Final Fantasy 7 (Specific Problem)

[worldgate989 0]

I managed to get the game to work following the instructions from what several people said but I have a problem. When you goto the chocobo races the game locks up then crashes back to windows 2000. I have Service Pack 2, App Compat Update, and then the App Compat 1.5 installed already, and i used the QFixApp to get the game to run. Is there a way to keep the chocobo racing from crashing? If so, someone let me know.

 

Just in case it matters, im using a Voodoo 3 2000 as my video card.

[Xiven 0]

Nope. No way at all I'm afraid. Of course if anyone does find a way of making it work please let me know.

[worldgate989 0]

I think I know the problem, but there is no fix for it as far as i can tell.

 

When the game goes from the 2d with a 3d rendered character on it, it then switches directly to a full 3d rendered system (for the races). However something is happening, perhaps a value misplaced or some other such thing which causes it to lock up. Im suspecting it has something to do with the video, not the actually processor.

 

Any other thoughts?

 

Oh and I noticed that its relying on Direct X 5.1 (i think, could be 5.0) and last i checked, several DX files are -not- included on windows 2000.

[NowhereMan 0]

Has anyone ever tried the chocobo race sequence using software rendering mode? Perhaps that would work (probably a long shot though).

 

Just an idea.

[Poxnor 0]

I tried it in software as well (actually, I could only use software) and that unfortunately didn't fix the problem either.

 

Does anyone know if FF7 works ~perfectly~ under XP, or does it still have the problem with the chocobo race?

[Admiral LSD 0]

I have FF7 installed on WinXP (in fact that was my justification for upgrading to XP in the first place) but I'm not up to the chocobo races yet. If someone could send me a savegame (my ICQ# is in my profile) I could probably test it for you but even if it works for me it may or may not work for you...

[Poxnor 0]

Xiven had posted a save game for me earlier while we were working with Win2k. It's still available at:

 

http://www.ffseven.com/saves/save01.ff7

 

Thanks, Xiven

 

And thanks for testing, LSD

[Admiral LSD 0]

No problem at all, I'll get back to you with the results ASAP.

[Xiven 0]

IIRC it doesn't work in XP either

[Poxnor 0]

Hmm, this is gonna be funky. Cause under the compatibility listings for games on ntcompatible here, it shows that someone was able to play FFVII from start to finish with no problems on XP.

 

I guess we'll see what LSD comes up with here. Are you using the final release (2600) or a beta?

[Xiven 0]

That was on RC1 so yeah, it might be fixed in RTM.

[Admiral LSD 0]

Quote:

Are you using the final release (2600) or a beta?

I'm using the final release and guess what? It crashed. It doesn't seem to be limited just to the Chocobo racing either but rather the subgames in general. I went to the Wonder Square and tried the Snowboard game and it crashed there too. I recall reading a similar issue affected 2k in the NTCompatible game lists. Still there was someone who said that they played through the entire game (subgames included since from memory, you can't avoid any of them) under XP so I'm probably missing something here...

[AMDFreak 0]

I got FF7 working 99.9% in WindowsXP!

 

The .1% is....

 

1) All movies are upside down *shrugs*

 

2) The chocobo races crash maybe 1 in 10 attempts.

 

ALL other parts of the game work 100%!

 

Heres the specs:

 

AMD Athlon 1.4GHz

768Mb Crucial PC-133

Asus v8200 Deluxe (Using DetXP 21.83)

 

Im running with the Win98 settings in ACT2

 

Hope this helps ya'll, im off to play some more FF7!!

[Xiven 0]

Going here might fix those upside-down vidoes.

[AMDFreak 0]

Thankx for that Xiven, if any of you need help with specific instructions on what I did, please feel free to ask.

 

Oh and a FYI, this is XP FINAL Professional.

 

Thanks again everyone, you've made me very happy

[Poxnor 0]

Hmm, I went over to a friend's house who has XP, and we couldn't get it to work.

 

Could you please post the steps that you needed to take and what you did in ACT2?

