Final Fantasy VII In Restored Glory - Install Guide
By Jeffrey | October 5, 2007
Final Fantasy 7 is almost universally declared to be one of the greatest role-playing games of all time.
Its release on the original Playstation sold millions of copies, and stole away the hours for many a gamer who fell under its spell.
Unfortunately, as many others also found out, the PC version was horribly ported. The beautiful soundtrack was converted to simple midi files (similar to the Playstation’s psf files, but lacking in quality), and the graphics would only display up to 640×480 resolution.
Although, to be fair, it did look better than the Playstation if one had a 3D card to run it on.
Various unofficial patches were released over the years, including the infamous “XP Patch” (which did nothing, and often broke everything), but none really salvaged the PC version to what it should have been.
Until now.
Just So You Know
First off, if you’re trying to follow this guide using one of the many pirated versions of FF7 floating around, I make no guarantees as to whether any part of this guide will work for you. I highly recommend finding a legitimate version of the PC release. You can find it on Amazon, or for around $20 on Ebay.
Also, the patches here were created by some very talented people over at the Qhimm forum. So check it out!
First Things First - Install The Game
I bet you didn’t see this coming, but if you want to play the game you’re going to have to go ahead and install the game.
DO NOT install DirectX 5, DirectShow, or the Yamaha Synthesizer. Most Windows installations should come with far more recent versions of the first two, and because we won’t be using the default midi music the Yamaha Synthesizer is useless.
Now, back on topic, choose the Maximum Installation, choose where you’d like to install it, and let the program do its work. When it is finished, ignore the 3D Card notice, and the readme file, and the installer will close itself.
Patch It - Official
Before you try to run the game, download the 1.02 Patch here, and copy the files inside to your FF7 installation directory. Choose to overwrite the original ff7.exe and FF7Config.exe.
Revolutionize The Resolution!
Unless you want to be stuck at a paltry 640×480, download The SaiNT’s High Resolution patch here.
This file may appear in some anti-virus programs as containing a trojan. It does NOT contain malicious code. Read more here: http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=7095.0
This will patch your game to 1280×960.
It MUST be installed on a clean 1.02 version of ff7.exe, meaning no other patches can be installed first.
Also, if you’d like, you can patch the game up to a 1280×1024 resolution. All this does is add a black bar along the bottom of the screen, but it is useful if you use a monitor with that default resolution - such as most LCD screens.
If you’d like to do this, install the 1280×1024 Fix Patcher after the one above.
Fix The Music
The included midi music is, well, lacking in the original PC release. Ah, forget it, it just sucks.
So, download the FF7 Music patch, created by Ficedula. This will replace the midi music with the original Playstation version’s psf files.
Create a folder named Ficedula in your FF7 installation directory, and copy all the files from the zip file you downloaded into it. Then copy ff7music.dll and Ficedula.dll into the main FF7 installation directory.
Now, open up the cetra folder in your Ficedula directory you created, and open cetra.exe.
Open Configuration, and make sure it has your correct FF7 installation directory and cetra patch directory, which should be under Ficedula/cetra. If not, change them so they are correct.
Keep Allow fuzzy searches and Allow registry edits checked.
Click OK and it will return to the main window. Select the ff7-music.cetra patch and apply it. If you’ve installed the patches above correctly to this point, it will close the main window for a second then return to it. It’s now patched.
Now, go back into the Ficedula folder in your FF7 directory and open ff7music.exe.
Go to the Setup tab. Under input plugin, select the in_psf.dll file, and under output plugin, select the out_ds.dll file. Both are in your Ficedula directory.
Alternately, you can use out_wave.dll instead of DirectSound, but you won’t get any crossfading.
Make sure volume is at full, and Pan is in the middle.
Click to Configure the Input plug-in and change the General tab options so they look like this:
Then click OK to return to the main FF7Music screen.
Move to the files tab now. The only thing you’ll need to change is at the bottom under Path to search for music files.
The directory you want is under the FF7Mp3/PSF directory in the Ficedula folder. Copy the full path into that bottom box.
Your Playback Options tab should look like this:
Now click Save & Exit.
Finally, you’ll need to stop the original midi files from playing. All this requires is muting your midi output in Windows.
Open up the Volume Control, and check the Mute box under your midi output.
You’ll need to go back and unmute it any time you want to hear midi again, however.
Last Patches
Just two quick patches to go.
The first one, download it here, will fix your Highway and Snowboard mini games so they don’t run insanely fast. The problem is that they were never coded with a CPU limiter. Dziugo managed to fix this dilemma.
Copy patch.exe to your FF7 installation directory and run it. When it’s finished rename the original ff7.exe to ff7.bak and patched_ff7.exe to ff7.exe.
The Avatars patch, created by Djé, will change your default character icon in the menus to updated high-res ones from Advent Children.
Download the replacement file here.
Open it up, and copy the menu_us.lgp file to the data/menu folder in your FF7 installation directory. Choose to overwrite the one that already exists.
Here’s how the change will look.
Before:
After:
Final Cleanup
Finally, open up FF7Config.exe. Make sure your Graphics tab looks like this:
That’s It!
Now, make sure one of the FF7 game discs is in your drive, and open ff7.exe. You should now be greeted with the Eidos intro movie, and a couple Squaresoft ones, then be placed at the main menu.
The game should now be working perfectly, in full updated high-resolution state.
The Finished Product
Here are some screenshots of what the game now looks like:
Possible Crashes - Battle Swirl, First Battle, No Movies
You don’t need to read any of this unless you are experiencing one/all of the problems described below.
Battle Swirl Crash
Some people might experience a game crash when entering a battle due to a “battle swirl” glitch.
To fix it, download the patch here and extract the contents to your main FF7 directory. There should be a patches folder, install.bat, readme.txt, and skerb.ex_.
Run install.bat to patch your ff7.exe file.
First Battle Crash
Sometimes the game might crash as soon as you enter the first battle. This can occur before, at the beginning, or at the end of the battle.
