Texture Filtering for III / IV / IV-2?

[SirNinja]

Because the 3D versions of Final Fantasy III and IV were originally made for the Nintendo DS, they didn't have texture filtering. It's very bizarre, however, that this lack of filtering carried over to the mobile/PSP/PC ports of the game (as well as in FF4: The After Years).

I mean, just look how much better FF3's tutorial boss looks with filtering on:
Before[i.imgur.com], After[i.imgur.com]

(FYI: the "After" pic is from a PSP emulator, which has a filtering option.)

I can't believe no one's brought it up here before, but is there any known way to get filtered textures in FF3+4? I tried forcing various texture filtering options on through my graphics driver, but nothing worked. How feasible would it be to mod something like that in?

[israel-silva]

looks a lot better for sure

[Lodovico Rivers]

It most definitely looks better. I'm also surprised nobody has created this mod yet. Maybe I'm a fool, but this sort of mod seems simple, no?

[Dangus ))<>(( Taargus]

I think I have seen it mentioned before. I'd assume it's a matter of turning it on... the way Nyxo and Krisan Thyme turned 'off' the filter for V and VI. If the game uses openGL then it's a matter of determining the filter used... and changing it.

I'd be very into this type of mod... although the pixelated look has it's own 'charm'.

[Lodovico Rivers]

I just noticed that a huge con to having this filter applied is that the backgrounds also look incredibly blurred as well. I wonder if it's possible to only apply this to character models.

[SirNinja]

Originally posted by Lodovico Rivers:

I just noticed that a huge con to having this filter applied is that the backgrounds also look incredibly blurred as well.

Actually, that's mostly because the PSP version uses lower-quality textures for some assets. Looking at a few things for comparison in the PC shot, especially that pillar with the rune-like symbols carved in it, you can tell the base resolution of the texture is noticeably higher on PC.

Check out an LP of the PSP version to see the unfiltered version in action. The battle backgrounds look nearly the same with bilinear filtering on than with it off. It's mostly the character/enemy models that show great improvement with the filter on.

Originally posted by Dangus ))<>(( Taargus:

I think I have seen it mentioned before. I'd assume it's a matter of turning it on... the way Nyxo and Krisan Thyme turned 'off' the filter for V and VI. If the game uses openGL then it's a matter of determining the filter used... and changing it.

I hope this is the case as well. I agree that the pixelated look has its moments, but most of the 3D models, especially enemies, just look so much better with it on. The big models in particular use very low resolution textures compared to the ground and walls around them (the Before picture is a great example of that; just compare one of its scales/fins to the floor tiles!), and the filtered version goes a long way towards bridging that gap.

[BONKERS]

You can get texture filtering already.

What you are asking for is texture scaling filters..
Totally different things.

The textures are filtered with AF as it is. They just just super low res, even after the upgrades for the Mobile/PC version from the DS ver.


If someone can extract all of the textures from the game, you can use Waifu 2x or the ImageResizer from this
https://code.google.com/p/2dimagefilter/
Which has a TON of different available scaling/filtering methods to use.

Or look for someone to develop a method like used in PPSSPP or here http://blog.metaclassofnil.com/?p=763 to custom scale the textures in real time.

No switch in driver software to enable texture filtering is going to do what you want.

[roxahris]

He is quite literaly asking for texture filtering.

[Dangus ))<>(( Taargus]

I think 3 and 4 were just DS roms run like an emulator. Maybe trying to use DS rom hacking tools to open the archives and change the textures is the way to go. I started to work on this yesterday but can't find a reliable way to pin down which file types contain what.

The two routes I could see going are:

The long road - change the sprites by taking the original assets and applying a filter - reloading them back into the archive

The short road - finding a way to mod the way the game filters textures as they are pulled into the game

[SirNinja]

Originally posted by Dangus ))<>(( Taargus:

The two routes I could see going are:

The long road - change the sprites by taking the original assets and applying a filter - reloading them back into the archive

The short road - finding a way to mod the way the game filters textures as they are pulled into the game

Good thinking. Right now I think the short-road plan is the way to try first, as it's entirely possible the long-road strategy might not even work. If the game's engine is a straight port of the DS's, it may end up "unfiltering" any filtered textures that are put into the game's files; that pixelated, no-mipmapping method could simply be the only way it knows how to render things.

I think the short road, therefore, cuts right to the heart of the problem, by giving the game a way to actually display textures more clearly. I don't know how feasible it would be to make a mod like that, but I definitely appreciate that someone's at least looking into it. Keep it up!

[BONKERS]

One easier way that might be more aesthetically pleasing is to run the game at a high resolution (DSR)with forced AA if you have an Nvidia card.

