[dnarii]

Hello, new to the boards, and trying to see if I can get some help.

I am new to the epsxe emulator, and am trying to run FF VIII off the playstation disks. Everything is running fine from the start, but as soon as a battle starts to queue up, the white blur goes to a black screen, and I see absolutely nothing. I can hear the battle music in the background just fine, but the screen stays black until I "ESC" out of the emulator.

Computer specs:
pentiumIII 1g
256 mg ram
nvidia geforce2

using pete's openGL 2.6 in the emulator, have tried different settings in the configuration panel, but so far nothing has worked. Help, please!!!!!

 

[BRILLIANT]

Try the config in this site : http://www.lordkane.co.uk/

 

[dnarii]

Thanks ... will have to try that when I get home

 

[Princess Garnet]

On slower processor based machines, Kane's settings don't usually work best (mainly, the framebuffer access he has reccomended to 4 will be too much for your CPU). Try these if his reccomendations don't work.

Plugin: Pete's OpenGL Driver 1.1.75 (OpenGL 2.6 is WAY too much for your video card)
Author: Pete Bernert
Card vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
GFX card: GeForce4 MX 440 with AGP8X/AGP/SSE

Resolution/Color:
- 640x480 Fullscreen - NO desktop changing [32 Bit]
- Keep psx aspect ratio: off

Textures:
- R8G8B8A8 (not the faster labeled one, that works faster for ATI cards)
- Filtering: 5 (this is my preference, many others prefer 4 instead, but 5 makes text less pixelated)
- Hi-Res textures: 0
- VRam size: 64 MBytes (adjust if different)

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

Compatibility:
- Offscreen drawing: 3
- Framebuffer texture: 2
- Framebuffer access: 0
- Alpha multipass: on
- Mask bit: off
- 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 [00000002] (Direct Framebuffer Update fix only)

 

[dnarii]

Thanks Lord Zedeck...................... but it didn't work. Tried your settings, but as soon as the blur is done, and the screen goes black, it stays black. I can hear the music in the background, but the screen never comes back. Any other ideas?

 

[Princess Garnet]

Have you tried a different video plug-in, such as Direct3D?

 

[dnarii]

No, I could definately try that. Any clue as to the settings? They seem to be a bit different from the opengl

 

[fireblaster_lyz]

I noticed that you have used Pete's OGL2 for the GPU plugin.
Try changing it to the Pete's OGL or P.E.Op.S Software GPU plugins.

 

[dnarii]

ok, first thanks for all of the advice. I have tried all of the different plugins, and had the exact same problem with every one. After the blur,( which lags on me, by the way), screen goes black, I can hear the music, and it stays black.

Wondering if I need a different emu or something?

 

[dnarii]

One more update:

Tried my own advice, and downloaded psxeven. I had the exact same problem with that emu that I do with epsxe. was even using one of the drivers suggested already on this thread with the same settings. Help! I am going CRAZY!

 

[emusnicker]

Have you tried setting everything with "Framebuffer" in the name to 0 (OpenGL 1.75 or OpenGL2 2.6)? This might be a long shot, but do you have reasonable up-to-date graphics card drivers?

 

[dnarii]

Will give that a try later today. As to the card drivers, yeah. Had to update those a month ago to get ffvii pc version to run right.

 

[dnarii]

Will say that the one thing that is worrying me at this point is that I have now tried 3 different emu's, and every single one is giving me the same problem. So I am thinking that there is something with my computer that is either not working right, or my computer just cannot handle this. Any thoughts on this, anyone?

 

[BRILLIANT]

maybe your disc is scrached or otherwise damaged?

 

[dnarii]

tried repairs on the disk, no luck

 

[Princess Garnet]

ok, first thanks for all of the advice. I have tried all of the different plugins, and had the exact same problem with every one. After the blur,( which lags on me, by the way), screen goes black, I can hear the music, and it stays black.

Wondering if I need a different emu or something?

If I remember correctly, on Kane's site, he mentions something of the Swirls on the world map being "slow" no matter what in OpenGL 1.7.5. Here's what I found on it.

http://www.lordkane.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=477.0

Also, I noticed you said you updated the drivers a while back. With a GeForce2, perhaps you should use an older driver (something intended for the GeForce4 family maybe). The newer drivers only update the newer features for all the latest cards, so you would see no difference (it might actually cause problems). Also, are you running all this from the disc or an ISO? Your computer should be able to run it, but I'm thinking it's a driver issue.

 

[emusnicker]

It's very easy to create an ISO from your game CD:

1) Download and Install Iso Buster
http://www.isobuster.com/

2) In the program, to the left where the CD and its contents are shown, right-click on the first folder in the list (most likely just called CD or something like that) go to "Extract CD" and then "RAW".

3) Open ePSXe and go to File -> Run ISO and select what you made in Step 2

If there is any damage at all to the CD, Iso buster should say so. If not, load the ISO in ePSXe to see if it works anyway.

 

[bobide]

this is definitly a video plug-in problem. Here's what i use w/ my 2.4ghz P4, 512mb, nvidia mx4000.

Plugin: Pete's OpenGL Driver 1.1.75
Author: Pete Bernert
Card vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
GFX card: GeForce4 MX 4000/AGP/SSE2

Resolution/Color:
- 640x480 Window mode
[32 Bit]- Keep psx aspect ratio: off

Textures:
- R8G8B8A8
- Filtering: 2
- Hi-Res textures: 0
- VRam size: 0 MBytes

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

Compatibility:
- Offscreen drawing: 3
- Framebuffer texture: 2
- Framebuffer access: 0
- 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

 

[dnarii]

Finally

Well, it now works. Bobide, thanks, but we had already been that route. The winning idea was from emusnicker. Once I made the ISO, and ran that, everything works great. I can finally play the whole game! Thank you!

 

[dnarii]

Just an update.... looks like it came down to the load on the cpu. I'm noticing now that there is no slow-down at all with the blur effect, and no other lagging in game play at all. Thanks for all the help