For the most part, there are 2 reasons why that would be happening:
1) You are running Windows 2000, which is known to have some issues with FF7. Try setting the compatibility mode to “Windows 95″ and see if it solves it. You can also try reading through possible solutions here.
2) You have a corrupted “battle.lgp” file, which is a common problem of the pirated versions of FF7. If you are using a pirated version, then tough luck. But if you have a legal copy, try replacing the battle.lgp file in the data/battle folder with the original from your installation disc.
No Movies
In some cases the movies will not play when you start the game. If that is the case for you, then download and install the TrueMotion 2.0 Codec. It will just install in a second, and then the movies should play fine.
Also, some movie codecs will conflict with the Final Fantasy 7 movie playback, notably the K-Lite Codec Pack. If you have that installed the only option is to uninstall those movie codecs, unfortunately.
Need Help?
If the game crashes for any reason not listed above, or you get no music, or poor quality music, double check each of these steps to make sure you followed them directly.
If you still can’t get it to work, leave a comment, or e-mail me at:
Topics: Guides |
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptIts release on the original Playstation sold millions of copies, and stole away the hours for many a gamer who fell under its spell. Unfortunately, as many others also found out, the PC version was horribly ported. … [...]
Posted by: Playstation » Final Fantasy VII In Restored Glory on October 5th, 2007 at 1:21 pmNice one!! I was about to throw in the towel before I saw this guide, but now it’s working A-OK (for now)! Just one thing though, you don’t have to mute the MIDI output in windows, just turn down the music 100% in-game, and only the superior music will play. Good on ya, mate! ^,,^
Posted by: Moondoggie on October 9th, 2007 at 12:03 pmProblem with saint hi res fix patcher.Every time i try run it(after running the 1280×960 patch which installs correctly) i get an error stating “Windows cannot access the specified device,patch,or file.You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item.” I’m a noob so i have no idea whats wrong.Any help would be much appreciated.
Posted by: Patrick on October 9th, 2007 at 6:30 pmPatrick,
Unfortunately that problem is not specific to FF7, but rather to your user account in Windows.
This site may be able to help:
http://www.techspot.com/vb/all/windows/t-7251-Administrative-Tools-in-WinXP-helppp.html
Or, you can always try the Google gods:
Posted by: Jeffrey on October 9th, 2007 at 7:47 pmhttp://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=6VQ&q=you+may+not+have+the+appropriate+permissions+to+access+the+item%22&btnG=Search
The Resolution Patch file that you have to download here contains a Trojan. thought you might want to know.
Posted by: Annonymous on October 11th, 2007 at 7:32 pmYeah, you’ll sometimes get that message. But it does not, in fact, contain any malicious code.
See more here:
Posted by: Jeffrey on October 11th, 2007 at 9:52 pmhttp://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=7095.0
wow, thanks for this article, i was into day 2 of trying to patch hi-res, but now it seems i will also use my ps controler to usb converter now to enjoy this epic once again.
Posted by: skybinary on October 12th, 2007 at 1:49 pmHi again, I dunno if anyone else has this prob or not, but a lot of people look like =O with their mouths open, and I’m wondering how to fix this if possible ^^; Its no big deal, it just looks retarded:
http://s12.photobucket.com/albums/a230/mellodragon/?action=view¤t=SP32-20071014-220924.png
Posted by: Moondoggie on October 14th, 2007 at 9:43 pmhttp://s12.photobucket.com/albums/a230/mellodragon/?action=view¤t=SP32-20071014-232317.png
Moondoggie,
Fortunately (Unfortunately?) that’s part of the original game, only it was much harder to notice at its original 320×240 or 640×480 resolutions.
Posted by: Jeffrey on October 14th, 2007 at 10:06 pmHey, great job on that article. It really helped made the game playable.
On another note, is there any way or program that mutes the MIDI volume on Vista? I can’t seem to find the option for it.
I’d lower the music in-game to 0% as Moondoggie had mentioned before but that also mutes the sound effects (eg. spell effects, attacks, etc.)
Thanks a bunch!
Posted by: Stephen on October 14th, 2007 at 10:16 pmStephen,
Read through the “Fix The Music” section above. I have updated it with a better way of getting rid of the original midi music.
Moondoggie,
This updated fix will also no longer require you to mute the midi output in Windows or turn down the music in the game.
Hope this helps!
Posted by: Jeffrey on October 14th, 2007 at 11:11 pmHi, love the article. Great to be able to play the game with proper quality music.
I do have a problem though…
Whenever I’m supposed to enter battle there is a random chance that the “swirl” will not start and the game, after a few seconds, crashes.
Also I get blue screen if i try to close the application properly (ctrl-alt-delete works).
By prossess of elimination I have found the cause of this problem to be the ff7.exe shipped with the 1.02 patch.
Is there a known solution to this problem?
Posted by: Draco on October 15th, 2007 at 3:33 pmDraco,
See the update above in the guide. Hope it helps!
Posted by: Jeffrey on October 15th, 2007 at 4:06 pmGreat, thanks! Didn’t help with the blue screen, but i’ll just ctrl-alt-del it.
Posted by: Draco on October 15th, 2007 at 6:57 pmI tried looking around for a while, and the closest answer I could find was that it may be a driver issue. I suspect you are using an NVidia video card?
If so, try updating the drivers to the latest version and see if it fixes anything.
Blue screens are the hardest errors to decrypt for FF7 as many things, some non-game related, can cause them.
Posted by: Jeffrey on October 15th, 2007 at 7:06 pmIs anyone else crashing right before Cloud enters the first battle? If there’s a fix for this please let me know. Thanks!
Posted by: Mooblez on October 16th, 2007 at 5:36 pmMooblez,
See my update on possible crashes above.
Posted by: Jeffrey on October 16th, 2007 at 7:12 pmHey, your solution to the MIDI problem worked great. I no longer hear the MIDI music anymore.
Which leads me to my next problem.
Entering a new scene restarts the music from the beginning. I can never get them to resume properly from where they left off.
