Final Fantasy VII Cutscene Glitches

[alpachino]

I was curious as to if anyone has experienced video cutscene glitches while playing Final Fantasy VII. So far I've experienced 2 glitched cutscenes while playing disc 1. I didn't grab a savestate of the first one because I thought it was a one-off incident. It happened when leaving Shinra HQ in the vehicles and jumping on the highway right before the mini game starts.

The second glitched cutscene (that I did get a savestate and picture of) happened in the story telling portion where Cloud is telling a story about when him, Tifa and Sepiroth left the village to go to the mako reactor in the mountains. I've attached the savestate which I saved right before the cutscene and the image of what the glitch looked like on my TV.

I'm playing the game with no cheats, no mods, no turbo, no 2x, no romhacks, etc. Playing with Hblank and Vblank both on, using a 1080p TV using a mister with digital io board. Besides the glitched cutscenes, all other video and audio performance is spot-on with no issues.

Note: the cutscene was saved in savestate slot 2. Attached the savestate and a picture of the glitched cutscene.

[AngelicLiver]

I'm finding the same issue with the Redump CHD version too using your savestate.

SHA256: 5b528a3d562d64e21fff7138e583c8ae33a93667e29f7e91a8defba5e173740e
MD5: 1ad4fa2736e62a91c5ea542fd62c0394

[Edit] I vaguely remember this being fixed in the past so perhaps there has been some unintended regression?

[FPGAzumSpass]

Cannot find any version where this worked, but then somebody must have seen it before? Maybe the savestate is already broken?

edit: the MDEC decompression tables in the savestate are corrupt. Do you may have a savegame(memcard) near that situation?

[alpachino]

So my last in game memcard save was a good ways back from that point in the game. I loaded it up and played to the point of the glitch and the cutscene worked perfectly with no issues. I also checked another save state I had made like 5 mins before that glitched cutscene, and that save state also glitches at the cutscene. Any reasons as to how my save states became corrupted? I super appreciate all the help.

[FPGAzumSpass]

Sorry, i don't know why it happened.
It could be the savestate got corrupted or there was a bug leading to the corrupt mdec state and it carry on if the game never boots fresh.

Hard to guess what the reason really was...all i can say is that i asked in discord and several people reported that it worked without issues for them when they played it, last one some weeks ago.

Due to the nature of when the problem happens and when it can be noticed, it's hard to guess.
I could add some MDEC corruption detection that runs the whole time, so you don't have to wait for a FMV to see when it's broken, but even that only makes sense if it's at least halfway reproducible.

My current guess is from the nature of how the MDEC works, one CD sector might be corrupt from a previous FMV, leading to not decoding a frame, but instead overwriting the MDEC tables, which then carries on, as the game usually only writes them when booting the disc.

[alpachino]

Thanks for the detailed info, I was just wondering. Its not a huge deal, I'll just use the memcard saves for this play through. Thanks for all of your help and you too AngelicLiver.

[phatcorns]

I'm not sure this helps shed more light on the problem, but I can reproduce something similar in FF8's opening cutscene almost every time. It will just crash usually around the same time in the fmv and sometimes gives the same visual artifacts when it does or right before it does.

When using a Bin/Cue iso...
Here is a video of the fmv finishing, but with visual artifacts (timestamps in the video description): https://youtu.be/8PBwo4Ii83g
Here is a video of the fmv actually crashing (timestamps in the video description): https://youtu.be/dQ_rvMymwZE
(Sometimes the FMV will finish and sometimes it will crash, even on the exact same sd card with the exact same settings)

When using a CHD iso...
it also eventually crashes, but sometimes I can finesse it to continue by using the 8x cd speed hack and it looks like this (check timestamps in the video description): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njvF81Hfjgc

(These are all the redump iso files btw)

I've tried three different SD cards with a fresh install of Mister and also running the iso off of a flash drive, but so far I have not been able to solve this issue. I've asked around elsewhere and it seems this is a problem unique to me, so it's possibly something is wrong with my DE-10 nano. I have tried replacing the ram, cooling solution, ac adapter, and pretty much anything else I could think of, so the last culprit I guess is the DE-10 nano?

Anyway, if anyone could offer some help, that'd be great, but no worries if this is just a random bug that's only on my end.

[rhester72]

Either tack on to this issue:

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/PSX_MiSTer/issues/236

or add one of your own, depending on how similar the behavior actually is.

