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Excising FMV to Save Space (PSX Version)

Started by Neophyte Ronin, July 25, 2019, 04:22:27 pm

Neophyte Ronin

July 25, 2019, 04:22:27 pm Last Edit: July 26, 2019, 05:05:06 pm by Neophyte Ronin


I understand there are several locations in the PSX's FFT Data (I imagine Event.BIN but I'm likely wrong) that summons seven full-motion videos:

#1: Four that loop in: Opening Cinema, Lion's War Explanation, Cinematic Promotion as seen at Trade Expos, and the bombastic Class Overview.  The first always plays because it resets to the start of said code, while it also checks for what time-delay cinema played last.

#2: Three In-Game Cinemas (one after stating Name and Birth Date and after the Funeral Cinema, one for the Ending and another for Credits unless both of those are combined).

Seven in all.  In contrast, Vagrant Story has two--Title Cinema and Credits--and has far more game from a certain point of view.

If a mod altered the story, classes, or even sported a custom title screen, the FMV sequences interfere due to their specificity.  Stopping playback may involve changing or just "NOP'ing" code pointers; FFT Arena doesn't need to see the opening cinema.  It must be more complicated to ensure the Title Menu appears, but doing this prevents a custom title screen from clashing with an antiquated FMV.

After that, the FMVs take up space.  Question is: would nixing FMVs provide more space for other data if the registers got expanded, just like nixing text data for Kanji and non-translated Magi-Fiction books, or are they some other kind of data that cannot be applied elsewhere without a massive overhaul?

EDIT: Answered--excising FMVs do not expand upon the 700MB writable space as it's a PSX disc hardware issue.

Then again, cinemas can be nixed to display pertinent FMVs or audio data; I assumed the existent data hogged all the space so nothing else could happen without excising existent code and content.  That isn't the case, it seems.

Thanks for replying!

Zenn

No.

PSX space issues are not related with the size of the image (700mb) but rather the small amount of RAM the console has (2mb, developer console has 8mb).
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown

3lric

Lol weird topic. But as the person said above. No. This doesnt grant you more space.

Next time just ask the question "would removing the videos potentially give the game more space" rather than write a book to ask a question. There is plenty of space left in the game to be used as is.
  • Modding version: PSX

Glain

Regarding what is actually playing the FMVs at the titlescreen, the code in OPEN.BIN probably controls that, but it needs more investigation.  I did document some of it, starting with the main routine here.

Quote from: Neophyte Ronin on July 25, 2019, 04:22:27 pm
if the registers got expanded


Haha what?  They're 32 bits wide at the hardware level.
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown

Xifanie

I actually made a hack for JotF to use the audio of another FMV and not use the video itself since it wasn't fitting with the new title screen... It would need some editing for public release.

Edit: This will should work fine. I don't know if the last line is required or not. I don't have time to test either.

<Patch name="Hide Intro Video Hack">
<Location file="OPEN_OPEN_BIN" offset="3084">00000000</Location>
<Location file="OPEN_OPEN_BIN" offset="3CAC">00000234</Location>
<Location file="OPEN_OPEN_BIN" offset="2E90">0000</Location>
</Patch>

  • Modding version: PSX
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