sure that regardless of being a dead development project, it'll probably always be the emulator of choice for playing PS1 games using enhancements.

[seph29]

$100 is on the lower end of the spectrum for a factory sealed copy. Most of the copies I've seen seem to go for between $100-200 usually settling around $150 on ebay, but I've seen some of the more rare copies go for as high as $400.

[patrickp]

Curious. It wasn't very long ago I bought a new, sealed copy on ebay for about £12. There's still plenty of good nick ones to be had cheap, but no new ones...

Edit@GM: a lot of people reckon SSSPSX is a better plugin-based emulator than ePSXe. I haven't tried it, since AFAIK it's Windows only.

[Gamesoul Master]

Really...? I haven't been able to keep up with that scene so well, since there are many other places and things I have to keep track of lately. pSX is the extent to which I'm involved in the PS scene. I'll definitely have to check out SSSPSX.

Yeah, I know when I was looking not even a year ago, FFVII was not running anywhere near those prices. Funny how fast something like that can change, eh?


Edit: Scratch trying SSSPSX. I set up all the plugins, got everything configured and ready to play, and hit Run... All it did was center the window (which was already 800x600... makes sense considering I set it to play in 800x600 windowed mode). No matter how many times I hit Run, it just sat there and stared right back at me. Oh well I guess...

Further testing overall has shown that SSSPSX simply hates me and refuses to cooperate, but PSXeven runs quite well. Using the same exact plugins and settings, it actually runs faster than ePSXe. ePSXe will drop in speed by at least 10-20 fps when anything requires more power, while PSXeven barely flinches at the same exact points. Neither run as fast as pSX using equivalent settings of course, but I think I'll be switching from ePSXe to PSXeven for playing around with enhancements and plugins.

[patrickp]

I didn't say SSSPSX was easy to get running; but apparently when you can, performance is better than ePSXe, GM!

And looks like batard.psxfanatics.com is gone - last time I checked out, it was still offering the same version (0.19) it has for a few years. I used to use it rather than ePSXe to run my PAL version of Wild Arms, which used to freeze randomly in ePSXe - this was over several years, different machines, different versions of ePSXe, many plugin variations... But although PSXeven ran Wild Arms Ok, it was very, very glitchy. I kept dropping through 'holes' in the game and winding up in places I shouldn't be! I was so glad when pSX Author got Wild Arms running in pSX and I could play the game properly at last!

I think SSSPSX is updated occasionally, but PSXeven hasn't been updated since August 2005, and ePSXe since two years before that. That says dead to me, particularly for ePSXe. I don't think PSXeven will be updated again, and ePSXe? On the ePSXe site it says, for 5th August 2003, "ePSXe 1.6.0 has been released. Many things have been fixed and some more features should be included in another fix version that will be released shortly." 4 1/2 years on, that "fix version" has yet to be released. I'm afraid that says dead to me.

[seph29]

From a developmental standpoint, it would certainly seem to be unsupported. And yes, there are bugs that will never be fixed, but anything that has the community of support of ePSXe can't truly be considered "dead", in my mind. The plugin system still allows new features to be developed from time to time and for some bugs to be fixed (Pete's OGL2 plugin comes to mind as a good example of this, and some of the newer shader effects are pretty cool). However, I will admit that the plugin development scene is also pretty quiet lately, and the only major project with any significant noise is PSx. Anyway, it's really beside the point which projects are better or worse than others, the point here is which programs are actually being used and supported in the community.

The thing with emulators for consoles as old as the PSX is that they aren't going to go "stale" and suddenly stop working. There aren't new games being developed for the PSX with new programming techniques. Whatever games don't work now are still not going to work in the future and no new games will be added to that list. Thus, the massive amount of community support for ePSXe is really all that is needed to keep it alive on the scene. Are there emulators with better compatibility for certain games? Yes, but many of them have their own problems as well. Until one emulator provides all of the functionality of ePSXe and does so with better compatibility/speed/etc, the community will probably still exist and the emulator will not be considered dead even if its development has ceased.

When everyone stops using it, the forums for it go dry, and the website turns into one of those beautiful ads you get when you visit a dead domain, then I'll agree with you and say that it's officially a thing of the past. Until then, it's still an active community. PSx Emulator certainly does seem to be pushing it towards the way of the dinosaurs, but since PSx Emu doesn't 'improve' graphics, it doesn't appear that will be sealing away ePSXe anytime soon.