I’ve tried checking off the option for “Always” and “Selective” under Resuming in the “Playback Options” tab but to no avail.
If you know of a solution, I’d really appreciate your help. Thanks!
Posted by: Stephen on October 16th, 2007 at 9:28 pmStephen,
I just double-checked, and you’re right! Thanks for ruining the game by making me notice it! *laugh*
It seems that replacing the “midi.lgp” file with empty midi songs causes this to happen. Currently, the only solution seems to be to just mute midi output, unfortunately.
I’ll keep searching for a solution and update if I find one.
Posted by: Jeffrey on October 16th, 2007 at 11:15 pmAbsolutely brilliant!
Posted by: JohnnyW on October 17th, 2007 at 8:34 pmWell I’ve found a half-hearted solution to the resuming problem.
It seems that using the latest version of the in_psf.dll and choosing “Selective” in the “Playback Options” gives around a 60-70% chance of the music resuming after a scene.
The in_psf.dll file that came with the ff7music patch above is version 1.00, while the latest one (version 2.09) can be found in Neill Corlett’s webpage.
It’s not a permanent fix, but at least it’s a step in the right direction. If you have time, perhaps you’ll give it a try and share the results.
Thanks for the help!
Posted by: Stephen on October 19th, 2007 at 11:52 pmIs there another solution to the first battle crashing problem? I don’t have a pirated version and I’m running Windows XP, but I still can’t seem to fix it.
Posted by: Mooblez on October 21st, 2007 at 12:10 pmHey nice job. I still seem to have 1 problem though. I crash before the snowboarding event still. any ideas? i tried to replacing the movie before it with another and still nothing.
Posted by: Pat on October 21st, 2007 at 10:06 pmPlease everything is working smooth except one thing…THE GRAPHICS
Great guide though, Can anyone help me PLEASE I’ve looked EVERYWHERE and no one else has had this problem (that I know of)
http://forums.eidosgames.com/showthread.php?t=72942
Posted by: Adam on October 27th, 2007 at 10:57 amAdam,
That is a very common problem with the Geforce 8800, as FF7 is a very dated game and NVidia dropped some old rendering capabilities.
One possible solution is to run the game on Vista:
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=6569.msg83518#msg83518
Or you can try the Forceware 158 drivers, which might also resolve it:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_158.19.html
Hopefully this helps you resolve it!
Posted by: Jeffrey on October 27th, 2007 at 11:29 amPat,
The snowboard mini-game can crash for many reasons, but the main one is a memory read error that occurs on NT-based operating systems - XP, 2000, etc.
The minigame patch I provided above should fix the problem, so make sure you followed the instructions exactly.
If that doesn’t solve it, you can try playing through the snowboard part in software mode in the graphics settings.
Finally, if that still doesn’t fix it, you’re welcome to e-mail me your save game and I’ll play through that part for you and send it back.
Hope this helps!
Posted by: Jeffrey on October 27th, 2007 at 11:35 amJeffrey,
Great guide. However, I have the original PlayStation version, although my PS died on me some time ago so I’m having to use emulation through my PC.
I’ve used ePSXe (for better graphics, primarily) and there are various glitches using plugins, such as the battle swirls not working and all sorts of stuff. Any ideas on how to avoid these? The forums which used to be good for researching this sort of stuff seemed to have been swallowed in the ether. I have used pSX, which is an emulator which doesn’t use plugins, but it shows just how ugly the original graphics are!
Cheers, Wommers.
Posted by: Wommers on October 29th, 2007 at 11:56 amHey Wommers,
Luckily, I actually own the Playstation version as well, and have toyed - rather unsuccesfully - with emulating it in the past.
I’ll pull it out and mess with it again, and if I can get it playing satisfactory - which means near-perfect - I’ll write up a guide.
Stay tuned…
Posted by: Jeffrey on October 29th, 2007 at 12:41 pm[...] it is evident that both versions have their attractions and their flaws - so seeing as I wrote up a Restored Guide for the PC Edition, I’ll cut both ways and show you how to fire up that old PSX copy you have floating [...]
Posted by: Final Fantasy VII In Restored Glory - PSX Edition at SavvyGeek on November 1st, 2007 at 8:50 am[...] writing up a couple of guides describing how to set up “Restored” editions of Final Fantasy VII for both the PC and [...]
Posted by: Final Fantasy VII Version Comparison at SavvyGeek on November 1st, 2007 at 1:25 pmHi. I’ve been trying to get this game to work since Christmas!
I managed to set everything up. But after the Eidos movie when I cut to the main menu it just crashes instantly.
Error message for the SaiNt’s high resolution pack v1.00
“The instruction at ‘jibberish’ referenced memory at ‘jibberish’. The memory could not be “written”
Also if I let the two opening movies play it cuts to another little movie showing developers names. The background appears to be black and white in a very messy fashion. Otherwise trying to access the menu just crashes the game.
Also, I installed the two drivers that came with the game. (doh) I updated to the recent version of DirectX only. After the screwup. (Directshow version is the one that came with the game because I couldn’t find a recent update anywhere.)
By the way. I’ve also changed my computer language settings to display both English and Japanese with the “Languages for non-unicode programs” settings.
Is there anything I’ve said so far that might be a possible cause for my issue?
Thanks!
Posted by: Jack on December 29th, 2007 at 4:25 amhi, i installed every single patch i needed they all work great..except when i put the high res patch it says patched…but when i click ff7.exe it turns black and then goes back to the windows menu !! somebdy help !!! i wanna play 1080 by 1024…by the way i have vista…
Thanks
Posted by: Phou on March 9th, 2008 at 5:07 pmsorry i meant 1280×1024
Posted by: Phou on March 9th, 2008 at 6:01 pmI followed the directions for fixing the music and get no error msgs, but there is no music playing in game. I downloaded the lastest in_psf.dll but that didn’t help. Tried changing the directories for input/output to Winamp. Input works okay, but output give an “access violateion…” error msg.
