[LadyHecate]

I was, y'know, just wanting to play some FFVII again. And though, hey, maybe I'll try some of these plugins this time like I'd been hearing about. Can't hurt to play crisper. And just to be careful, I'll make another copy of my ePSXe folder for save keeping.

I started off with Pete's stuff.
P.E.Op.S./Pete's OpenGL Windows PSX GPU to be specific.
And I just couldn't get it to work. So I downloaded more and more and it either causes my emulator to run slower(unbearably so), or uglier, or both.

And so eventually just threw in the towel and removed them all. And now that the folder is back to the way it originally was, I can't even open an Iso. It tells me that the GPU/Video isn't configured. And even the backup folder has been somehow affected. So now I can't even play the games without this horrid incompetent plugins all because it was probably foolish to try to download them for a computer as

I know I know "blame yourself for being poor and your computer for sucking, not the plug-ins". But they should at least have the option to work for a computer as weak as mine and not be worse off than my ePSXe is without them. And I just want to play a game. And not worry about this stuff.

My computer stats are:
32 bit Genuine Intel CPU 575 @ 2.00 GHz
With 2GB Ram memory.
And it's a Toshiba Laptop.

My Pete's Settings are:
Plugin: P.E.Op.S. OpenGL Driver 1.1.78
Author: Pete Bernert
Card vendor: Intel
GFX card: Intel Cantiga
OGL version: 1.5.0 - Build 7.15.10.1502

Resolution/Color:
- 800x600 Window mode
- V-Sync: on
- Keep psx aspect ratio: on

Textures:
- Default
- iFiltering: 6
- Hi-Res textures: 0
- VRam size: 0 MBytes

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

Compatibility:
- Offscreen drawing: 1
- Framebuffer texture: 1
- Framebuffer access: 0
- Alpha multipass: on
- Mask bit: off
- Advanced blending: on

Misc:
- Scanlines: off
- Line mode: off
- Unfiltered FB: on
- 15 bit FB: on
- Dithering: off
- Screen smoothing: on
- Game fixes: on [00000001]

What should I do. I just want to get back to the fastest and prettiest settings possible so I can play my game. And so far this is a hell I wish I'd never experimented with.

And don't tell me "buy a new computer/build your own computer" unless you want to give me the money.

 

[rui-no-onna]

Imho, that's not a bad processor, as long as you don't turn settings particularly high. Use gpuPeopsSoft as your GPU plug-in. I think the default nice preset should work on your PC. Intel IGPs don't really play nice with OpenGL. I think Eternal SPU is also the recommended sound plug-in for Square games.

 

[LadyHecate]

This is a better working version of Peop/Pete? I'm not exactly sure but eh. I'm not exactly sure how this soft thing works and which version is which.
Is there any recommended way to get my ePSXe back to the way it was?

I mean, there's delete and re-download. And I'd just have to archive my save states, joypad configuration, and ect. But it looks like there are some records and registries or whatever somewhere else on the computer than the ePSXe folder that would just come back to haunt me.
That's probably not a subject for the plug-ins section.

I'll come back, and hopefully this Peop thing will be better off than just the gpu.dat.
Also, I would think that there'd be a plug-in to download somewhere for the original .dat.
As at least I've been able to generally use that for everything with minor errors and nothing really noticeable or problematic.

If anyone knows of one for that, tell me please as I haven't yet found it with google.

Edit: Oh wait I am an idiot for not recognizing the name peops without the dots in it's name and thinking it was something different.
Edit: Okay, I'm gonna come back as soon as I've tried:
Plugin: P.E.Op.S. Soft Driver 1.1.4
Author: Pete Bernert and the P.E.Op.S. team

Resolution/Color:
- 640x480 Fullscreen - [32 Bit]

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

Misc:
- Scanlines: disabled
- Game fixes: on [00000001]
Hopefully this should work out and this sort of thing is what you're talking about. Forgive my cluelessness if not.
Edit: Oh god, the graphics are horrible, but it's working just fine. Hopefully I can work with this one.
I definitely don't remember the graphics being quite that bad. So hopefully I can tune up some more with this thing without losing speed.
Edit: Ah YES. These new configurations work just about PERFECT.
Plugin: Pete's D3D Driver 1.1.77
Author: Pete Bernert
GFX card: Mobile Intel(R) 4 Series Express Chipset Family

Resolution/Color:
- 1280x800 Fullscreen - [32 Bit]

Textures:
- R8G8A8A8
- Filtering: 6
- Hi-Res textures: 0
- VRam size: 0 MBytes

Framerate:
- FPS limit: on
- Frame skipping: on
- 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: on
- Full vram: off
- Game fixes: on [00000001]
Though any other recommendations you have out there, anyone, that you think might help to further optimize my experience, please give them and they would be well appreciated.
There's a few little coloration problems and that's my biggest complaint here. With a little configuration, hopefully it'll be fixed.
I mean, here's a screenshot of what mine looks like.

