Widescreen Gaming Forum

Okay PS. Here's what I do to get FFVII running on Windows XP:

1. Install FFVII without DirectX 5 or the Movie player that comes packaged with the installer. (Just install the items that are required by the game). But do a FULL install when asked.

2. Install Official 1.02 Patch. available here: http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=4351.0 The official patch is half-way down the screen.

3. Now is where you choose whether you want the high resolution patch or not (I'm writing this with the assumption that you do).
So download the Hi-Res patch (both the patch for 1280x960 and 1280x1024 are in the zip file). Available here if you don't have the patch: http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=5327.0

Also for your convenience, the Hi-Res patch has been packaged with the Windows XP chocobo patch, so the game will not crash at the chocobo races during that part of the game.

4. After you've applied the patches, go to your ff7 configuration file and open it. In the file go to your "Graphics" tab and make sure "Direct3D Hardware Acceleration" is selected in the Renderer pull down. Make sure Display Resolution is set to 640x480 16bpp (Full Screen). And finally make sure the nVidia box is Checked and the TNT radio button is selected. The page should look like this:



5. After applying all of this, you still may find instability in playing Final Fantasy VII. One thing that helps resolve instability, is to set compatibility mode for the FF7.exe. To do this, go to your ff7 directory the default path is: C:Program FilesSquare Soft, IncFinal Fantasy VII

In that folder find the FF7.exe file and right click on it. Go to properties>Compatibility tab.

In this menu, click the check box that says: Run this program in compatibility mode for, and then select Windows 98 in the drop down box.
Click apply and that should clear up some or all of your issues if the game is randomly crashing.

The things I just listed are things that are necessary (sans the Hi-Res Patch) to get the game to run properly.

Here's some more tips for the game if your still having issues:

If your movies aren't playing correctly or they are playing upside down, you'll need what's known as the "Duck" Patch. This will correct the upside down movie problem experienced on some PC's.

Available Here:
http://aaronserv.dyndns.org/hosting/ffsf/downloads/ff7betap1.exe

Another tweek you can do, is if you think the movies are playing too slow or choppy, you can have the movies play from your HDD instead of your CD-ROM. To do this, read this FAQ on the subject (I have my movies set up this way and it works great).
http://www.ff7-universe.com/Downloads/FF7Movietweak.txt

That's all the information I have on the subject. If you're still having troubles, register over @ qhimm.com in there forums and someone should be able to help you.

Using the Hardware in my signature, this game plays flawlessly for me on Windows XP Professional SP2. I have no reason to believe that it cannot work for you as well. Good Luck. :)


EDIT: One flaw in the game that I forgot to talk about is, once you exit the game after you're done playing or whatever, you must go into your Task Manager and under the processes tab, kill the process FF7.exe. For some reason even after quitting the game and you're back at the desktop, the exe does not want to close.

I've noticed other people having this same issue, and I don't know of a work around for it. I just live with it and remember to kill it after each session playing.


EDIT #2: These steps should work the same, if you're running Windows 2000 Pro, but there are added steps that need to be done for setting compatibility for the .exe. There's a write up over @ qhimm that better describes the steps to get it to work properly on that OS.


EDIT #3: I found out today, that my uncle is not able to use FSAA when playing this game with his Radeon X850XT Video card, if he does use it, he'll get the grid-line effect that makes the game look absolutely awful. This seems to apply to everyone using an ATi based video card as 8-bit Pallete textures are non-existant in ATi drivers. However, he says he is still able to use "Adaptive AA" force enabled in his video card drivers.

Cool - I'll give it a shot, but I've tried most of that already...

Here's hoping that works. :)

Well, I hope it works for you. But if it doesn't make sure to try the duck patch as that does resolve some issues and also plop the movies on your HDD since that also seems to help eliminate some issues.

This thread was very helpful to me as well getting the game to work properly, so read through it if you have any more questions:
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=2670.0

hmm..
might going to try to get it to work on my current machine. really enjoyed FFVII on the PSX but for some reason i never was able to get the PC version to work on my previous machine (Asus PCDL Deluxe, 2x Intel Xeon 2.8Ghz, Ati Radeon X800XT)

hmm..
might going to try to get it to work on my current machine. really enjoyed FFVII on the PSX but for some reason i never was able to get the PC version to work on my previous machine (Asus PCDL Deluxe, 2x Intel Xeon 2.8Ghz, Ati Radeon X800XT)

You have a very similar system to my own, I don't see why the steps that I laid out above would not work for you. Good luck. :)

[quote]hmm..
might going to try to get it to work on my current machine. really enjoyed FFVII on the PSX but for some reason i never was able to get the PC version to work on my previous machine (Asus PCDL Deluxe, 2x Intel Xeon 2.8Ghz, Ati Radeon X800XT)

You have a very similar system to my own, I don't see why the steps that I laid out above would not work for you. Good luck. :)

i gave it a shot and got stuck at step two, all the links in that thread are death. took some time to find all the patches but i think i got them now.
i only played for 7 mins or so but so far its works! :)

*update*

Applied the 1280x960 patch and i must say that all the pre-rendered backgrounds (means everything except battle and movies) looks just like a big pile of pixels.
Is there anything I should change/tweak to fix or make this a bit better?



this picture is made with the 1280x960 patch running and no scaling so the picture barely fills 50% of my 1920x1200 screen :roll:

There's nothing you can do about that. As that's pretty much how the game looks @ 640x480 as well. Remember this game is from late 1997 (PC Version anyways) so if you expect great detail out of everything you're in for disapointment.

Right where you are, the back round doesn't look to good. Wait until you get out on the world map though, it looks really nice at that point. :)

I'm glad you got it working. :)


Like I said previously too, the Hi-Res Patch creator is looking at creating a patch to give 1600x1200. That should look a little bit better on your larger widescreen monitor.

How does the game look when you stretch to fit 1920x1200? Pretty bad?

yea im glad i got it working... tho i fear it's going to cost me a lot of time once more :roll:
when i was playing the PSX version years ago i was really addicted and FFVII is still the single player game i put the most time in ever.
I just cant remeber that it was so pixelated.. ooh well i can play it and thats far more important :)
yes i tried to strech it to full screen but then the aspect ratio is not correct anymore and it doesnt look good at all.
btw, do you use a patch for the mini games? i read that the mini games go insanely fast on current 2Ghz+ systems.
well im going, have to play a certain game ;)

yea im glad i got it working... tho i fear it's going to cost me a lot of time once more :roll:
when i was playing the PSX version years ago i was really addicted and FFVII is still the single player game i put the most time in ever.
I just cant remeber that it was so pixelated.. ooh well i can play it and thats far more important :)
yes i tried to strech it to full screen but then the aspect ratio is not correct anymore and it doesnt look good at all.
btw, do you use a patch for the mini games? i read that the mini games go insanely fast on current 2Ghz+ systems.
well im going, have to play a certain game ;)

The only mini-game that's affected by newer CPU's is the Motorcycle race (the one that's done when you're escaping from Midgar). The only known work-around for that, is to force set Vertical Sync in your Video Card Drivers. That will force the game to only play at 60 FPS Max and atleast make the game somewhat playable (Atleast a lot better than 400+ frames per second through the whole race).

400+ FPS.. that is fast :shock: :D
i'll see how it goes, im getting close the the great escape :)