Noob Fresh FF7 Mods Install Work-A-Rounds

[Phancy Physicist]

Hello All,

First, let me say thank you for that the work that has been done by everyone here to maintain and update this game that I love so much!

Okay so after all these years and play-throughs, I have never tried to mod FF7 until now. And I have to say, it when pretty smoothly compared to modding I have done in the past. I just wanted to share a couple of hitches that I encountered and the work-a-rounds I did.

Don't Install to the C Drive

I know that the current guide says,

Avoid installing into the following folders: Program Files, Program Files (x86), Users

but I think it is better to just to avoid the C: all together. I installed and uninstalled many times and tried moving around my gaming folders on the C but I finally got it to work on my D:. That is not to say that it wont work on the C:. I am just suggesting to avoid any potential issues and just install on a non-OS drive.

Do Clean Install Before Modding

The guide implies a clean install and the forums are full of people where the answer to their problems is a clean install. But what does a clean install mean?
For me, It was:

• Uninstall the current version of FFVII
• Then remove the FFVII keys from the registry using a program called FF7-REMOVE-Keys.exe. Maybe FF7_GameConverter_7H.exe is suppose to handle that if you chose uninstall when you run that program but FF7-REMOVE-Keys.exe is what worked for me.
• Reinstall FFVII (on a drive other than C:)
• Run FF7_GameConverter_7H.exe
• Proceed as outlined in the guide.

Also, if you find that you get to the end of the install and setup and it does not work. Do another clean install before you try again.

Don't Trust the Pre-Filled Locations in the GUI

When I got to the step of setting up the 7thHeaven.exe, found that the 4 locations were inconsistently formatted. The first few times I set it up, started downloading mods and tried to run FFVII, I ended up with a bunch of weirdly named directories. Directories like

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../Final/Fantasy/VII/.. or some variation like it.

So for all locations that need to be defined, just open up File Explorer, navigate to the directories, and copy/paste the location from File Explore into 7thHeaven.exe. This also includes the location you put into FF7_GameConverter_7H.exe to locate your install.

Run All Modding Software as Administrator

This one is pretty straight forward whenever you run any of these programs use the right-click option, "Run as Administrator". Again, I did it to remove possible sources of error when trying to get this to work and it does.

Windows 10 Compatibility

So I have the most recent version of windows 10 and I found somewhere in the forums to try the following when 7thHeaven.exe crashes trying to start FFVII.

• Navigate to the directory with the game executable, ff7.exe.
• Right click on the file and click "Properties" from the menu.
• Click on the "Compatibility" tab.
• Check the box next to "Run in 640 x 480 screen resolution" and click "Okay" button. (Don't worry it will not use this resolution.)
• Repeat for the files ff7_bc.exe and ff7_mo.exe in the same directory.

Since this seems to have no other effect just adding it to the install steps to avoid confusion seems best.

Manually Check/Set the Shader

If you are going to use the post-processing shaders look in your Final Fantasy VII install directory for file called ff7_opengl.cfg. If you enabled the nVidia shader, this file will contain the following for example,

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# post-processing shader, used to apply fullscreen effects
post_source = shaders/Nvidia_ComplexMultiShader/ComplexMultiShader.post
enable_postprocessing = yes

On my install, none of the subdirectories under "..\FINAL FANTASY VII\shaders" existed so i manually changed the file to

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# post-processing shader, used to apply fullscreen effects
post_source = shaders/SmartBloomAdvanced.post
enable_postprocessing = yes

I'm not sure if the post-processing is working now but I think it is since the game runs with the mods and their have been no errors so far.


These are the things that I have done in addition to following the guide to get my install working. Please those with more experience, chime in and correct any misunderstanding or bad information I might have.