Posted by: Hyrulite on March 10th, 2008 at 4:53 pmRunning Vista Ultimate. Rplaced gm.dll in the windows\system32\drivers\ directory with a generated silence file so that midi would not play (there’s no convenient mute in vista). Any suggestions? Wish I could have music without it being the crappy midis.
soooooooo,
anybody knows how to play FF7 full screen…and yes i tried theSAint patch and it doesn’t work…please someone…and by the way i have %$?&*??% vista !!!!!
Thanks Phou
Posted by: Phou on March 12th, 2008 at 6:29 pmPhou,
What exactly is going on when you try to run the game? What are your settings? Did you follow the guide exactly?
I need some more information before I can help you figure out what’s wrong.
Posted by: Jeffrey on March 12th, 2008 at 11:28 pmyes i followed the guide…if i play the game without thesaint patch, the game works fine but on 640×480…when i put the saint hi res patch, it says it installed the patch…but if i try to run it it turns black and goes back to the windows menu !!!!!So if i put back ff7 1.02 patch and it works on 640×480 !!!!
Posted by: Phou on March 13th, 2008 at 11:38 amQuoted from The SaiNt:
I get a black screen when I start the game right after I apply the patch.
Check to see if you have Win98/ME compatibility mode enabled if you’re using Windows XP. Also check to see that you can play the FFVII movies directly in media player. Also check that you have 640×480 & TNT selected in the FFVII Config.
You can also try reading through the project forum here:
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=6005.0
Hope this helps!
Posted by: Jeffrey on March 13th, 2008 at 11:51 amfor the third time i have vista… and yes i have chose tnt blah blah blah..there must by an other way then the saint !!!!! cuz it doesn’t work !!!
Posted by: Phou on March 13th, 2008 at 12:10 pmpleaze
thanx
I WANNA PLAY FULL SCREEN
Posted by: Phou on March 13th, 2008 at 12:19 pmTHANK YOU!
Your guide has helped my FFVII PC version greatly. I can’t believe I’ve missed out on all of this for so long!
Posted by: Victor on March 18th, 2008 at 4:00 amHey jeffrey thanks for the patches. I have the so called “final fantasy (PC) ultima edition” installed. I’m not quite sure which of your patches are included in that one? I wanted to fix the music since it is crappy and actually missing in many places (bugs the hell out of me when it gets all quiet and I know there’s supposed to be noise) but when I get to the part when I’m supposed to run cetra and select the ff7-music.cetra to patch it says: “unable to create/open ff7.exe”. I have checked so that the info in configuration is correct but it still won’t work. then there’s a small window behind the error one that either says “try other data…” or “matched! applying…” either way it won’t work. any ideas on this? I’m using windows vista btw
Posted by: Martin on March 30th, 2008 at 3:58 pmThe Ultima edition has already had changes made to it - including a No-CD patch, if I’m not mistaken - so the executable files are probably notably different from a retail copy, so the patches listed here most likely will not work with it.
The Ultima edition has problems other than this, too, so I would recommend finding a retail copy if you can.
Posted by: Jeffrey on April 2nd, 2008 at 8:06 amI just recently installed the multi cd retail copy and did what you said above. The problem I have is after the intro cinematic plays it goes straight to black instead of showing cloud and the rest getting off the train. I see the text boxes show up but it is still all black and no music is being played. Any ideas on what might be going wrong? I’m using Vista Ultimate 32bit SP 1, and a 7800 gtx go card.
Posted by: Linh on April 2nd, 2008 at 10:28 pmYes. I’m also getting the same problem as Phou, up there, with the high-res patch, but I am using Windows XP (what’s the difference?). With 98/ME compatibility enabled, I’m getting a ‘black screen of death’ that doesn’t go away. Whereas when I didn’t have 98/ME enabled, the screen would only flash black quickly and return me to the desktop. Strange.
ANYWAY, it’s only my curiosity that had me download the high-res patch. I’m completely fine with playing the game at 640×480 Fullscreen. I’m just interested in that ‘Chocobo patch’, I suppose- the ‘minigames’.
[WARNING: Spoiler? I'm sure we've all beaten the game already, though!]
I’m at the point in the game where Cloud has no choice but to compete in a chocobo race to escape from the prison, and right before the race is about to start, the game crashes. (And this sucks since the last time you get to save is right before the battle with Dyne.)
You said to rename the original ff7.exe to ff7.bak and patched_ff7.exe to ff7.exe for the (Patch) download- minigames- and when I do this (without 1.02 and high-res), the game won’t run. Hm. Or do you need 1.02 in order to use the minigame patch. AH. My head hurts.
I would like some help on getting this minigame patch to work. Now I’m sure you’re a very busy person, Jeffrey. Whenever you have time, this assistance would be much appreciated! I’ll backtrack my steps until then.
Posted by: zeldog on April 4th, 2008 at 7:25 pmI fixed my Chocobo crashing problem!
This is what I did (for the curious):
Downloaded the Chocobo Crash Patch here;
http://www.ff7citadel.com/downloads/index.shtml
(These last two probably weren’t needed, but I downloaded them just to be safe.)
Windows XP Compatibility Patch;
http://www.sofotex.com/Final-Fantasy-VII-XP-Patch-download_L5052.html
and the Upside-down FMVs cutscene patch;
http://fem1.uniag.sk/Miroslav.Jezik/ff7ncopam.html
The cutscenes started playing upside-down during the game for some reason. Now, I’m off to see if the upside-down patch even worked!
The things you can do with a google search, I tell ya. BTW, still don’t know what to do about the High-Res patching problem. Maybe later.. >^_^
Posted by: zeldog on April 5th, 2008 at 3:55 pmzeldog,
I’m glad you got it to work!
But I can’t stress enough that I DON’T recommend the XP compatibility patch, as it’s really just a compilation of patches put together without credit being given and it has a high chance of breaking your entire FF7 installation.
