The Retro FIFA Discussion Thread (All FIFA games by EA are welcome!)

[Sami 1999]

The curse of FIFA 09 PC port has been finally lifted after 17 years. The stupid T-pose bug is finally resolved: https://soccergaming.com/forums/threads/cursed-t-pose-bug.6467687/post-6913900

There are still some visual artifacts like flickering black lines outside of the play area. But this is a huge progress.

 

[sleevel]

The curse of FIFA 09 PC port has been finally lifted after 17 years. The stupid T-pose bug is finally resolved: https://soccergaming.com/forums/threads/cursed-t-pose-bug.6467687/post-6913900

There are still some visual artifacts like flickering black lines outside of the play area. But this is a huge progress.

I’m very confused. Is this the same as the Xbox 360 version? I assumed the PC port was PS2, but when I watched a few videos recently, the graph is looked very high quality, similar to XBox 360 level.

 

[fabrif94]

I played a few matches this week in FIFA 11. It’s such a special game, even after all these years. The fluidity, the smooth animations… Many of the goals scored are the kind you’d see in a real match. It really is a special game.

It is a good game, its graphics are very beautiful.

It is a shame that the possibility of creating stadiums for that game has never been achieved.

Another problem I saw was that its AI was very aggressive, when you predicted it you could score 8 goals against any team

 

[Sami 1999]

I’m very confused. Is this the same as the Xbox 360 version? I assumed the PC port was PS2, but when I watched a few videos recently, the graph is looked very high quality, similar to XBox 360 level.

It's a hybrid. It's the same PS2 engine but now modified to make full use of programmable shaders. So the gameplay, commentary, audio, db, content- everything is exact same as PS2 version. However, following things were improved:

1. Player face, body and jersey 3D models. Player faces were straight up ripped from Xbox 360 version but converted to appropriate format.
2. Heavy use of normal maps, which resulted in very nice lighting and all the models had a more 3D feel because of this.
3. Improved textures.
4. 3D grass is back.


Following things were not on par with Xbox360:

1. No cloth physics, no hair physics.
2. No dynamic cloth wrinkle simulation, cloth wrinkles were static.
3. Accidentally used inverted normal maps for clothes making it look weird like the ps3 versions.
4. Gameplay: It's just the Ps2 version and doesn't feel as good as Xbox 360 versions where gameplay drastically improved.

Following things are better than Xbox360 and Ps3 versions:

1. 3D grass is actually present on all cutscenes. Thus the game actually looks superior to Xbox 360 in terms of overall visuals thanks to the highly dense looking 3D grass and also in a way a more artistic lighting on player models.
2. Since cutscenes and cutscene animations are basically straight up PS2 versions, the overall cutscene presentation looks miles better than Xbox 360 and Ps3 which had some of the worst looking cutscenes, there were barely any cutscenes on FIFA 07-10 and looked like ass.
3. 60/ 120 FPS cutscenes and replays. Looks smooth and great unlike the 30 FPS cutscenes on x360 which also had animation stutters on top of that.




FIFA 09 and 10 were basically pure hybrids. Almost something we should have gotten all the way back in 2004/05s since GPUs with programmable shaders were already a thing by then on PCs and even og xbox could handle some of it. Was held back thanks to PS2. Look at ESPN NFL 2k5 on ps2 vs og xbox, the latter looked completely different and made heavy use of normal maps and looked miles better than ps2.


FIFA 10 PC though, it was a heavy downgrade from FIFA 09 and was infested with visual bugs unfortunately.

 

[VENOM59]

What do you think of the PC version of FIFA 09? I liked the improvements in FIFA 06 and 07, but the 08, 09, and 10 games that came out afterward were really bad in my opinion. EA had focused on consoles and hadn’t improved the PC version at all. In PES on the other hand, there was no difference between console and PC versions back then. The games were way behind PES. Those were the years when I drifted far away from FIFA. I played a few matches and saw once again just how bad they really were.

