Final Fantasy I - ULUS10251

[Scott274]

Yes just noticed Final Fantasy 1 works for me too now @ JPCSP 0.6.2651. Converted CSO to uncompressed ISO in UMDGen, don't know if that made any performance difference.
For music etc, one needs sonic stage, OpenMG etc..

Code:

http://www.mediafire.com/?1sf23b32ttx1w40
http://www.mediafire.com/?pn54rw6m9n1nhmr

The speed goes as low as 30 FPS but it's still playable although the speed variations are a bit annoying. Going to experiement with these setting next time and see if there is any speed difference..

|Video|
Use shaders (experimental)
Use a Geometry Shader for 2D rendering (only relevant when using shaders)
Enable saving GE screen to Textures instead of Memory

|Memory|
Ignore invalid memory access (not recommended for test reports, but improves performance)!

Could somebody tell what is vertex cache, Only GE graphics & Use compiler in the configuration and if they would make any difference.

[bugmenot]

readme already tell you, you can test for yourself if those option make a difference or not.

[101077]

Hello:

This is my first post for help, so excuse me if I do not post all the needed information please.
If I am missing any needed info let me know, and I will add it promptly.

I am using jpcsp v6-r2656 x86
Playing an ISO of Final Fantasy 20th Anniversary Edition
I have an NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT with updated drivers.

I have included screen shots in the following IMGUR album
http://imgur.com/a/OxNqD#0

Bottom Line: Anisotropic Video Filtering option causes video error.

Explanation of screen shots:
1 - No modifications, dosent fit window, grainy
2 - Selected 'Only GE Graphics', Fits Window, Grainy
3 - Selected 'Anisotropic Video Filtering', Smoothed, Texture errors
4 - Selected 'Use Shaders', Smoothed, Texture Errors, Distance Fog Effect Removed
5 - Selected 'Decoding of Indexed Textures', Errors Gone, Grainy, Distance Fog Effect Removed

Naturally, I m trying to get rid of the texture errors while keeping the Anisotropic Video Filtering.
Ive tried countless other combinations of options with no luck.

Any suggestions would be appreciated, thanks!

[serio]

that's not really an error, that's how it normally works i think. each sprite/texture is filtered independently, so since the floor's sprites are normally divided into squares and then pieced together, each square gets filtered and you can see its edges.

the game'd have to be programmed specifically for filtering for it to work right. antistropic works best on 3d games, 2d ones usually work good only with full screen filters, not per object ones.

[101077]

Oh, I get it, the individual tiled textures are being blurred out past their edges. Well, darn.

(Although, I do not get the error at all on my laptop with an Intel gfx card, but the laptop is so weak the the game is unplayable even at the best FPS it is capable of.)

A few other extra notes...
... the anisotropic error does not occur in x1 size. The error is only visible on X2 and up or full screen.
... and when attempting to use the Anti-aliasing setting for full screen, (X2 and up), or attempting to set the resolution to anything other than "native" the video fails entirely.

Thats too bad, I have my PC HDMI connected to my high def TV and FF1 looks SO nice when its softened after its been stretched to fit the full screen.

Thanks for your info, and Id take any other recommendations thankfully.

[bugmenot]

normal occurence on any sort of 2d filtering with multiple tiles, pcsx2 has this same symptom with higher than 1x res too with 2D filtering on. there's no fix beside not using it or simply live with it afaik.

[serio]

x2 and up doesn't just resize the screen, it also increases its internal resolution. i guess that's why you can see the holes.

[101077]

EDIT: Wait, never mind, I just went to check it on my laptop and the error is indeed present. I thought it wasent, but it was 3am and I was a little tired.

If I have anything else relevant to post I will.

Untill then, thanks for the info all!



OLD: Is there a dump file or etc... that I could create and attach here that would be useful to anyone to try and discover why the error does not occur on the laptop with the Intell GFX card, but does on my desktop with the NVIDIA GFX?