Just saying… :)
Posted by: Jeffrey on April 5th, 2008 at 11:21 pmIt seems those of us with new hardware are screwed when it comes to the High Resolution patch. Almost every card out there now doesn’t support 8 bit paletted textures, and that seems to be the problem, or thats what C++ debuggers have been telling me and other people. If you can, you could try out an older video card, because trying to install ancient drivers doesn’t work because the hardware is just too new. Damn shame, I was looking forward to high resolution.
Posted by: ughbot on April 7th, 2008 at 4:45 pmIn case I’m wrong, what are your system specs Jeffrey?
Posted by: ughbot on April 7th, 2008 at 4:48 pmI think you’re right about the latest cards not working correctly. I’m running a x1600pro, but I think any newer models (the 8* series and above on the NVIDIA side, and x2* series and above for ATi, have zero 8-bit texture support at all).
I may be wrong, though.
If you’re that anxious for High-Res - and I don’t blame you - I’d recommend trying the PSX version using my guide, as the graphics look very comparable through that.
http://savvygeek.com/2007/11/01/final-fantasy-vii-in-restored-glory-psx-edition/
For informative purposes, I’m now running:
Athlon 64 x2 6400+
Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H
2gb DDR2 800 Memory
Radeon x1600pro
and Vista Business
I plan on just using the PSX version now, as many of you have stated Vista has issues with this game, and it also lacks the ability to disable midi output.
Posted by: Jeffrey on April 7th, 2008 at 7:09 pmJeffrey,
xD Yeah. I uninstalled the XP patch. Meh. As I go through the game, more and more problems are popping up. Siiiiiigh… My brain hurts!
I’ll just deal w/o the High Res. The game looks better on my computer than it ever did on my television, I’ll say that much. (Does that mean my TV sucks?!) Rofl.
:D
Posted by: zeldog on April 8th, 2008 at 2:22 pmHi, i did everything that you told me to do in the guide and no matter what i do on startup i get a black screen and a few sound effects and then it just stops all together and i have to go to task manager to get out of it. any idea whats wrong? thx
Posted by: Gordon on April 12th, 2008 at 10:33 amGordon,
That’s probably happening because you don’t have the correct video codec installed. Download the TrueMotion video codec (from above) and install it, then start FF7 up - it should work fine now.
Posted by: Jeffrey on April 12th, 2008 at 11:17 pmJeffrey,
Your patches are great, i only have one issue, i installed the full screen patch and the game looks great except there are little squares all over my screen. my computer is like 2 weeks old, has all updates, runs 4g’s of ram, has a gforce 7800 grf card, i mean its a good comp. ive tried everything to get ff7 to look good but it wont… any idea’s?
Posted by: Myles on April 15th, 2008 at 9:27 amMyles,
Unfortunately old games weren’t programmed perfectly - especially ported games like FF7 - so little issues like this pop up all the time as hardware gets better and newer.
However, a fix for this issue might exist for you based on what I could find.
Make sure you’re using the latest drivers, then go into your NVIDIA control panel and turn off all special features and turn all graphics options to Best Performance. Then in FF7Config make sure you have the NVIDIA and TNT boxes checked. That has a good chance of fixing it.
If not, or you want to see if there are other solutions, check around here:
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=6222.0
Hope this helps!
Posted by: Jeffrey on April 15th, 2008 at 5:39 pmJeff,
Posted by: Myles on April 15th, 2008 at 9:45 pmthat worked like a charm thank you so much, me and my Amry buddies are in ur debt!
HERE’S A FIX FOR TRUEMOTION’S CRASH
Hi. I installed FF7 the new way (it’s been a few years since I played it… :) and the TrueMotion codec simply refused to work. Every attempt to run the game after a few seconds would end with a message “Windows encountered a problem with ff7.exe and is going to close it” and the details would say this and that about a crash in tm20.ax. Maybe it doesn’t like dual core machines, who knows.
Anyway, here’s the solution (or at least what worked for me):
- uninstall the TrueMotion codec (means: search the registry for TrueMotion and Duck and delete every instance - AT YOUR OWN RISK, of course ;)
- click Start/Run, type “regsvr32 /u tm20.ax” (without “”) and click OK
- install ffdshow tryouts build, available here: http://ffdshow-tryout.sourceforge.net (I have an alpha build 1882 installed)
- enter the Video Decoder Configuration, select DirectShow Control and MAKE SURE:
a) BOTH compatibility lists are ENABLED
b) NO LIST contains “ff7.exe”.
Each attempt to play a game movie will result in a 15-20 sec. pause at the beginning, but at least the game WILL work. :)
IF YOU EVER SEE a dialogue asking whether to allow/disallow ffdshow usage in ff7.exe, do not do ANYTHING. It’s illogical, but that was the only way to make it work on my machine. I’m on WinXP, AMD A64 X2 and ATI x1950 Pro.
Have fun. :)
Sambucus Nigra
Posted by: Sambucus Nigra on April 21st, 2008 at 7:29 pmP.S. Jeffrey, MANY thanks for this excellent guide! :) Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Posted by: Sambucus Nigra on April 21st, 2008 at 7:30 pmP.P.S. You need to enable TrueMotion decoding in ffdshow, of course (or maybe it’s enabled by default?). Sorry, it’s late at night here and I seem to start forgetting things. Time to sleep.
Posted by: Sambucus Nigra on April 21st, 2008 at 7:36 pmSigh… P.P.P.S.
It’s “regsvr32 /u tm20dec.ax”, of course. D’oh!
Posted by: Sambucus Nigra on April 21st, 2008 at 8:01 pmOk so i loved your guide and it helped me with all my problems. now i have a new one. when i get to Kalm and cloud talks about sephiroth and the dragon battle starts Sephiroth misses EVERY SINGLE TIME. i just keep dying, he keeps missing and he just revives me. i didnt even know he COULD miss.