 

[Sami 1999]

I absolutely hated FIFA 08 on PC because it was a downgraded mess. Not only was it old gen, the depth of field which EA finally got working on FIFA 07 pc for the first time ever no longer worked in FIFA 08 and instead the whole screen would have slight blur due to unfocus on high settings. And on top of that the football itself was not shaded. No lighting at all. Nothing. It's as flat looking as it can get. But on PS2 the ball looked just fine. On pc, some of the unlockable balls did have shading. Even the mow patterns looked incorrect.

I did like FIFA 09 just for the visuals. It looked good, really good. FIFA 10 idk what to say. Just take a look between FIFA 09 and 10:

fifa 09:


fifa 10:



Fucking hell. Not only that, the grass textures would render in low resolution if you set shader settings to max, but without setting it to max the lighting looked like complete dogshit. And only mow patterns 1, 3 and 9 would work on this game, rest of the mow patters would not work even if was set for a particular stadium [the game would instead show one of the previously mentioned three mow patterns]. Ronaldinho's Eyes were glitched out.

Only saving grace for this game was that the gameplay felt a bit nicer than 09. And you can pretty much get the lighting and grass color to look like that of 09 by modding [with no performance penalty], which makes it even more ridiculous. Why downgrade the visuals in the first place?


Suffice to say, I strictly played PES for most of the part on PC on those days, even if the gameplay was not near the levels of PES 05/06. It was just the better game for pc.

 

[VENOM59]

I was finally able to play this game without the black stripes.

 

[Sami 1999]

3D Grass now visible on FIFA 12 pc port. Not working with the Euro DLC update.


Mod available here: https://soccergaming.com/forums/threads/3d-grass-is-back-fifa-12-mod.6476643/

 

[Sami 1999]

Experimental mod: FIFA 15 3D grass is now being drawn on the whole field during cutscene and set pieces. However, still haven't managed to get it working on regular gameplay. Also the grass shine look is still being faded after a certain distance, that needs to be looked into and solved as well.

Bigger issue is this is causing a bug, not significant but noticeable which is when the camera pans outside of the stadium to show the whole area, there are random blocks of 3D grass floating around and looks like a mess.





Other than that, looks and runs great.

 

[Sami 1999]

 

[Sami 1999]

FIFA 15 3D grass mod released: https://soccergaming.com/forums/thr...increased-draw-distance-on-cutscenes.6476648/





3D Grass fully visible during gameplay now.

For now, it only works on legit copy from origin unfortunately. Tested on latest version from Retro fifa installer link thread and it seems to work with the CPY version too.

 

[VENOM59]

Looks awesome! I always loved FIFA 15-16 pitch. One of the best turfs in any other football games. Can you do it for FIFA 11 PC?

 

[Sami 1999]

Looks awesome! I always loved FIFA 15-16 pitch. One of the best turfs in any other football games. Can you do it for FIFA 11 PC?

I hope so! After dealing with Fifa 15, I plan on getting Fifa 11, 13 and 14 pc versions 3d grass to show at least on cutscenes and set pieces.

 

[VENOM59]

I hope so! After dealing with Fifa 15, I plan on getting Fifa 11, 13 and 14 pc versions 3d grass to show at least on cutscenes and set pieces.

Thanks! I'm waiting for FIFA 11

 

[hitmanuk]

Are people talking about recomps?

 

[Sami 1999]

FIFA 14 PC cutscene 3D grass is fixed. Draw distance is infinite, so it covers the whole field. Overall net improvement but far from perfect:

1. 3D grass is still missing from replays [not instant replay from pause menu, that works as usual].
2. 3D grass is missing during free kicks, goal kicks, penalty kicks, etc.
3. 3D grass is missing during gameplay camera.
4. Bug: The stupid dark shadow bug on practice arena can come over to match and make the whole stadium/part of stadium dark. To fix this, alt tab the game before starting a match and then tab back to game and if the game is no longer dark on practice arena/ kit select menu- then it's fixed.

Edit:
Mod released: https://soccergaming.com/forums/threads/3d-grass-is-back-fifa-14-mod.6476652/


Edit:
Mod updated, download link has been updated. Now 3D grass is visible on free kicks and other set pieces and also on replay. The shadow bug no longer carries over the match so it became non issue. However, during actual gameplay camera the 3D grass is still missing.