Comparison: 720p no AA vs 4.5x SSAA + 8xSGSSAA
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/157014

Also: I'm pretty sure it's not emulated, it'd be less effort to port the games than emulate them. Especially considering mobile and all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgKKSr765_0

[BONKERS]

I also might have found out one way.

I figured the game used AF but the textures were just so low res and intentionally blocky.

Turns out, forcing AF at the driver level doesn't work(Which is a first)

But finding the right OGL>D3D9 wrapper and using GeDoSaTo (Which has an option to force AF on all surfaces for certain games.)

Provided this results,
it's not very pretty. But also it's unplayable as there are flashes of black on teh screen constantly, the title screen is blank with just text. And the whole screen goes black after about 2 seconds.

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/157022

Compared to the AA example above
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/157023

Personally I feel like the latter looks better.
So I think I stand by my prior statement that Texture Scaling Filters would be the better option. It wouldn't be too hard to batch process them once the right algorithm is found.

[BONKERS]

OK. I actually figured out a way to make it work and be playable. With the caveat that texture based objects (like the torches above) will have black outlines. Though they can be mitigated through forced AA on Nvidia cards.

Unfortunately, since drivers after 347.88 there is a bug with certain games and forcing AA which causes the games to stutter like mad...FFIV wrapped to DX9 suffers this.

So downsampling is the only available method and that's tricky.

[BONKERS]

How to Enable Texture Filtering if you want it

(Use at your own discretion, who knows what bugs may lay in wait.

1. Download GLDirect http://sourceforge.net/projects/gldirect/?source=typ_redirect
   In the "bin/release" folder is "OpenGl32.dll" extract this to the FF4 directory with "FF4.exe"
   
2. Download GeDoSaTo http://blog.metaclassofnil.com/?page_id=582
   Follow the instructions to set up a permanent home for it .
   
3. With GeDoSaTo open, hit the "Whitelist" button. And at the bottom add an entry for FF4
   "FF4 || Final Fantasy 4" (IT HAS to be named this)
   Save the Whitelist
   
4. Now open the GeDoSaTo directory and /Config folder. Create a folder called "FF4" (IT HAS to be named this). In this folder copypasta the "GeDoSaTo.ini" from the /config folder.
   
5. If you are just going to play at native resolution you need to replace the contents of the ini file with the following and replace the Rendering and Present resolutions listed below with your resolution
   http://pastebin.com/jSLkCgDf
   
6. If you want Anti Aliasing this is tricky. As forcing AA is impossible without problems with the game wrapped to DX9. Unless you are ok with just SMAA or FXAA. Which you can enable in the GeDoSaTo.ini.
   
7. If you want better AA though you will need the contents of "GeDoSaTo.ini" to be this instead http://pastebin.com/EgGYPPhT
   
   You will need to replace 3 entries , Rendering resolution, Present Resolution and Override resolution.
   
   
   Then, you have to set your desktop resolution to the resolution you are going to downsample with, using DSR or VSR. For it to work, so say you want to use 4k on at 1080p monitor. Replace the 3 entries above with 3840x2160, enable DSR and set your desktop to 2160p. And then launch FFIV's launcher, set that resolution with Full screen enabled
   
   Then the game should launch and you should have downsampling. Huzzah.
   
   
8. Finally if you want correct Vsync and Framepacing you need to set up a profile for FFIV with Nvidia inspector ( I don't know about AMD). And set it as such
   http://u.cubeupload.com/MrBonk/aefaefzfzef.jpg
   
   If you don't know how about Nvidia Inspector, here's a guide
   http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?p=5183388
   By default with the OGL renderer, all you need is the in game full screen vsync+a 30FPS cap from RTSS to get proper pacing.

I personally find the black outlines distracting, but here's the option for you if you want it

AA comparison.
NoAA Wrapped 16xAF vs 4.5xSSAA 16xAF+driver FXAA
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/157028

[SirNinja]

Awesome work! I figured Gedosato would be of use here...

It's a huge improvement overall, though there are a few unexpected animation-related quirks. For instance, the moving gears on the walls in the Tower of Zot are severely glitched, and the save point circle moves around the same way the gears do[i.imgur.com]. Still though - again - most of the game looks so much better now.

I personally play the game in windowed mode at 1280x768 resolution, as that's one of the only resolutions that doesn't letterbox or pillarbox the display. I'm using a variant of your second config file that downsamples the game from 2560x1536 rather than 2732x1536 (to keep the ratio at 5:3 like the original) and it looks great. I will try some different resolutions and tweaks and see if something can be done about the moving sprites on the walls/floor. Thanks so much for all your hard work so far!

Works great with FF4:TAY as well, just tested.

[SirNinja]

Hmm. This doesn't seem to work with Final Fantasy III. The game will crash on startup if OpenGl32.dll is in the game's directory at launch. The regular OpenGL.dll file will allow the game to open, but doesn't do anything. Any ideas?