Posted by: Oscar on April 23rd, 2008 at 7:10 pmOscar,
That’s a well known bug in the game, and it’s happened to me before. You have a couple of options:
1) Hit the dragon with something poisonous and just wait out the fight while that kills him or…
2) Download the Jenova game save editor here:
http://www.qhimm.com/#ff7
Open it, pick your save, pick your party, pick Sephiroth, pick equip, pick weapon, pick Death Penalty, hit OK, then Yes.
Then he should attack just fine. If not send me your save and I’ll play through that part for you.
Peace!
Posted by: Jeffrey on April 23rd, 2008 at 8:14 pmHey ok, I uh *Have seem to lost my disks* :P. How do I get around the insert disk 1 2 or 3 issue? I have followed all instructions thus far and hoping this will work. Cept I need to get around this. I tried using Alcohol 120% and mountaing “Dummy” FF7 CD Isos, still get the same error.
Help please?
Thanks.
Posted by: Andrew on April 25th, 2008 at 3:34 amAndrew,
The different discs contain the game itself - mainly the movies. Even if you get a No-CD patch you’d still need the necessary files off the actual CDs.
But all of that is secondary to the fact that I can’t support piracy efforts, and you should buy a copy of the game. They are easy to come by on Ebay.
Posted by: Jeffrey on April 25th, 2008 at 10:31 amOkaay I’ve followed all instructions, cept whenever I go ingame, all I get is a black screen, I hear the Eidos Logo sounds but thats it.
How do I fix this?
Posted by: jerome on April 26th, 2008 at 6:10 amim at the part when the glacierpit movie scene plays……then my comp freezes…how do i fix that so i can proceed w/ the game????? PLEASE help
Posted by: stowie81 on April 26th, 2008 at 10:15 amJeff, im back… im at Cosmo Canyon, and i just went thru the part where the shotting star passes, and the characters wont move after the video plays… its happens alot, like during movies the characters dont chage or go off screen… and help for this?
Posted by: Myles on April 28th, 2008 at 5:09 pmThat happens because of a problem with the video codec, although I’ve only seen it happen to me under Vista. The only way I could solve it was to uninstall any other codec packs that I had so that only TrueMotion was being used.
Posted by: Jeffrey on April 28th, 2008 at 8:05 pmi sound like a noob, but how do i do that?
Posted by: Myles on April 28th, 2008 at 10:47 pmSorry, I should have explained more. I noticed the problem with the K-Lite Codec Pack, so if you have that installed, uninstall it. That should fix the problem. If not, you can always see if there are other solutions over here:
http://forums.qhimm.com/
Posted by: Jeffrey on April 29th, 2008 at 9:20 amDear Jeffrey
I’m having little problem After the fight with the dragon [With Sepiorth] It happened after Cloud,Tifa and Sepiorth taking picture, then, the screen go to dark and crash.
Can you help me?
Thanks in Advance
Posted by: Gerald on April 30th, 2008 at 4:45 amAny suggestions (other than eBay) on where to acquire a copy of FF7 for the PC? I can’t seem to find it anywhere for under $90, including eBay. It’s insane. A game that old shouldn’t cost more than $9.99, really, but I’d be willing to pay $20, shipped.
Posted by: John on April 30th, 2008 at 12:40 pmYeah, it can fluctuate and sometimes you have to get lucky. I found this EA Classics version for $20, which isn’t terrible I suppose.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Final-Fantasy-VII-PC-Game-Squaresoft_W0QQitemZ300220756431QQcmdZViewItem?IMSfp=TL0804301384a31157
Posted by: Jeffrey on May 2nd, 2008 at 9:19 amhey Jeffrey, thx for your post. that is great
here i have a question about the Chocobo patch. it seems the Chocobo patch can not be made up after using the high - res path. thus i want to know how to fix that problem ? or will the Chocobo race problem happen again after using the high - res patch?
Posted by: Lawrense on May 8th, 2008 at 5:57 amthx very much indeed
Lawrence,
The High-Res patch includes the Chocobo Patch, so it will/should work fine.
Good luck!
Posted by: Jeffrey on May 8th, 2008 at 3:47 pmI would like to point out a band called “The Black Mages” to you. These guys have made metal covers of several big Final Fantasy themes, including “J-E-N-O-V-A” and “Those who fight further” (boss theme) for FF7. These covers sound better, in my oppinion, than the original ones, and I would love to hear them ingame. The songs can be found here:
http://www.ffrepublic.com/soundtracks/album/final-fantasy-the-black-mages
Posted by: Draco on May 8th, 2008 at 4:14 pmHello! First of all, nice guide, thanks!
Posted by: Gengar on May 12th, 2008 at 6:46 pmHowever, I’m not able to make the game work. I’ve installed all the patches, including the 1.02 version, the chocobo patch, the high res.. all I have is the Eidos screen and the names of the developers, but if I hit any key, the game crashes. I’m never able to get the “new game / continue” screen with the big sword. I’m currently using Vista 32 bits, and I’ve tried to make it run in the 95, 98 and XP compatibility, and still nothing… do you have any idea why this is happening?
Thanks in advance!
Ok, I’ve managed to make the game run, however, I have a couple of new problems:
Posted by: Gengar on May 13th, 2008 at 7:09 pm- The game starts, but as soon as the opening ends and you start moving Cloud around, the background dissapears, and the charas move in a totally black screen…
- When I have to choose Cloud’s name, I cannot find a way to leave that menu. The cursor simply doesn’t move and I cannot go back to the game…
Does anybody know how to fix this?
Thanks again!
It’s a great guide, can’t wait to try your tricks once I get ahold of my CDs again. Once quick question, how did you exceed maximum HP and MP in that one screenshot that you had?
Posted by: cloudblade70 on May 16th, 2008 at 7:52 pmI just got these patches up and running today after getting sick of the PSX version with ePSXe, and they all work, but the music one seems to be messing up. Seems like it overlaps itself and, because of Vista, I can’t mute the MIDI. So, at certain points, it sounds like I’ve got three or four pieces of music going at a time.
Posted by: Eternal.Sonata_x on May 20th, 2008 at 11:55 amUpdate: Seems I have fixed everything but the MIDI playback now. MIDIs still play in the background.