 

[Sami 1999]

@VENOM59 FIFA 11 went from not being able to get 3D grass at all to bit too good at 3D grass. Now 3D grass is visible literally everywhere. Unfortunately, while I really love having 3D grass on gameplay and it does look great- the mow patterns do not overlay on FIFA 12 and older games. So the grass will look mowless during gameplay. I have to either find a way to disable the 3D grass during gameplay or somehow modify the .fx shader files to incorporate the mow patterns on the 3D grass itself. Still, decent progress.

 

[Sami 1999]

FIFA 13 almost working as well. However, this stupid shadow bug that appears on practice arena is haunting FIFA 13 as well. And unlike 14, alt-tabbing while fixes the lighting often causes the game to crash. If only there was a way to just discard the practice arena shadow completely to avoid this issue altogether.

 

[Sami 1999]

FIFA 11 - 3D Grass patch released: https://soccergaming.com/forums/threads/3d-grass-is-back-fifa-11-mod.6476657/

This one works much better than FIFA 12 and 14 because 3D grass is visible everywhere just like FIFA 15. Even on gameplay. Although the 3D grass itself doesn't have mow patterns overlay on it which makes the mow patterns less defined- from gameplay camera angle the 3D grass is sparse enough to the point where you can still see the mow patterns. However, you can specifically disable the 3D grass for only gameplay cameras and set pieces/cutscenes and 3rd person cameras will still show 3D grass. In future I will try to see if I can edit the 3dfingrass.fxo file to add the mow pattern on the shader itself.

 

[*aLe]

Thank you pal, much much appreciated!

 

[sleevel]

FIFA 11 - 3D Grass patch released: https://soccergaming.com/forums/threads/3d-grass-is-back-fifa-11-mod.6476657/

This one works much better than FIFA 12 and 14 because 3D grass is visible everywhere just like FIFA 15. Even on gameplay. Although the 3D grass itself doesn't have mow patterns overlay on it which makes the mow patterns less defined- from gameplay camera angle the 3D grass is sparse enough to the point where you can still see the mow patterns. However, you can specifically disable the 3D grass for only gameplay cameras and set pieces/cutscenes and 3rd person cameras will still show 3D grass. In future I will try to see if I can edit the 3dfingrass.fxo file to add the mow pattern on the shader itself.



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Almunia is praying you keep continuing with your efforts.

One thing to consider is that an LLM assisted asset conversion pipeline is a very real possibility. For instance, instead of a recompilation of the 2010 and 2014 World Cup games, you could extract their assets and UI, convert them and play it in the native PC engine from whichever one you prefer. While it’s a magnitude bigger project, it’s a pretty repetitive pattern matching effort that LLMs are excellent at.

 

[VENOM59]

FIFA 11 - 3D Grass patch released: https://soccergaming.com/forums/threads/3d-grass-is-back-fifa-11-mod.6476657/

This one works much better than FIFA 12 and 14 because 3D grass is visible everywhere just like FIFA 15. Even on gameplay. Although the 3D grass itself doesn't have mow patterns overlay on it which makes the mow patterns less defined- from gameplay camera angle the 3D grass is sparse enough to the point where you can still see the mow patterns. However, you can specifically disable the 3D grass for only gameplay cameras and set pieces/cutscenes and 3rd person cameras will still show 3D grass. In future I will try to see if I can edit the 3dfingrass.fxo file to add the mow pattern on the shader itself.



View attachment 459479View attachment 459480View attachment 459481View attachment 459482

Great! Thanks

 

[VENOM59]

I have visual problem. How can I resolve this issue? @Sami 1999

 

[Sami 1999]

Almunia is praying you keep continuing with your efforts.

One thing to consider is that an LLM assisted asset conversion pipeline is a very real possibility. For instance, instead of a recompilation of the 2010 and 2014 World Cup games, you could extract their assets and UI, convert them and play it in the native PC engine from whichever one you prefer. While it’s a magnitude bigger project, it’s a pretty repetitive pattern matching effort that LLMs are excellent at.

Yeah, I remember there being world cup patches for FIFA 11 and 14 on PC back in the days. But the biggest issue back then was that not all of the things had been ported. Like the cutscenes, game lighting etc. So while all the teams and soundtracks were there- the commentary, cutscenes and overall presentation was missing, along with the distinct visuals of each of these games. If LLM's can help with total conversion, then that will be great.