Not too shabby! I even managed to get 2xSai, something I've loved about SNES emulation for 'YEARS!', to work without any real slow down. But even that doesn't seem to get ride of these little outlines. And a cinematic moment won't be so cinematic with those little distractions there.

 

[jonc2006]

the colored lines are the result of setting the filtering to 6, bring it down to 4 or disable it altogether.

 

[LadyHecate]

You're talking about the textures menu, surely.
I've definitely tried all the options on both texture quality and texture filtering, both create that outline you see there.

Perhaps I downloaded a corrupted version of D3D?

 

[Squall-Leonhart]

the aqua lines are definitely caused by filtering=6.

 

[LadyHecate]

I have my settings set to
Plugin: Pete's D3D Driver 1.1.77
Author: Pete Bernert
GFX card: Mobile Intel(R) 4 Series Express Chipset Family

Resolution/Color:
- 1280x800 Fullscreen - [32 Bit]

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

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

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

Misc:
- Scanlines: off [0]
- Unfiltered FB: off
- Dithering: off
- Screen smoothing: on
- Full vram: off
- Game fixes: on [00000001]
And the problem is very definitely still there.
So if the filter thing is definitely the cause, there's something amiss here.

Perhaps the filtering part of this plug-in itself is corrupted and putting it on 0 won't turn it off. Because it's definitely stiff there when I put it on 0.
Edit: This is really sad but, it looks like this may be being caused by 2xSai. I turn it off and it seem to be working/not giving me those lines. Which is sad because, I really like 2xSai, it really crispens up a lot of aspects of the graphics.

Is there any way y'all think I can get 2xSai to work anyway? Because again, turning it off seems to get it to lose the outlines.
But that cost of losing 2xSai, I'm not sure it's worth turning it off for the little extra distracting pallet glitches in some places.

 

[Squall-Leonhart]

2xSaI is crap.

 

[LadyHecate]

It makes the text on my games look infinitely better. I'll take a screenshot.

This is exactly how things should look. At least as far as text and borders and things are concerned.


And this, is far, far less impressive.

Yes yes, I know, it's just text. But there's more things than that it improves.
And it does improve my gaming experience to have that smoothness there. And now that I've gotten used to that experience I'm not fond of the thought of letting it go.:/

In fact some of the things about it, turning the 2xSaI off in Pete's actually makes it worse than when I had any no GPU plug-ins on.
A few textures looked fuzzy, but that was better than looking pixelated.

Of course, I'm sure with Pete's OpenGL2 Shaders I could get the same effect/alleviate the same problem with greater precision and little to no side effects. But my computer isn't even powerful enough to run OpenGL1 without significant slowdown(unless I massively fail at config somewhere or downloaded a corrupted version), much less go for running one of the higher end GPUs with fancy shaders activated all over the place.

By the way, it would be awesome to see the other Snes9x/ZSNES filters become adopted into PSX emulator as well.
Like Super Eagle, I want to see that.

 

[jonc2006]

you have two choices here, either use 2xsai to have better looking text at the cost of the colored lines showing up all over the place, or do not use 2xsai so there are no visual glitches like the colored lines.

thats it, you cannot have it both ways with this game, FF7 simply does not like the majority of the filtering settings. that said, i would suggest the latter because the lines are far more distracting for most people than the pixilation of the text is.

 

[LadyHecate]

Oh dear, really? That pixelation is a pain, but thanks for the help.

I have a few other things to discuss but I think I'll save it for another time and another thread than right now. (Such as a newly arisen Final Fantasy IX video lines and glitch transition to video, pec making going back to regular gpu sometimes face slowdown it didn't before(what can I say? I admit to editing games, it allows me to "New Game +" so to speak in games that don't have New Game + and adds replay value), a little orange block in Final Fantasy IX that isn't going away with the 'special game fixes; G4 Polygon Cache'. For the MGS thread I'll at least bump another thread for, it's time to let this thread die. And thanks again for the help.

I really do love my new 3D graphics I'm enjoying thanks to this all. Though the downside is that I was blissfully ignorant and mind doesn't think "why didn't I do this before" when doing a scene, and now my mind is spending too much time thinking about how to optimize my GPU and SPU plug-ins for every game I play instead of just playing the game like I should.:/