[mecharmor23]

I have used Lewpy's plugin, Pete's plugin and VGS plugin and tested spell effects, graphics and swirl effects. WITHOUT FVP it seems that you can still get proper lighting, graphics and etc.
BTW in software plugin when you go to the menu you notice that the grey tiled background has different shading to it. (instead of just grey you get this blend of light to dark, it won't do this in hardware though. Even with FVP) The discription says it will display ALL polygons, but does anyone find any difference with or without FVP on during FF9?? (besides absurd slowdown)

Btw which sound plugin is most compatible and close to perfect (if not perfect) with FF9?

Your reply would be appreciated thanks.

 

[cluthu]

>BTW in software plugin when you go to the menu you notice
>that the grey tiled background has different shading to it
So far as I know (which is to say my answer is far from definitive), it's like that in every GPU. A few weeks ago I'd asked why it was the software GPU can draw the prebattle swirl effect so quickly while the accel. ones cannot. According to Lewpy while it's a fairly trivial effect in software, when creating the effect in hardware it's more difficult. I can't help but to wonder if this isn't another one of those cases.

>Btw which sound plugin is most compatible and close to perfect
>(if not perfect) with FF9?
It all seems to depend on your tastes. While Null2's plugin provides higher quality, it seems to have problems regarding MDEC playback, namely, it can cause freezes and slowdown.

A number of people suggest the internal SPU but (on my system at least), while it has a habit of causing notes in music to sustain too long (in my case a note from the battle music remains even after the battle finishes, so you're forced to deal with an irritating hum in the background). It does seem to be the most compatible, as it doesn't cause hangs and the like.

As for the two new SPUs I've heard fairly promising reports, but it would seem that they're a bit *too* new, as they either cause a drop in framerate (in Pete's case) or some other varied problems.

 

[Ben]

Originally posted by mecharmor23
I have used Lewpy's plugin, Pete's plugin and VGS plugin and tested spell effects, graphics and swirl effects. WITHOUT FVP it seems that you can still get proper lighting, graphics and etc.
BTW in software plugin when you go to the menu you notice that the grey tiled background has different shading to it. (instead of just grey you get this blend of light to dark, it won't do this in hardware though. Even with FVP) The discription says it will display ALL polygons, but does anyone find any difference with or without FVP on during FF9?? (besides absurd slowdown)

Pete has said that its an effect thats hard to emulate on HW GPUs, and since it doesn't affect gameplay at all there isn't any point in trying to emulate it!

Btw which sound plugin is most compatible and close to perfect (if not perfect) with FF9?

In order of "perfection"

Null2's is probably the closest to being perfect but it does have one glitch near the beginning of the game!

Iori's with the config of 60/60/1 produces some fine results with minimal glitches! Make sure SPU IRQ Hack is enabled to hear the FMV sounds!

Pete's new DSound produces some sounds that are a bit "off" and most are delayed a bit! I think this is due to his new ADSR functions, which maybe a bit to eager to do stuff

Internal ePSXe SPU, battle music goes a bit mad! and if your using Windows 98/ME with DX8, you can only use it 3 times before needing to reboot!

Pete's MIDAS, as wel all know! Pitch changes go wild with his Midas plugin! and FF9 uses alot of Pitch changes

Kaz DSound, Most sounds are rather "off", but it is one of the oldest SPU's so you can't blame it!

Seal, Quite correct on sound whilst it lasts, but its very vunerable to lock-up ePSXe!

I think that covers all the released SPUs

 

[gerbilcannon]

Also depends upon which version of Null2's plugin you are deciding to use as well. I've noticed that with 1.35 sometimes the sounds in the movies are muted extremely, not to mention the sound skipping bug of course. And so far I haven't really found any games that benefit from fvp if you can enable framebuffer textures to graphics card buffer and toss in the framebuffer read under special fixes and everything seems to work nicely. Well except for ff9 which dies a quick yet painful death with that last option enabled.

 

[Lewpy]

Originally posted by mecharmor23
I have used Lewpy's plugin, Pete's plugin and VGS plugin and tested spell effects, graphics and swirl effects. WITHOUT FVP it seems that you can still get proper lighting, graphics and etc.