Posted by: Eternal.Sonata_x on May 20th, 2008 at 12:54 pmUpdate: After much strife (no pun intended), I have solved my problem. Luckily for me, in the MIDI config for FFVII, there’s a non-working out-put device which mutes the MIDI itself.
Posted by: Eternal.Sonata_x on May 20th, 2008 at 1:49 pmYet another problem. This time with the graphics. It seems the enemies, a lot of the time, lose part of their overall images. Like the ShinRA soldiers will lose their hats and guns sometimes. The first boss has no arms, but has hands. The body and head disappear and re-appear at random. Anyway to fix this?
Posted by: Eternal.Sonata_x on May 20th, 2008 at 3:09 pmEverything went fine until I came to a point to install music fix. I’m at the point to configure Input plug-in. The path is right and the in_psf.dll is there but I can’t configure it (configure and about buttons are grey). Also when press … and choose the in.psf.dll again, I get the following error message:
Posted by: Gres on June 2nd, 2008 at 1:55 amAccess violation at address 00444567 in module ‘ff7music.exe’. Read of address 00000028.
Any ideas how to fix this? :(
Got it working. Somehow I had to install cetra again, maybe the data was corrupted at the first time or something like that, main thing that this works now :))
Posted by: Gres on June 2nd, 2008 at 2:37 amHi great guide, but i cant get the game to work, i did all less the avatar patch cuz i like the old images, but when i insert the disc and then click the ff7.exe, i get a black screen and then i get back to windows, the game dont even start :(…
please help
Posted by: F1rstAssau1t on June 14th, 2008 at 1:09 pmSame problem as F1rstAssau1t
Please Help quick!
Posted by: fiz on June 14th, 2008 at 6:04 pmAnyone?…please!!! =(
Posted by: F1rstAssau1t on June 14th, 2008 at 8:43 pmi lost my faith in the humanity :(….gona kill myself
Posted by: F1rstAssau1t on June 17th, 2008 at 12:07 amWow, you guys really need this game to work, eh? :)
As far as I’ve experienced, there are only 2 reasons why FF7 would go to a black screen and crash.
1) Either you don’t have the proper video codec installed, so the game will crash as soon as it tries to play the first video. Make sure you’ve installed the TrueMotion codec like I described above.
or…
2) Your video options aren’t set up correctly. Again, make sure they are like the options above.
If you’re using Vista that can open up a ton of negative results sometimes, too.
Hope this helps!
Posted by: Jeffrey on June 17th, 2008 at 9:03 amwell i just bought a PSX version and im using a emulator…..
so i lost my faith on the PC version
Posted by: F1rstAssau1t on June 19th, 2008 at 4:15 pmi got some problem when i install the FFVII?
Posted by: bosco on June 20th, 2008 at 10:32 ampls give some suggestion to do that…pls help me
Posted by: bosco on June 20th, 2008 at 10:33 amfirst: thank you! your guide is incredible!
but:
i got my problem only solved when i used this:
http://forums.eidosgames.com/showthread.php?t=73082
so you were right: it was a codec problem. but you should use this page to update your guide, otherwise it wont work with some strange codec installation as in my case.
greetz
Posted by: fiz on June 20th, 2008 at 12:35 pmHi,
I have followed this guide and I have successed to play the game propperly, untill when I get to fight Yuffie and after I kill her, FF7 just shuts down. I have tried it several times and I still get the same problem.
However, I’ve had the battleswirl problem aswell, and I have dowloaded the battleswirl bug patch and I *think* it got installed propperly. (Didn’t have any problem with it, untill now)
Well, so that’s about it. I have that little problem left, always after I defeate Yuffie, FF7 hangs up and it shuts down.
Posted by: Accarius on June 29th, 2008 at 7:55 amHi there.
I have followed every step above and the result is 10-15 seconds black screen, followed by a crash dialogue. I noticed that tm20dec.ax is the cause. I am using Windows Vista 32-bit. Any solution to this?
Thumbs up for putting this patch guide.
Posted by: kenichi on July 2nd, 2008 at 3:49 amOh, by the way I’m using Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit, ATI HD2400 and a dual core processor. Hope this piece of information helps.
Posted by: kenichi on July 2nd, 2008 at 8:06 amFrom the crash dialogue,
Posted by: kenichi on July 2nd, 2008 at 9:42 amProblem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: ff7.exe
Application Version: 0.0.0.0
Application Timestamp: 35feae6f
Fault Module Name: tm20dec.ax
Fault Module Version: 1.0.0.1
Fault Module Timestamp: 350d8113
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 000015fa
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID: 17417
Additional Information 1: 3605
Additional Information 2: bbfa8c7e759052e55f3863d40ad010c8
Additional Information 3: b7f6
Additional Information 4: 6c9d5d14197764fae6cbe1aa992065b3
Kenichi,
Are you using any codec packs, like K-Lite, of ffdshow?
Posted by: Jeffrey on July 2nd, 2008 at 11:12 am@Jeffrey
Yes, do I need / how to disable them?
Posted by: kenichi on July 2nd, 2008 at 5:05 pmUpdate : I have disabled my ffdshow in K-Lite, but the result is still the same.
Posted by: kenichi on July 2nd, 2008 at 6:06 pmUpdate : I have uninstalled K-Lite and KMPlayer. The result is no intro movie (both picture and sound), pressed enter to get into main menu with no sound, black screen after choosing new game.
Posted by: kenichi on July 2nd, 2008 at 7:19 pmYeah, you need to have installed the True Motion codec (link above) to have the movies work. Make sure you have that installed.
It is all right if you’d like to still use the K-Lite codec pack, just disable it’s rendering of True Motion. Here’s how:
1. Goto K-lite Codec Pack -> Configuration -> ffdshow video decoder.
2. On the main codec tab, find the “TrueMotion 1,2″ line, and click to disable it.
There you go, now the movies should work.
