Kudos to Cinzia Cancedda (aryaaiedail)

FFNx

Next generation modding platform for Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII ( with native Steam 2013 release support! )

Introduction

FFNx is an attempt to move forward what you were used to know as FF7_OpenGL driver, made by Aali.

FFNx today in a nutshell:

• An easy drag-n-drop installation experience, see How to Install
• It comes by default if you use 7th 2.3 or higher version
• It supports the newest video and audio codecs ( WEBM, H.265, Ogg, etc.)
• It enhances the gameplay experience drastically compared to the vanilla experience
• It supports 4 stable (+ 1 experimental) rendering Backends:
  • OpenGL
  • DirectX 9 ( Experimental: Not Recommended )
  • DirectX 11 ( default )
  • DirectX 12
  • Vulkan

Features

As a user

FF7/FF8

• /LARGEADDRESSAWARE support! Up to 3.5GB of RAM available for mods ( this requires the 4GB Patch in your ff7.exe ).
• High DPI support!
• HDR support!
• Up to 16x Anisotropic support!
• Up to 16x Antialiasing support!
• 5.1/7.1 Audio Output support!
• Steam support! No Game converter required.
• Steam savegame preservation ( you will no more loose saves created with FFNx! )
• XInput controller support (Xbox 360 and compatible ones) with D-Pad working out-of-the-box!
• Native speedhack support!
• External music to replace MIDIs support!
• The game will continue to run when not in focus in Window mode

FF7

• 60 FPS!
• eStore support! No Game converter required.
• Vertical centering for Fields and Movies
• Fullscreen Battle scenes
• Menu cursor on the middle of words vertical alignment
• Movies will continue to play if the window game loses focus ( in window mode )
• Movies volume will respect global sound volume
• Steam sound and music volume configuration preservation ( configure at your pleasure and on the next run it will be inherited )
• Configurable background transparency in battle dialogs ( by default set to 75% )!
• SFX volume change will now apply in real-time, instead of you requiring to close and re-open the game.
• Support for animated textures ( like Aerith waterfall, light fading, etc. )
• Support for soft-reset while you're playing, like on the PSX!
• Support for battle toggle ( enable/disable at your own pleasure )
• Voice acting! One of the first mods to make use of this will be Echo-S when it will be released!
• Support for external SFX audio effects
• Support for external Ambient audio effects
• Support for external movie audio files ( allows multiple videos to share the same audio )
• Support for external movie voice acting ( dedicated audio layer only for voice acting on top of movies )
• Steam achievements! You can now unlock them while playing with FFNx
• Real-time light engine! You can now feel the game visually like never before
• Real-time camera control in battles
• Analogue controls using the full axis of your left analog stick

FF8

• Vibration support!
• Voice acting!
• Maki's patch for Worldmap included
• Enable the VRAM debug window while playing in order to see how the engine uploads textures

As a modder

• Game rendering inspection through RenderDoc!
• DDS Texture support up to BC7 format, with PNG Texture support as fallback.
• Support for configurable external textures path using mod_path
• Support for an override layer of the data directory using override_path
• Support for MINIPSF audio files using the emulated PSX/PS2 AKAO Engine
• Support for Hext patching files inside of the hext_patching_path
• Debug in-game engine data through imgui integration.

Documentation

For a more in-depth documentation feel free to visit the docs/ folder.

Screenshots

Vanilla/Steam

Tech Stack

If you're curious to know it, FFNx is made with:

• C++ code base
• Latest MSVC available on Visual Studio 2022 Community Edition
• vcpkg ( as dependency manager )
• CMake ( as make files )
• BGFX ( as backend renderer )
• BIMG ( for custom textures )
• FFMpeg with H/W Accelleration support
• VGMStream using FFMpeg as backend (with loop support!)
• tomlplusplus ( for the configuration management )
• StackWalker ( for stack traces in the log file )
• pugixml ( for the Steam XML manifest )
• md5 ( for the Steam XML manifest )
• libpng ( for a better and faster PNG texture support )
• imgui ( to better debug the in-game engine )
• xxhash ( to extract an hash from palette game textures data known as animated textures )
• SoLoud ( as the audio engine used to playback audio, music or voice files )
• openpsf ( as the MINIPSF emulation engine to playback PSX/PS2 music files )
• Steamworks SDK ( used to support Steam achievements for the Steam edition of games )
• mimalloc ( mimalloc is a compact general purpose allocator with excellent performance )

How to build

Available build profiles:

• x86-Release ( default, the same used to release artifacts in this Github page )
• x86-RelWithDebInfo ( used while developing to better debug some issues )
• x86-MinSizeRel
• x86-Debug ( prefer it if you want to use a debugger attached to the game )

Once the project is build you can find the output in this path: .build/bin

Preparation

Please note:

FFNx will now use vcpkg as a package manager to resolve dependencies. Failing to follow these steps will fail your builds.

