This is a question I've recieved a couple of times, and I decided to make one thread for this. I've seen Hushypushy (ngemu) put up one like this on their forum but this one that I am going to post up here will be quite my own. With hints and comments.

Make this a stickie.

I recommend that the users of these settings look at their PC settings and make sure that they have at least these:

Pentium-4 2.4Ghz
512 MB RAM - 1024 MB RAM
A decent NVIDIA or ATI graphic card having atleast 128MB - 256MB VRAM.
And about 1-5 GB free disk space. (So that you're PC won't slow down at all).

Ok. Let's start off with FFVII. One of my favorites.

PLUGINS

Emulator : ePSXe 1.6.0

Using older versions of the emulator has a minor setback of having the game getting stuck at odd intervals in my experience. You may want to use this instead.

GPU : Pete's OpenGL2 Driver Version 2.8

This is the latest version of Pete's OpenGL2 Plugin. This version has a lot of neat features, check out the Readme. If you want to download the plugin go to Pete's Homepage from here : Pete's Domain

SPU : ePSXe Internal SPU plugin  [or]
                         Eternal SPU Plugin 1.41     [or]
                         Eternal Lite SPU Plugin 1.41

I have given you three plugins, equally reknown for their capabilities. ePSXe Internal SPU plugin should be used if you want to have normal sounds (buggy at times) with fast speeds. However Eternal Lite and Eternal SPU plugins should be used for decent speed with great sound.

CDR/ISO : ePSXe Internal ISO Image Driver [or]
                               Pete's CDR ASPI/IOCTL Driver Version 1.11 or latest.

For some of the square games, you may have trouble accessing the games due to copyright and all that s**t. But using Pete's CDR Plugin and the ISO image Driver these problems are set aside. If you find that your CD's are a bit scratched and gone rotten, make an ISO image of your CDs. Using ISO's is the best mode if you want to have good speeds. The other option is to use the ROM with Pete's Plugin.
How to make an ISO....... I'll add that bit later (or someone else do that for me)

Controller - ePSXe Internal Pad

Well you don't have any choice here if you are using ePSXe. But I seem to have a problem with that. That's because my joystick is typically pretty different from DirectX versions and ummm. to use Forcefeedback or (Rumble) Vibration effects my controller with this emulator and plugin is useless. But I think it should work for you. If you don't and still want to use Force Feedback then you should aim to get SSSPSX and SSSPSX PAD plugin. An equally reknown emulator which was coded and brought to us about last year.


CONFIGURATIONS

GPU Plugin Settings
Plugin: Pete's OpenGL2 Driver 2.8
Author: Pete Bernert

Resolution/Color:
- 800x600 Window mode
- Internal X resolution: 2
- Internal Y resolution: 2
- Keep psx aspect ratio: off
- No render-to-texture: on
- Render mode : 1 or 2

Notice the Internal X and Y? These are very neat features, it makes the polygons, and other 3D surfaces look really nice. You may find that your PC's cant cope with the high Internal X and Y resolutions at 2. So change it to X=1/Y=2 or X=2/Y=1. This should work along with Render mode at 1. If it doesn't then go for Render mode 2 along with X and Y at very high.  

- Filtering: 0
- Hi-Res textures: 0
- TexWin pixel shader: off
- VRam size: 256 MBytes

Hi-Res Textures can be used if you have a decent graphics card and a reasonable amount of CPU power and RAM. (if you don't want slowdowns). I like the Hi-Res textures stretched out 2xSal. This makes the rendered images very clear and you will notice that they have a nice effect on charactes.

VRAM size: You should keep this setting at 0 if you don't know how much VRAM your GFX card has. Otherwise set it yourself.

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

Compatibility:
- Offscreen drawing: 1
- Framebuffer effects: 2
- Framebuffer uploads: 2

Notice that Framebuffer Effects is at 2 and Framebuffer uploads at 2? Yeah. FE is at 2 to give you the nice battle swirls and good special effects such as tweaking magic. (They look better at 2). The effects at 2 would be the best option as Framebuffer effects at 3 is really frickin' slow. (At least for me) and it may cause the game to crash during battles etc.

Framebuffer uploads can be used at 1 and 2. But if you want the game to look really smooth and if you have a decent PC, I'd recommend 2.

Misc:
- Scanlines: off
- Mdec filter: on
- Screen filtering: on
- Shader effects: 0/1
- Flicker-fix border size: 0
- GF4/XP crash fix: on
- Game fixes: on  [00000002]

You may want to put scanlines ON. Oh and there is this Special Game Fix. This should make sure that your graphics in FF7 looks neat as it interlocks the settings in place.

SPU
When using the Internal ePSXe SPU core make sure you have enable SPU IRQ check. See the Picture ePSXe SPU Core

For Eternal SPU Plugin and Eternal Lite Plugin configure as shown in the image. If you experience slowdowns in-game, change Audio out methods Asyn mode to Smooth. This should make the game-flow pretty smooth. Also try out SPU IRQ Wait CPU. That is if you want the game music to be accurate with the game.