[FPGAzumSpass]

Anyway, if anyone could offer some help, that'd be great, but no worries if this is just a random bug that's only on my end.

Please go in Miscellaneous and set:

• CD Slow Overlay: On
• CD Overlay: Read+Seek

Also make sure all other settings there are at default, especially:

• Turbo: off
• Pal 60Hz Hack: off
• CD fast seek: off
• CD Speed: Original
• Limit Max CD speed: off

I would assume you will get some "CD" overlays to show up, hinting that for some reason the linux sw could not deliver CD data in time.

[phatcorns]

Anyway, if anyone could offer some help, that'd be great, but no worries if this is just a random bug that's only on my end.

Please go in Miscellaneous and set:

• CD Slow Overlay: On
• CD Overlay: Read+Seek

Also make sure all other settings there are at default, especially:

• Turbo: off
• Pal 60Hz Hack: off
• CD fast seek: off
• CD Speed: Original
• Limit Max CD speed: off

I would assume you will get some "CD" overlays to show up, hinting that for some reason the linux sw could not deliver CD data in time.

Thank you very much for the response! I turned on the mister and immediately loaded the psx core, made sure all of the settings were still default and interestingly it worked. But then when I restarted it and did the exact same thing, it crashed. Perhaps it is an overheating issue after all?

I did not get footage of the first successful finish, but I did get the subsequent crash recorded (timestamps in the video description): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZnpBcJVhwA

Anyway, thanks again!

[FPGAzumSpass]

This is so strange:

• we tried yesterday in discord with the same core, both NTSC and PAL -> worked fine
• you get no CD overlay -> not a CD read issue

So I really have no idea what the reason can be at this point.
If you had access to a different sdram i would swap that for test, but if everything else works, it's really not worth to buy one just for testing.

The core fulfills timing, so temperature of the chip itself should be no issue at all, Altera guarantees correct operation up until 100°C which you not even reach without cooling.
If this is really temperature dependand, it would be another sdram hint maybe?

[phatcorns]

• EDIT: Btw, here is a video of me changing the cd speed to 8x and getting it to restart for at least a little bit before it ultimately crashes again. It also shows a brief "CD" in the upper left when I do this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xNBQi7LqUw

Hmm, ok, good to know it's just a one-person problem at least. In addition to trying multiple sd cards, I have actually tried replacing the...

• SDRAM https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09V6ZM78J (maybe it was also bad?)

• AC Adapter https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01D0Z8PLW/

I actually do get occasional crash in other games I've tried including FF7 right after the FMV where cloud falls into the flower bed.

w70h58i.jpeg (2.67 MiB) Viewed 17267 times

And also Suikoden 2, just randomly during battle it will crash.

Haha, anyway my point is I'm pretty motivated to fix it since it's not just this FF8 opening cutscene. I'm going to try replacing the sdram again and if that doesn't fix it, I'll chalk it up to something being wrong with my DE-10 Nano.

Thanks again and I'll report back after I've tried the new ram!

[Hackshed_Carl]

I don't want to be "that guy" who brings everything back to now but out of interest, which RAM module do you have?

I can't remember the details, nor am I in a position to find it currently but I remember some big uproar some time ago about a specific RAM module version that Jotego identified a capacitor issue with.

I'm just wondering if that could somehow be related here....

[phatcorns]

I don't want to be "that guy" who brings everything back to now but out of interest, which RAM module do you have?

I can't remember the details, nor am I in a position to find it currently but I remember some big uproar some time ago about a specific RAM module version that Jotego identified a capacitor issue with.

I'm just wondering if that could somehow be related here....

I got mine back in the beginning of 2020, looks like it says v2.5:

Rm6OKZE.jpeg (2.06 MiB) Viewed 17268 times

[Hackshed_Carl]

Here is a mention of the issue I remembered.
I don't have time to read through it all but there are several mentions of the 2.5 revision board having issues with the early Saturn core.
viewtopic.php?t=2110&start=330

Again, I've no idea if it's related but thought I'd share in case it's of some use.

[Hackshed_Carl]

TL:DR
If I had the funds available, my first thing to do would be replace the RAM module and see if it helps.
If I didn't have the funds, I'd probably just hang on a while and see what core changes occur in the future, one of them may inadvertently (or intentionally) fix the issue.

[FPGA64]

when you go to 8 speed you will see it says Hack with a (u) that means unsafe its not supposed to be run that way. By going to 8x you are making things unstable and so any crashes at that point are not the cores fault.