There is a subtle difference, but only on some effects. I can't remember the names of the spells, but certain spell effects use recursive texturing (things like the surrounding scene is reflected/blended in the spell effect, etc.) which is shown when FVP is enabled.
If you want perfection, then enable FVP. If you can't notice the difference, disabled FVP

BTW in software plugin when you go to the menu you notice that the grey tiled background has different shading to it. (instead of just grey you get this blend of light to dark, it won't do this in hardware though. Even with FVP)

I think the screen you are refering to uses negative alpha-blending to achieve the fade. This is easy in a software GPU, but most PC 3d hardware accelerators do not support negative alpha-blending ... except the Voodoo5, using my plugin, you will see the blend correctly 3dfx added negative alpha-blending to the VSA-100 core, which I use in my plugin. Unfortunately, I don't think this is available through D3D or OpenGL on the Voodoo5.

 

[dpence]

I have Offscreen drawing set to full constantly...there is no performance hit for me, and more importantly NO delay before an effect begins

Duron 900
128 Ram
Voodoo 5 PCI (yes I know, but my previous system had no agp)

I have found a small bug in Lewpy's plugin however...Multipass has a slight problem with leaving black (Allmost looks like hand pencil drawn) outlines

 

[DrizzXII]

What setting is FVP?
Check this out, even swirls the FPS.. wierd eh
(compressed it a bit =)

 

[Badaro]

Originally posted by DrizzXII
What setting is FVP?

FVP = Full VRAM Primitives.

[]s Badaro

 

[forcoda]

DrizzVII,
How did you get the swirling effect?

 

[DrizzXII]

Umm I set Framebuffer textures to: Gfx card buffer in Pete's OpenGL plugin

DrIzzt

 

[Threesixty]

Hmm what Null2 version should you use for FF9...

I've tried....
117
124
130
134
135

And they all sound the same during the movies....The music however seems to be improved with each higher version.

 

[kingking 3rd]

for the most accurate graphic emulation. you need to enable FVP and emulated vram framebuffer texture. it's the only way to see the BG camera in smackdown2 and some special effects in square games. it is slow for most people though.

 

[Threesixty]

I think it's more like: slow for all systems.....

 

[kingking 3rd]

I would usually get 60fps with FVP and emulated vram but it can be slow down to 40fps on some scenes(like some magic effects in chrono cross)

 

[Threesixty]

well, on my system, (1.2 Athlon-C) on ePSXe 1.2, I used to set it on GFX card buffer and It would play the swirls OK...about 50-45fps. But anything below 60fps is easily noticed....so it's slow to me. Haven't tried 1.4 and FF9 all that much...but I guess it's about the same. (I just realised something though, I thought it was because of the new ePSXe, but then I found out the truth). don't use OpenGL antialiasing on your Geforce2 card. The swirl effect will go down to 5fps.....Now that's really, really slow. The menus will slow down too.


As far as Crono Cross....

Set it for Emulated Vram...check Special Game Features...and only check Framebuffer read. doing this will allow most, not all, of the effects to be played out. And you'll see no drop in speed. The only effect that seems to be missing is the Pre battle effect....kinda like the FF9 swirl effect....that will be skipped. But the blows in the battles will be shown, no more black shades.

Now...how'bout my previous question?

 

[kingking 3rd]

disable SPU IRQ may help

 

[WhosAsking]

Games that use the VRAM as a texture

What is basically comes down to is that some games rely on the VRAM framebuffer as a texture for a number of unique graphics effects.

FF9, as mentined many times, uses the technique in battle transitions and certain spell effects. I think FF7 used a similar technique for its battle transition.

SaGa Frontier also relies heavily on the technique for battle transitions. It has a number of them, including a spinning fade (either to black or white), an RGB split, zooming fade. All of them relied on the framebuffer texture technique. Not only that, some battle scenes take place in a "MagiSphere", and the game uses the technique to create "after-effects": things that occur on the battlefield are ghosted repeatedly. I'd attach a picture, but my control system seems to be shot and I need to reconfigure.

Anyway, the point is that to use framebuffer textures, you need to have one of two settings in Pete's 3D-accelereted plugins:

1. Emulated VRAM. This requires that the plugin create the Full VRAM primitives so it will have the PSX framebuffer it needs to display. Since it requires rendering twice, this of course causes quite a slowdown.

2. Gfx Card Buffer. If you wanted to, you can extract your card's framebuffer as well. Pete's plugins can use them if you want. However, since they are larger ad may rely on less-than-optimized techniques, they may take longer to obtain, which would slow emulation.