I've gathered many posts start this way, but I'll preface everything with a thank you for your time so far and the efforts you all put in towards making everything here work. I'd also like to point out that I spent a good while reading the forums and, while I'm sure I missed some relevant topics, I did make an effort to solve my issue here without having to bother anyone. I'll try organizing this post as best I can as to not make it harder on anyone who might try helping.
My issue: The game reliably freezes about an hour into active gameplay. This only seems to happen when I'm moving between areas or progressing the story. It's happened every single time I play, and I spent several hours before making this post testing different settings and trying to simply grind in one area to see if it caused the issue or shortened the time before it occurred after moving to a new area. It all wound up being the same, and after about an hour's gameplay combined moving from area to area the game froze.
The problem presents only when entering a battle screen or changing field screens. Music continues to play, but even after several minutes of waiting the screen remains black (or frozen at the start of a battle, in the case of a battle freeze) and inputs aren't registered(can't hear any sfx from moving or menu commands).
Aside from slight, occasional stuttering in battle the game runs smooth and without flaw during the period before the freeze, and as far as I can tell all installed mods are present and working properly.
I am running the legit, physical version of FF7's PC version from 1998. I've had the disks since what feels like forever, and the thought of trying them out with mods interested me.
After my last freeze I read through the forums once more and realized I didn't use nvidia control panel to force ff7.exe to run with the nvidia card. I do apologize profusely for posting after not testing my latest version, but I've been doing this for about five or six hours, almost straight, as each test takes longer than an hour. With my settings the way they are and the change to the graphics card setting: Is there any other possible cause of this issue and/or do my current settings seem like they would present any other issues.
My computer specs:
Intel core i3 CPU M380, 2.53GB dual core
4gb ram
NVIDIA GeForce 310M
My install information:
Install folder: C:\Games\FF7
I'm not using any modes, mode switcher and I have always done a complete wipe and clean install before changing anything with the mods.
When installing I disconnect entirely from the internet, completely kill off my virus protection and run everything as administrator. At this point I've turned UAC off so hard my computer doesn't even know what it is.
I took a total of 18 screenshots of my settings, information, etc and don't want to make this post longer than it already is by spamming it with that many images. You can view them all at
http://imageshack.us/g/1/9774043/. If you'd prefer I did post the individual images in one post, I don't mind, it just seems like something obnoxious to do without grounds.
As well my app.log file is quite long, and would just take up a huge amount of space in the forum. Instead I copied the file as is and uploaded it here:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/68922019/APP.LOG. Again, if you'd prefer I actually post the whole thing I will.
Thank you for any help, and if I forgot anything let me know. I will get to testing it again with the nvidia card force, but at this point I'm just burned out and the idea of trying it again just to have it freeze up because of something completely unrelated that I didn't see is just a bit too daunting.
