Does FP crash near or during the rendering process? Here are some potential solutions:

Isaac Sauvage

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Final Fantasy loaded just fine for me in vanilla FP, but when I tried to run it, it crashed near the end of the 'load bar' process, just before the table was graphically depicted.

Later, after playing around with a number of settings, I found that bumping up these two items prevented the crashes on my setup.

Here then is potential solution #1:

FF Settings.jpg
Note: you can also try leaving "Disable GLSL Shaders" unchecked (bottom-center)

Potential solution #2: (thank you, @AnonTet, below!)

Run the table via Vanilla FP or via FPloader (BAM) in Win8 compatibility mode,
and -not- as an administrator.

Potential solution #3:

Other settings changes may also work. See beginning of page #2.

...​

I'm also wondering if the crashes are due to either: 1) high-def textures being forced to scale down too far, or 2) a slightly-different JPG format is being used that wasn't known when FP was released. Or... something like that?

Edit2: Improved title and wording to make the issue clearer.
 
Last edited:
Solution
I certainly don't have lack of ram nor vram.
This table crashes on the loading last stage "getting ready to play.." then wait a couple of seconds and crash. Running FPloader as administrator crash but if I run in Win8 compatibility mode, it works!

Reminder: I'm on Win11 using BAM .340... And here I was thinking I could stop running FP in Win8 compatibility mode :(
Well, you'll have to define vanilla FP. I for one understand vanilla what's on ravarcade website. It's not even worth mentioning an install without BAM, period.

There are a lot of issues on those options. Enabling Super Nice Crystal Rendering actually gives me a worse image, and enabling Anisotropic filtering is also bad.

It s known to have Model Quality on High as well.

There is a way to overcome all this if you own an nvidia though. Just go to nvidia control panel and set fploader.exe and/or FuturePinball.exe on a profile of their own and nvidia drivers will override whatever you set there.

For what is worth and please note I use a gtx1080, here are my settings for the clearer picture I can get with "vanilla" FP (read BAM 2-in-1 install from Ravarcade website)

1638801038622.png
 
@AnonTet,
Yeap, I'm calling Black's final FP version (i.e. the one hosted on his site, and also Ravarcade's) "Vanilla FP." Anything else is either an earlier FP version or a hack AFAIK.

BAM has no bearing here, since Final Fantasy was written to work without it.

The image-quality controls are neat, and something I keep fiddling with, but don't actually relate to the core problem. The core problem is as the user described-- they couldn't run the table at all because of the crashes.

So I cleared up the crashes, but am left curious as to what's happening behind the scenes.

Btw, one clue that helped me is that when I turned up the visual depth, the table loaded a little further than it did at first, suggesting I was on the right track. That helped me realise that the z-buffer probably needed a boost as well. And it worked.

But I'm wondering why, since I believe other tables I've run (I'm thinking Slam's and Polygame's) also had high-def textures, yet didn't crash in the boot-up process.
 
I never had a crash because of settings until that GLSL issue testing for you on the link above

But again, I have a very particular opinion on trying to run things on potatoes. Problem just aggravated by FP being old and... let's say unpolished, software. Still I don't really blame FP in this case which.

I could write another sentence here regarding that user rating a table because of this particular problem but I don't know that many euphemisms :D

/edit

#$%&"#$%. Sorry for the double post.
 
I tried the table on my PC and it crashes. I would say it is not a setting problem. Ghostmachine never finished the script on any of his tables. It probably not worth spending time on it.
 
I tried the table on my PC and it crashes. I would say it is not a setting problem. Ghostmachine never finished the script on any of his tables. It probably not worth spending time on it.
But are your visual depth and z-buffer the same as the original image? Because that fixed it on my end.

If your settings the same and it still crashes, then I'm throwing my hands in the air.
 
No I didn't change the image. I will try it if you post it.
 
No I didn't change the image. I will try it if you post it.
The image in the first post simply displays my two FP settings of 32bpp visual depth and 24-bit zbuffer.

I found that the FF table doesn't crash at those settings.

If you can confirm or disprove that, it would be a help. Thanks.
 
The image in the first post simply displays my two FP settings of 32bpp visual depth and 24-bit zbuffer.

I always have both of those set as you have. It still crashes for me. I tried several of your other settings and doesn't help.
 
I always have both of those set as you have. It still crashes for me. I tried several of your other settings and doesn't help.
Interesting, thanks.

It's the strangest thing, but I can't even replicate the crash myself anymore. I set video depth and z-buffer back to my original lowered settings, and the table no longer crashes, even after I'd erased it's fpRAM file. I thought I had a tiny bit of insight in to all this, but I guess not.

Btw, I double-checked the major textures Ghostmachine was using, and they're 24bit.

@LockDown2341,
If you see this message, try the setting in the original post and see if they help you out.
 
Could you post your video/rendering options?
 
Enabling "Texture Filtering - Trilinear" doesn't actually help your textures look any better... but it does slow down your load times.

I normally enable Bilinear and Anistropic.
 
Best settings to use for max compatibility and good looks.

1638845665322.png
 
Okay, I've edited the title and first post to make it clearer what I'm after here, which is basically to understand more about why crashes happen. Specifically, could it really be due to how your current settings handle the table's textures?

Something related I'm starting to pick up on is that -when- a table crashes may tell you some good info about what the cause was.

- For example, if the table crashes when trying to load in the editor, an easy guess would be that it's a BAM table and you didn't start up with BAM. (could happen to many users)

- Other examples would be tables crashing at a specific point in the 'load bar' process, or during the later rendering process. In this case, it was the fact that the table was crashing between the handoff between the two that helped me understand what the cause seemed to be (bit-depth settings).

It's all still pretty confusing to me, though!
 
The only time I recall people having tables crash on textures is when the PC does not have enough memory to load them.
 
The only time I recall people having tables crash on textures is when the PC does not have enough memory to load them.
Any theories as to why this one crashes on your system, then?

Also, may I ask at what point specifically in the table loading process this one crashes?
 
Last edited:
I certainly don't have lack of ram nor vram.
This table crashes on the loading last stage "getting ready to play.." then wait a couple of seconds and crash. Running FPloader as administrator crash but if I run in Win8 compatibility mode, it works!

Reminder: I'm on Win11 using BAM .340... And here I was thinking I could stop running FP in Win8 compatibility mode :(
 
Solution
I certainly don't have lack of ram nor vram.
This table crashes on the loading last stage "getting ready to play.." then wait a couple of seconds and crash. Running FPloader as administrator crash but if I run in Win8 compatibility mode, it works!

Reminder: I'm on Win11 using BAM .340... And here I was thinking I could stop running FP in Win8 compatibility mode :(
Holy, poodle-pants, Batman!

Never occurred to me to try either compatibility mode or running in BAM. oO

Do you mind checking to see if the same is true for Vanilla FP?
 
Using Future Pinball.exe (installed using latest ravarcade2-in-1 at the time I installed BAM .340) crashes too. Unless I run it in Win8 compatibility mode, obviously.
 
Using Future Pinball.exe (installed using latest ravarcade2-in-1 at the time I installed BAM .340) crashes too. Unless I run it in Win8 compatibility mode, obviously.
Thanks a bunch, matey. <3

I added your solution to the OP, and plan to bundle the best findings here in to my little guide.
 
I was able to play it in Win7 or 8 compatibility mode on win10. I don't know why it works.
 
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