How far did you get in Chrono Trigger?

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

What version are you playing (SNES, DS, PS1)?

[To4oo4]

DS version.

[Redline57]

Chrono Trigger was out on Playstation?

[To4oo4]

Yeah. I've heard it was really bad, though.

[Acacia Sgt]

Mostly the loading times, I believe. An issue that was more about the way discs store and read data.

Unless there's someting else I'm missing on. Admitedly, the PSX version is the one I'm least familiar with.

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

I owned the PSX version as part of Final Fantasy Chronicles.

I believe the only changes were the addition of the animated cutscenes and the music library.

The only negative was the loadtimes, especially when it comes to battles.

[Redline57]

Load times? I'm surprised, this game was only like 4 Megs, FF7 was over 3 discs close to 800 Megs, and was 64 bit, Chrono Trigger couldnt load faster on a superior (technically) console?

[trig]

The port was poorly done. A bunch of disc reading was performed before and after each battle, so there's a 6-8 second pause where the characters and monsters just shoot the s***.

video example, http://youtu.be/ot6nEq75mr0

[Acacia Sgt]

Load times? I'm surprised, this game was only like 4 Megs, FF7 was over 3 discs close to 800 Megs, and was 64 bit, Chrono Trigger couldnt load faster on a superior (technically) console?

This has been explained before. Discs and cartridges have different ways to store and read data. Due to the way the data can be stored on the disc, the amount of times it needs to spin for the disc reader to read any given string of data in its correct order means it can take more time.

Also, CT for PSX is like 290 MB's (assuming nothing much was added to its PSN version to increase its size), not 4.

[Redline57]

That seems odd, those anime videos must be uncompressed avi files, hehe.

[Acacia Sgt]

That seems odd, those anime videos must be uncompressed avi files, hehe.

It isn't just the anime cutscenes. The extras stuff like the bestiary, item artwork, tech library, etc. Were also in the PSX version.

Even if not, the game was bound to get bigger. You don't just port the files and expect the Playstationn to run them as-is. There were likely modified, or stuff added to them, so they could run in the PSX. I wouldn't be surprised if at least over half of those 290 MB's are the stuff necessary so it could run on the PSX. Then again, I'm not that an expert on porting from Console A to Console B, but it's certain the game was never going to be 4MB's on the PSX.

[Redline57]

Is tehre like an operating system's worth of coding? My PC's emulator program is about 1Mb, Chrono Trigger is 4Mb on here, i've played the whole thing. Crimson Echoes was like 7Mb, all working. What are they doing in there? Is it 300Mb of anti-piracy coding or something? Square put in a video on why cease and desist letters are appropriate?

[Mauron]

I checked my ripped copy of CT PSX, it's 522 MB. The bulk of it is movies. They also have larger versions of the music and sounds, presumably better quality. There's also a copy of the JP ROM that's used for looking up some data.

Chrono Trigger's data is less than 4 MB, but the chip its on is 4MB, so garbage data is included in that 4MB. Some is at the end, some is in the middle.

...Ok, why is MONSTER.DAT 23 MB? I think I'll poke around that one a little tomorrow.

[Vehek]

I can't find the post, but I think Gemini once explained some of the inefficiencies of the PS version, like it pointlessly decompressing all the NPC graphics when the menu is opened.

[To4oo4]

We should probably start a separate thread for this.
Seriously sounds bad though.