In any event, I guess my point is that we're talking about two different definitions of 'dead' here. You're referring to a dead project, in that it is no longer being developed, whereas I am referring to a dead community, in that people have abandoned the program for better alternatives and support and distribution has ceased.

[patrickp]

I'm referring to a dead emulator, seph29. ePSXe hasn't been updated in 4 1/2 years and and is unlikely to be ever again. The developers have clearly moved on. Even Pete hasn't produced a new PSEmu plugin for 2 years, and the front page of his site would not appear to have been changed for 4 years ("Time goes by... over five years ago, late 1998..."). There may be a sizeable community that still uses ePSXe, but this doesn't make ePSXe itself any the less dead. It's a passive community: there are no changes to ePSXe arising from it.

It's noticeable that the two main Playstation emulators that still seem to be in active development, pSX Emulator and Xebra, have both eschewed the plugin system for a self-contained approach - Xebra even has a version that includes its own non Sony BIOS - harking back to VGS!

If you spend some time with pSX (probably Xebra too; it has an excellent reputation, but I can't speak for it personally as there's no Linux version) you'll soon realise the problems that enhancement brought with it, and why accuracy is a much more productive approach to emulation. You'll find all the artifacts created by enhancement are gone, and the slowdowns that plague ePSXe even on a fast machine just aren't there, even on a much lower end machine. I call the quality that pSX has 'transparency,' since it doesn't intrude between you and the game: you can get into the game without being distracted by the vagaries of the emulator. ePSXe, I have to say, is pretty 'opaque.'

That's not to say I don't like ePSXe; I used it very happily for 5 or 6 years. In fact, contrary to what is one of the main complaints many people have about ePSXe, sourcing the appropriate plugins and configuring them, I quite enjoyed tinkering about with it. But when pSX came on the scene - even the original release was a revelation. Quite a few of the games I have are NTSC ones, so I've never been able to play them on my PAL Playstation: I'd assumed that many of the distortions I'd seen playing them in ePSXe were part of the game. And they weren't: pSX showed the game accurately, as it was meant to be. That was it for ePSXe.

There were some games that the first versions of pSX wouldn't play and I kept a copy of ePSXe going to play these - except for my PAL copy of Wild Arms, which froze randomly in every version of ePSXe, every plugin combination and configuration, and every machine and OS I tried it in. Unfortunately, it was several versions of pSX before pSX Author fixed the sprite problem that made Wild Arms unplayable in pSX - from that point on, although I've often had a copy of ePSXe installed, I've hardly ever used it. Even in Linux - and anyone who thinks ePSXe is a problem in Windows should try it in Linux! Unlike the pSX Linux version, which is as good (if slightly less configurable) as the Windows one, the Linux implementation of ePSXe can only be described as painful...

Of course pSX doesn't provide the functionality of ePSXe: it's not meant to. It provides a different and much more effective functionality. Its compatibility is much better, too: it's now reckoned to be at least as compatible as VGS. Xebra is thought to be even more compatible; of that I'm not sure. But it's interesting that the three emulators (one old, two new) that typify the pluginless approach have better compatibility than the plugin based ones, isn't it? Especially since plugins are supposed to be able to overcome compatibility problems with choice and configuration...

BTW, why do you keep spelling pSX Emulator PSx Emulator? I certainly wouldn't disrespect ePSXe in such a way.

[seph29]

A passive community, yes, but I wouldn't call a passive person dead any more than I would a community surrounding a program. I understand your appreciation of pSX, but that's no reason to ignore the fact that ePSXe still holds a large interest in the PSX emulation scene.

I completely agree that pSX has surpassed ePSXe in terms of compatibility and ease of use, but they perform the task of emulation in two different ways, and some people prefer one way over the other, or simply like to tinker.

Anyway, I see what you're trying to say, and I simply don't agree that the only thing that defines the livelihood of the community surrounding a program is how often the program is updated. I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree.

As far as PSx vs. pSX goes, I've mistyped it on and off since I first became aware of it, largely because PSx makes more sense to me. I could really care less if you mistyped ePSXe, and somehow I doubt that a computer program really cares if I misspell its name. I apologize if I have offended anyone on the programming team of pSX for doing so.

We've managed to stray pretty far from the actual topic here...