Posted by: Jeffrey on July 2nd, 2008 at 9:43 pmI get an error report message everytime i try to run the program. I am quite sure I patched the 1.02 just fine… I AM running XP using bootcamp on my macbook, could that be a problem?
Posted by: Rowdy on July 3rd, 2008 at 5:52 pmso far, i got it working just fine on vista, been playing for about two hours straight without any problems. i followed the guide on this page, until i ran into a problem with disabling the MIDI sounds in Vista.
Posted by: Mark on July 7th, 2008 at 10:37 amread the 10th comment on this page, i used that one, not the first one.
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=7300.msg89591
using the 10th comment however, i got my sounds working perfectly.
i also installed the truemotion 2.0 codec to get my movies working. thnx for the great guide man.
Got it working great in WinXP. Could not get higher res patch to run, but it looks nice nonetheless. Music works great. *However, after applying the minigames fix patch, it never works. It loads fine, but as soon as I do anything that would change the screen (e.g., open menu screen, enter into a new room/area/battle, etc…) it immediately gives the ‘windows is having trouble with this program’ message.
Posted by: Mike on July 8th, 2008 at 7:59 pm…Nevermind. Looks like I got it:)
Posted by: Mike on July 8th, 2008 at 10:32 pmJeff,
tried to install game on vista ultimate 32 bit with all patches minus the music patch. The game is not running at all! Clicked on ff7.exe, screen went black and then reverted to desktop with the “This program stopped responding” message.
Please help bud! I really wanna play this game again!!
–=Leo=–
Posted by: Leo DarkSide on July 9th, 2008 at 8:21 amgood guide but i need help finding the output plugin for the music patch. the midi music is very choppy. if u cud give me the link id appreciate it greatly thanks
Posted by: Ray on July 10th, 2008 at 7:36 amAfter the intro movie, right after the train stops, the screen goes black and a text bubble pops up and then nothing else will happen
Posted by: Ian on July 10th, 2008 at 11:48 amDo you know what’s wrong?
I am having the same problem as Ian. Music, sounds, and video are all there and accounted for, but once the train stops, then it’s all over and all I can see is the fooshfoosh with the text.
Posted by: Fant on July 10th, 2008 at 11:10 pmactually I figured it out
Posted by: Ian on July 11th, 2008 at 12:06 amI didn’t uninstall any codecs or anything but all you have to do is press menu after you press ok on the text.
There are some little things so far like characters not moving like they’re supposed to during movies but once the movie’s done it’s all good so no real problem
Anyways thanks so much for this guide it really helped :]
hello Jeffery
I am having some issues (FF7music patch mostly).
after the opening everything seems good, the FF7music patch is working and all. Then barret will say something. after you press enter to end the conversation the game crashes. So then I figured I need to set the compatibility mode to “run in compatibility with windows95″ after that the game worked just fine, but it led to another problem:
the FF7 patch stopped working, meaning the midi music was playing again.
I tired setting the compatibility to the rest of the options and still nothing worked.
any ideas on what the problem is?
Posted by: Dustin on July 24th, 2008 at 4:59 amthank you.
im sorry, but i also forgot to mention that im running Vista 32xbit
Posted by: Dustin on July 24th, 2008 at 5:05 amguys help i tried to using FFvII : Higher Resolution patch a.k.a. (1280×960 patch)Written by The SaiNt
but i cant patch it, i followed the instruction in the readme but nothing…. always on the release info:
*start patch*
[OFFSET PATCH]
loading file:
ff7.exe
Filesize OK!
CRC32 check failed!
nothing patched!
…done!
*PATCHING DANE*
Posted by: Omaj on August 3rd, 2008 at 1:29 pmI just had the “Battle Swirl Crash” issue as noted in the article so I wanted to download the patch (BattleSwirlFix.zip) but the link is broken. Has the filename been renamed or can I get it from somewhere else?
Thanks in advance
Posted by: Constantijn on August 6th, 2008 at 4:52 pmhi, i did every thing i was supposed to as far as putting the saint patch,and it works fine for a while then slowly slows down and gets choppy, then eventually stops with a frozen screen. i can hear the actions(i.e. courser sounds and battle sounds if they are fighting) in the background. there is no pop up error, no app. shut down, its just one still frame. (yes i did put update 1.02 and battle swirl fix) any idea what is going on???
i would really like to know cuz it looks awesome when it works right, thanks.
Posted by: Dre on August 19th, 2008 at 9:01 pmHi! great guide, but all the file links have a 404 error, I got the 1.02 patch and the resolution patch just fine, but I can’t find a music patch that has anything aside from the ff7music.exe file inside the zip.
Posted by: Ben on August 20th, 2008 at 8:39 pmI got the music patch to work, but in Vista, I got an echo from the midi track that I could not mute, and I tried several ways to do so. (All of the other patches worked fine, and on my XP laptop it worked fine, but was noticeably slower.)
The way I finally got it working was a brute-force method: I went into the midi.lgp file, extracted all the midis, set all track volumes to zero and deleted all of the volume-changing controllers. I then made a new midi.lgp file and used that. Ever since, the new music has been functioning perfectly. The midis still play, but at zero volume, so FF7 is satisfied.
Jeffrey: If you’d like to host the modified midi.lgp file as a solution for Vista players, please send me an e-mail and I can send it to you.
Posted by: John on August 23rd, 2008 at 5:06 pmim attempting to reinstall ffvii on my pc and when i click in stall i get a message that pops up.
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\AUTOEXEC.NT. The system file is not suitable for running MS-DOS and Microsoft windows applications. Choose ‘Close’ to termanate the application.
if anyone has a way to fix this please let me know thank you
Posted by: Maulerx2 on August 30th, 2008 at 11:12 amhey, jeff…
i’ve got a problem here…
in junon branch where tifa and barret are gonna executed…after the scene where that fat guy talks to rufus and told his subordinates to open fire the cannon to the so-called “weapon”…then it stuck…i hope my english are ok an understandable…
please email me…
Posted by: shika on September 17th, 2008 at 5:18 pm