---

New Post just for the sake of criminological clarity, since I dont want to update and update having no idea who has already read what.

I knew I didnt see the error on the laptop, so retracing my steps I found what I had forgotten.

The filter error does not occur if the 'Software Rendering' video option is selected. Thats why it was so slow on my laptop, but my desktop isn't bothered by it at all ... so that will do just fine!

Hope that helps someone else somewhere.

Again, thanks for the info all!

EDIT: Oh, thats cool, this forum auto merges back to back posts.
Wish they all worked like that!

[keystone570]

Ive seen this hasnt been updated in quite a while and im wondering is there any fixes for this game ive been trying for two days to get it to work right sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt it really a hit and miss im using the latest version of JPCSP.

Please if anybody has gotten this to work stable let me know

[Qogrynt]

It's been a couple of months since anybody has updated anything on this - and I've put it through the paces in Jpcsp 0.6.3040:3090, so I though I would provide an update.

As others have reported, this appears to be fully playable. The only (minor) gripe that I still have with the game is that it still hangs after the opening cinematic if you allow it to play through the whole thing. I've had erratic success pressing 'Start' or 'X' and getting the game to continue on to the startup menu screen after letting the cinematic play all the way through, but 80%+ of the time the game locks up and Jpcsp must be restarted. I am not able to 'Reset' the emulator and simply 'Run' it again. A full exit and restart is required.

The easy workaround is to not allow the cinematic to fully play and interrupt it with the Start button. I've actually tried to interrupt it with the 'X' button and still had it hang, though the 'Start' button appears to work 100% of the time.

I've tested settings with 2 different computers. My desktop is a rather high-end rig, so it's difficult to get any kind of measurable effect because it pegs the game at 60fps pretty easily. My laptop is a different story, so I was able to get some decent findings by doing some simple testing with that machine.

Video Settings:

Off: Disable VBO
- Enabling this had no visible effect on game performance
On: Only GE graphics
- Enabling this had the single-largest increase in fps performance for the game (10-15fps)
On: Vertex Cache
- No change in performance either way. I set it on.
On: Use Shaders
- No change in performance either way. I set it to on.
Off: Use a Geometry Shader for 2D rendering
- Enabling this caused the borders to disappear in the in game menus
Off: Disable UBO
- No discernible effect whether On or Off. User preference.
Off: Enable VAO
- Enabling caused significant artifacting and NPC 'blinking.' Menu backgrounds changed to black background.

On: Enable GE screen to Textures instead of Memory
- No discernible effect whether On or Off. User preference.
Off: Enable decoding of indexed textures (using CLUT) in shader
- No discernible effect whether On or Off. User preference.
On: Enable dynamic shader generation
- No discernible effect whether On or Off. User preference.
Off: Enable the shader implementation for the "Stencil Test"
- Enabling cause the screen to 'go black' and become unplayable
On: Enable the shader implementation for the "Color Mask"
- Enabling causes a slightly better presentation, more noticeable on the menu screens. Subject to user tastes as to whether this is an improvement or not.
Off: Disable optimized VertexInfo reading
- No discernible effect whether On or Off. User preference.
Off: Software Rendering
- Very buggy if enabled.

Other Settings:
Dislay-> Anti-Aliasing
- No noticeable effect no matter the value I tried here.
Media-> Use Media Engine
Media-> Use SonicStage
- Both of these options are required to play background music (combined with SonicStage installation)

The laptop I used to test these settings is equipped with an i5 processor, 4GB RAM, and has integrated Intel graphics. Overworld and menus topped out at around 42 fps for the most part. In towns, however, there is significant fps drop (on the order of 50%) down into the 20-25fps range. The change in emulation speed can be a bit jarring. Using the 'Frame Skip' menu item mitigated this to some degree, but it wasn't perfect.

Hope this helps folks who are looking for potential settings to play this game. If anyone has an answer to the hanging of the game after the opening cinematic, please let me know!