I already started attempting on something like that on a very smaller scale in case of FIFA 15. I managed to find out the cloth physics files of FIFA 14 ps4 and FIFA 15. However, a straight up port is not possible since 15 implements lots of new parameters inside the cloth physics files. So the plan is to find out what exactly made the clothes bounce and bend better on FIFA 14 and then import those values on 15 to see if it makes the cloth physics better.

I have visual problem. How can I resolve this issue? @Sami 1999

In the plugins folder, open FIFA11_Grass3D.ini and change NoGrassInLiveGameplay=1 to 0.

This will disable the 3D grass from rendering only during gameplay camera.


Reason for such moire pattern forming on 3D grass- unlike FIFA 15, the 3D grass is very sparse on x360 era FIFA games. So when the camera is too zoomed out and the camera height is too high, the 3d grass breaks. Increasing resolution and enforcing SGSSAA might reduce it but the core problem remains. Right now it's better to just have it disabled on gameplay cameras. In future I will attempt to experiment with different 3D grass texture/ increase the density of 3D grass to see if it helps.

Alternatively, you can lower the height of the gameplay camera and zoom in a bit and it might reduce the moire pattern a bit.

 

[VENOM59]

Yeah, I remember there being world cup patches for FIFA 11 and 14 on PC back in the days. But the biggest issue back then was that not all of the things had been ported. Like the cutscenes, game lighting etc. So while all the teams and soundtracks were there- the commentary, cutscenes and overall presentation was missing, along with the distinct visuals of each of these games. If LLM's can help with total conversion, then that will be great.

I already started attempting on something like that on a very smaller scale in case of FIFA 15. I managed to find out the cloth physics files of FIFA 14 ps4 and FIFA 15. However, a straight up port is not possible since 15 implements lots of new parameters inside the cloth physics files. So the plan is to find out what exactly made the clothes bounce and bend better on FIFA 14 and then import those values on 15 to see if it makes the cloth physics better.

In the plugins folder, open FIFA11_Grass3D.ini and change NoGrassInLiveGameplay=1 to 0.

This will disable the 3D grass from rendering only during gameplay camera.


Reason for such moire pattern forming on 3D grass- unlike FIFA 15, the 3D grass is very sparse on x360 era FIFA games. So when the camera is too zoomed out and the camera height is too high, the 3d grass breaks. Increasing resolution and enforcing SGSSAA might reduce it but the core problem remains. Right now it's better to just have it disabled on gameplay cameras. In future I will attempt to experiment with different 3D grass texture/ increase the density of 3D grass to see if it helps.

Alternatively, you can lower the height of the gameplay camera and zoom in a bit and it might reduce the moire pattern a bit.

Looks very natural but I have to disable then I hope you can fix this.

Is it impossible to make 3d turf with older FIFA games like FIFA 08-09 PC?

 

[Sami 1999]

Looks very natural but I have to disable then I hope you can fix this.

Is it impossible to make 3d turf with older FIFA games like FIFA 08-09 PC?

09/10 PC already had 3D grass. Extending the draw distance is possible but there is a hard limit on the fade out distance after which the grass refuses to draw. Maybe using AI to find out the hard limit on exe and removing it can help. Will test it if I manage to fix the current FIFA games first.

As for FIFA 08, idk. Likely the code was completely removed. But FIFA 04-07 had 3D grass. And 3D grass was there on PC even on 04 and 05 and actually had better draw distance than consoles. However, from FIFA 06 and beyond, EA downgraded the PC port and removed the 3D grass. The game ini files still mention 3D grass but it simply doesn't render- either because the exe no longer calls for it/ something is messed up in the code/the 3D grass asset file is missing.

FIFA 06, 06wc and 07 still had the 3D grass on the og xbox ports. Ideally I'd play the xbox versions on Xemu. But that emulator runs like ass even on my 9800 x3D and 5070 Ti. So that is beyond salvagable. Hopefully someone will make recomps of FIFA 04, 05, 06, 06wc and 07 from og xbox versions too so that we get proper visuals.