(We just downloaded it, installed it, rebooted, ran QFixApp, and chose Win98 compatibility layer and ran it. Is there anything we were missing? We got the upside down videos as you predicted, but no luck with the chocobos. It still crashed Win2k-style)

 

Thanks for any thoughts!

[Admiral LSD 0]

You shouldn't need QFixapp if you run the game under XP since most of the compatibility features FF7 requires are built into the OS (Check in the Compatibility Administration Tool if you don't believe me). Does your friend have an nVidia based video card? I'm beginning to think thats where my problem is since the guy who said he got it running 100% said he had a Voodoo3...

[Poxnor 0]

Yeah, a lot of the fixes were built in, I see, hehe

 

Hmm, yeah, both my friend (under WinXP) and myself (under Win2k) use nVidia based cards -- a GeForce 2 MX and a Riva TNT respectively.

 

I was planning on installing XP on my parents' computer over the weekend, so I could try FF7 on that computer. But it has some cruddy Cirrus Logic video card (no name) that doesn't support all of the features required for hardware acceleration in Final Fantasy VII.

 

Does anyone here have both WinXP, FFVII, and a non-nVidia (actual) graphics card that they could attempt this with? (ie. A Radeon for example) so we could see if the video card is the reason it's all screwed up?

 

I'm not sure how likely this is though, because I thought I say someone else post in the compatibility listing that they got it running with a Ge3

 

But it's worth a shot. Maybe Eidos will release a patch..ha...ha...<groan>

 

Thanks for your help and responses. Let's get this great game running under what looks to be a promising operating system

 

BTW, I have one final question for anyone who may know:

Is there a difference in the core functionality between XP-Home and XP-Professional? ie, would which version you use affect compatibility? Or is it basically the same OS with a different name and a few different, user-end features?

 

Thanks!

[Poxnor 0]

Yeah, I just looked it up, and AMDFreak got it running with an Asus V8200 (GeForce 3).

 

But I figure it's still worth a shot to see it with different video cards. I'll post my results with the Cirrus Logic card when I get around to trying it out (hopefully within a few days, but I'll have to see how work goes).

 

In the mean time -- AMD Freak, did you do anything extra special that may be helping you out? In other words, could you please post the exact steps you used to make it run, including whether or not you used QFixApp (which you seemed to allude to) or not? Thank you very much!

[AMDFreak 0]

Sorry for my lack of attention to this topic, I got wound up in FF7 and then had to uninstall XP and use Win2k for a short while, however.....

 

I will be installing WinXP Professional again REALLY soon and I will post the EXACT steps I took.

 

Just keep your eyes peeled on this post over the next week.

 

Regards

AMDFreak

[Poxnor 0]

Thankies

[Bishamon 0]

What am I doing wrong when I can't even play FF7? I can start the game but after I choose "new game" all I see is the conversations, but no graphic at all. Everything is black 'cept for the blue talk-bars

 

I have tried running FF7 with and without the patch, in software and in 3D, with and without QFixApp (all of these combinations). What up?

I'm running W2k onna 1ghz T-bird, 384megs and GF2 Pro with all the latest drivers.

 

Edit: Oh and yes, I have read the old thread about FF7 but those tips haven't helped either

[Xiven 0]

Try running FF7 in software mode. Also try different GeForce drivers. Some work better than others.

[Oculus 0]

Like said before, try other drivers.

 

I don't have FFVII but FFVIII only works with reference drivers 14.xx or below. The 21.xx drivers all have graphics corruption.

 

Still waiting for AMDfreak to post instructions on how to get it running under XP

 

PS. Does anybody now where to buy FFVII for PC online ? Only place I could find it was eidos.com and they charge $38 for shipping to Europe (the game is $19.99 !), the Europe based Eidos don't have it

[Bishamon 0]

Well today I tried 5 different drivers trying to get FF7 to work. The 12.41s, 12.90s, 14.10s, 21.83s and 22.50s. No change in either 3d- or software-mode. This is slowly starting to tick me off. What drivers do have if you can get FF7 to work? My screen is still black, the only thing I see is the blue talk-boxes....