0. Clone the vcpkg project in the root folder of your C: drive ( git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg.git )
1. Go inside the C:\vcpkg folder and double click bootstrap-vcpkg.bat
2. Open a cmd window in C:\vcpkg and run the following command: vcpkg integrate install

Visual Studio

Please note:

By default Visual Studio will pick the x86-Release build configuration, but you can choose any other profile available.

0. Download the the latest Visual Studio Community installer
1. Run the installer and import this .vsconfig file in the installer to pick the required components to build this project
2. Make sure you select the English Language pack in the language list before clicking Install
3. Once installed, open this repository as a folder in Visual Studio 2022 and click the build button

Visual Studio Code

0. REQUIRED! Follow up the steps to install Visual Studio, which will also install the MSVC toolchain
1. Download and install the latest Visual Studio Code release
2. Install the following extensions:
   • https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-vscode.cpptools
   • https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-vscode.cmake-tools
3. Open this repository as a folder in Visual Studio code
4. Choose as build profile in the status bar CMake: [Release] ( or one of the aforementioned profiles )
5. Click the button on the status bar Build

Auto-Formatting

CMake Files

0. REQUIRED! Install Python
1. Install cmake-format and make sure the binary is available in your PATH environment variable
2. OPTIONAL! Integrate it in your own IDE ( eg. for Visual Studio Code use the relative extension )

Support

FFNx offers multiple support channels, pick the one you prefer

Forums

• Qhimm Forum: http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=19970.0
• Tsunamods Forum: https://forum.tsunamods.com/viewtopic.php?p=41#p41

Discord

• Qhimm FFNx-FF7 ( Final Fantasy VII only): https://discord.gg/N6M6pKS
• Qhimm FFNx-FF8 ( Final Fantasy VIII only): https://discord.gg/u6M7DnY
• Tsunamods FFNx: https://discord.gg/Urq67Uz ( remember to hit the Red Chocobo reaction! )

Github

• Issues: https://github.com/julianxhokaxhiu/FFNx/issues

Credits

This project could have not been a reality if those people would have not worked on FF7 and FF8 with their deep passion and knowledge. FFNx makes use also of their work, and I will never be enough grateful to those people. The order is purely Alphabetical.

These people are:

• Aali:
  • for the original Driver code FFNx is based on.
• Chrysalis:
  • for the battle fullscreen hext patch
  • for the menu cursor vertical centering in menu
• CosmosXIII
  • for the real-time light engine
  • for the real-time camera control in battles
  • for the analogue controls in FF7
• DLPB:
  • for original Hext concept and specification that FFNx implemented as well
  • for the field vertical centering hext patch, which FFNx provides a default patch for
  • for the Soft-Reset original concept
  • for the no battle original concept
• dziugo:
  • for the original FMV skip concept
• ficedula:
  • for 7h 1.x which FFNx provides support for
• Iros:
  • for 7h 1.x which FFNx provides support for
• JWP:
  • for imgui integration within FFNx
• Kranmer
  • for PHS save everywhere Hext patch
  • for the no battle original concept
• Maki:
  • for FF8 UV Hext Patch in the world map, which FFNx provides a default patch for
  • for the help in getting the first iterations of FFNx running on FF8 2000/2013 release
• myst6re:
  • for the great tools like Makou Reactor, Deling and many others he did which helped a lot in improving FF8 while working on the code
  • for the great help in the code implementing the MINIPSF emulation layer being present inside FFNx
  • for the heavy testing and lifting of a lot of bugs being catched in FFNx, for FF8
  • for the Steam savegame logic in the manifest.xml for FF8
  • for the real-time SFX volume change for FF7
• quantumpencil and Nax:
  • for the original CMake files FFNx has based its work upon
  • for all the help in getting some logics wired up in the game engine and a lot of hex addresses I would never been able to figure out myself
• Satsuki:
  • for the heavy testing and lifting of a lot of bugs being catched in FFNx, for FF7
  • for the field vertical centering hext patch, which FFNx provides a default patch for
  • for a lot of hex addresses I would have never been able to figure out myself otherwise
  • for the original Speedhack concept and help in getting it natively into FFNx
• Sebanisu:
  • for the help in getting the first iterations of FFNx running on FF8 2000/2013 release
  • for the heavy testing and lifting of a lot of bugs being catched in FFNx, for FF8
• sithlord48:
  • for the Steam savegame logic in the manifest.xml for FF7
• TurBoss:
  • for 7h 1.x source code release and FFNx enablement
• unab0mb:
  • for the official integration of FFNx within 7thHeaven 2.3+
• tangtang95
  • for the 60FPS support in FF7
  • for the Steam achievements in FF7

I'm sure I forgot many others through the route. In case you feel you're missing here, feel free to open a PR! I'll be happy to include you because you deserve this.

License

FFNx is released under GPLv3 license, and you can get a copy of the license here: COPYING.txt

If you paid for it, remember to ask for a refund to the person who sold you a copy. Make also sure you get a copy of the source code if you got it as a binary only.

If the person who gave you a copy will refuse to give you the source code, report it here: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-violation.html

All rights belong to their respective owners.