CDR/ISO

If using ISO, choose RUN ISO and choose your ISO from the directory. Otherwise using Pete's CDR ASPI/IOCT Driver. Here's the settings in the picture attached below

Oh and if you are running on Windows 95, 98, Me. Change the Interface to WIN9X/ME. For the Read mode, use autodetect feature.
Keep other settings as shown in the Picture.

And guys post a Picture here for these settings ya?!

Credits goes to Hushypushy for Sound and CDR/ISO settings.

This post was last modified: 03-12-2006 11:21 PM by Xymet.

Final Fantasy VIII. A great game. One which I loved. And one I still play and am playing atm. And yeah. The configurations for this game is not perfect.

PLUGINS
Emulator : ePSXe 1.6.0

GPU : Pete's OpenGL2 Driver Version 2.8

SPU : ePSXe Internal SPU plugin  [or]
                         Eternal SPU Plugin 1.41     [or]
                         Eternal Lite SPU Plugin 1.41

CDR/ISO : ePSXe Internal ISO Image Driver [or]
                               Pete's CDR ASPI/IOCTL Driver Version 1.11

Controller - ePSXe Internal Pad

If you want to use Force Feedback or Vibration for this game, use SSSPSX Emulator with SSSPSX PAD Plugin. They work for me.

CONFIGURATIONS

GPU Plugin Settings
Plugin: Pete's OpenGL2 Driver 2.8
Author: Pete Bernert

Resolution/Color:
- 800x600 Window mode
- Internal X resolution: 2
- Internal Y resolution: 2
- Keep psx aspect ratio: off
- No render-to-texture: on
- Render mode : 1 or 2

Notice the Internal X and Y? These are very neat features, it makes the polygons, and other 3D surfaces look really nice. You may find that your PC's cant cope with the high Internal X and Y resolutions at 2. So change it to X=1/Y=2 or X=2/Y=1. This should work along with Render mode at 1. If it doesn't then go for Render mode 2 along with X and Y at very high.  

- Filtering: 6
- Hi-Res textures: 0
- TexWin pixel shader: On
- VRam size: 256 MBytes

Hi-Res Textures can be used if you have a decent graphics card and a reasonable amount of CPU power and RAM. (if you don't want slowdowns). I like the Hi-Res textures stretched out 2xSal. This makes the rendered images very clear and you will notice that they have a nice effect on charactes. With the second option, you will see glitches, the borders will be all lit up. But with the second option, the characters look gorgeous.

VRAM size: You should keep this setting at 0 if you don't know how much VRAM your GFX card has. Otherwise set it yourself.

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

Compatibility:
- Offscreen drawing: 1
- Framebuffer effects: 2
- Framebuffer uploads: 0

Notice that Framebuffer Effects is at 2 and Framebuffer uploads at 2? Yeah. FE is at 2 to give you the nice battle swirls and good special effects such as tweaking magic. (They look better at 2). The effects at 2 would be the best option as Framebuffer effects at 3 is really frickin' slow. (At least for me) and it may cause the game to crash during battles etc.

Ok. In this game Framebuffer uploading has the problems. I hate it! But atleast it can be switched. When using Framebuffer uploads at 0. You will notice that when you go from place to place, (during the transition - the screen will have a strange vibrating effect). To fix this you should keep the setting at 2. When you change the setting to 2 you will notice a big solid box behind the Name of your characters in battles. To correct this you should put the settings at 0. So see the problem? Thats the only frickin problem I've noticed. Due to this, some minor glitches can be found throughout the game.

Misc:
- Scanlines: off
- Mdec filter: on
- Screen filtering: on
- Shader effects: 0/1
- Flicker-fix border size: 0
- GF4/XP crash fix: on
- Game fixes: on  [00000002]

You may want to put scanlines ON. Oh and there is this Special Game Fix. This should make sure that your graphics in FF7 looks neat as it interlocks the settings in place.

SPU
When using the Internal ePSXe SPU core make sure you have enable SPU IRQ check. See the Picture ePSXe SPU Core

For Eternal SPU Plugin and Eternal Lite Plugin configure as shown in the image. If you experience slowdowns in-game, change Audio out methods Asyn mode to Smooth. This should make the game-flow pretty smooth. Also try out SPU IRQ Wait CPU. That is if you want the game music to be accurate with the game.

CDR/ISO

Well as said for other games, ISO's are better. Better than anything else.

If using ISO, choose RUN ISO and choose your ISO from the directory. Otherwise using Pete's CDR ASPI/IOCT Driver. Here's the settings in the picture attached below

Oh and if you are running on Windows 95, 98, Me. Change the Interface to WIN9X/ME. For the Read mode, use autodetect feature.
Keep other settings as shown in the Picture.

Make sure you have enabled reading subchannels.

This post was last modified: 03-12-2006 11:23 PM by Xymet.

Ok. I haven't got round to making this game make my PC sweat. But I found a great guide on NGEMU provided by Hushypushy. Check it out. Its pretty cool

my best config, OGL2, FF9, NGEMU - Hushypushy

Well, I haven't got much to say that these settings are awefully great and that I'll be checking them out too.

search for "kane's domain"
he has some of the best settings

Nice guide, it's good that you added explanations as well.

This post was last modified: 06-07-2007 10:57 PM by hushypushy.

He cant help it, we got the same blood. lol