You also seem to be running cheats and that causes issues too

[phatcorns]

when you go to 8 speed you will see it says Hack with a (u) that means unsafe its not supposed to be run that way. By going to 8x you are making things unstable and so any crashes at that point are not the cores fault.

You also seem to be running cheats and that causes issues too

The crashes actually happen at the default cd speed. I was just showing that you could actually get the FMV to continue (sort of) by switching to 8x.

I didn't realize cheats were on, but I just tested again with them off and still the same issue.

TL:DR
If I had the funds available, my first thing to do would be replace the RAM module and see if it helps.
If I didn't have the funds, I'd probably just hang on a while and see what core changes occur in the future, one of them may inadvertently (or intentionally) fix the issue.

Thanks for the help, that's my plan as of now is to get a new stick of ram and see if that helps. Still cheaper than getting a new DE-10 nano!

[FPGA64]

PSX core was not that demanding on RAM. It shouldnt be a ram issue unless your ram is defective. Inside Memtest what speed can you ram obtain ?

[phatcorns]

PSX core was not that demanding on RAM. It shouldnt be a ram issue unless your ram is defective. Inside Memtest what speed can you ram obtain ?

I did the ram test and it was stable at 138 for like 3 hours. I actually just got a 32mb stick to test with and it also crashed. That means I have now tried:

• Using the stock power supply and a meanwell power supply

• 5 different sd cards and 1 usb thumb drive

• My v2.5 128mb ram stick, a v2.2 32mb ram stick I just tried, and a v2.9 128mb ram stick I tried a few months back

• Using it with and without the analog I/O board

• Disconnecting everything but hdmi and my usb otg hub for the controller

So I think the only thing left to try is another DE-10 nano. I'm content to just let it be at this point, but I'd also be willing to pay to ship this to let someone else test this if they were interested because I have completely exhausted my own troubleshooting ability. Maybe I'm missing something super obvious that is causing the problem.

Anyway, thanks for the help everyone!

[FPGAzumSpass]

if you want to go one last step further, you can try with my mister main and mister.ini that i used to run the test on my side:

• backup your files (rename is best, otherwise you cannot copy anyway)
• unzip and copy the attached files to your sdcard
• cold boot your mister without bluetooth/network, only one usb controller or keyboard
• run the newest core PSX_20230503
• run FF8 bin/cue
• bin has sha-1: 5028A4F815A50D6FFE16F9C3E44EC6235A81F3F5
  cue has content:
  FILE "filename.bin" BINARY
  TRACK 01 MODE2/2352
  INDEX 01 00:00:00

If that also doesn't work, i have no clue anymore.

[phatcorns]

if you want to go one last step further, you can try with my mister main and mister.ini that i used to run the test on my side:

• backup your files (rename is best, otherwise you cannot copy anyway)
• unzip and copy the attached files to your sdcard
• cold boot your mister without bluetooth/network, only one usb controller or keyboard
• run the newest core PSX_20230503
• run FF8 bin/cue
• bin has sha-1: 5028A4F815A50D6FFE16F9C3E44EC6235A81F3F5
  cue has content:
  FILE "filename.bin" BINARY
  TRACK 01 MODE2/2352
  INDEX 01 00:00:00

If that also doesn't work, i have no clue anymore.

So I went ahead and bit the bullet and got another de10 nano. And it turns out my old de10 nano was just defective. The FF8 opening cutscene worked flawlessly on the new one. Not sure what is wrong with the old de10 nano, but at least it still works for most cores.

Thanks so much for your help (and everyone else in the thread). Still no clue what is wrong with the de10 nano, but glad it’s figured out. Thanks again

[FPGAzumSpass]

Did you try to swap the sdcards to be sure it is really the board?
Could be it was only a setting in the end and it would be great to know if that was the case.

[phatcorns]

Did you try to swap the sdcards to be sure it is really the board?
Could be it was only a setting in the end and it would be great to know if that was the case.

Yeah, actually the only thing I did was put the old sd card into the new de10 nano and start up FF8. Tried it twice and the fmv finished both times without a hitch.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I did try your mister and mister.ini files in the old de10 and unfortunately that didn’t help; still glitched.

[FPGAzumSpass]

Wow, I have never seen that and cannot imagine what the reason is.
Thank you for testing and reporting back.

[Hackshed_Carl]

Glad you got to the bottom of it.
I had a faulty DE-10 at first too.
Fails RAM tests even without RAM module inserted.

It happens