(Yet Another) FF7 Problem

[Brock]

I have seen several posts about this problem, but the posts weren't well responded to. It seemed to me that not enough information was posted for any help to be given. I decided to record exactly what the problem was, and post all my information to get a decently helpful answer. If someone has already solved this problem I'm sorry to have bothered you, and could you please point me in the direction of that post.

I freshly installed FF7 on Windows XP (using a Geforce 2 MX Pro graphics card with the latest drivers), and found it to work quite decently in software mode, without any patches (not even 1.02 or chocobo). Then I found this lovely little website and decided I wanted to use some of the patches here. Since they all require it, I then installed the 1.02 patch, disabled 8-bit palettized textures with rivatuner, and after restarting checked to see if FF7 still worked. To my surprize it didn't, well it did, but the graphical problems make it unplayable. The following images are a comparison of before and after the 1.02 patch.

No Patches:











1.02 Patch:

[EmperorSteele]

I see a bunch of broken images o_O

Are you using TNT mode?  try that...

Also, your driver set sometimes has an effect on how well ff7 plays.  Try the 52/53 series (that works well in my experience)

[Brock]

Well, sorry you can't see the images. I thought that if I posted them using imageshack that others could see the exact problem.

Basically what they show is that before the 1.02 patch I could only use software mode, and that the game works perfectly. After applying the 1.02 patch, setting it to nvidia and selecting TNT (or any other possible combination of modes, including going back to software mode) the game has many graphical errors.

First the opening text, where you select new game or continue, the top option is slightly garbled into "_ew Ga_e". That isn't too bad, but then after the intro movie, all you can see of any character is a pair of floating eyes. Then I walked forward to initiate the first battle with the two shinra soldiers and found that the battle models of the enemies as well as Cloud's don't show up, along with half of the battleground.

That was about as far as I was willing to play with that many problems, but as I said before I did try all the standard combinations of changes I could think of to fix it, and replayed and reinstalled several different times.

Thanks for the suggestion of changing to an older driver, but I find that no matter the game I try that with, it only causes more problems than it solves.

[EmperorSteele]

Yeah, looks like your card doesnt like ff7 at all.  It IS a rather dated piece of equipment, but, then ff7 should have NO problems with it. o_O

Well, maybe try this: uninstall your current drivers, restart, and install the ones that came on the disk with the card.

Have you tried unchecking the "nvidia" box, and see if you can still get hardware mode selectable in the drop-down menu?

[Threesixty]

Umm... the 8bit pallet says Pass in one of those pictures. Are you sure you have it disabled? The one with the lines, does't tell me anything. It does that whenever you check the Nvidia options.... It must say FAIL before you check those options, or it won't work...period.

I know for a fact that the 77.77's have it disabled by default. If you can't get Rivatuner to disable it, I suggest using that driver. I'm still using that driver, so I don't know what the newer one are doing to the 8 bit pallet.

The guy who keeps Rivatuner up to date, needs to revamp Rivatuner with every new release of Nvidia's Drivers. It could be that he doesn't mess with Rivatuner anymore.... and thats why the Program isn't disabling the 8 bit pallet.

And, your not using AnimeVamp's WinXP patch, are you? I can't really tell. Anyway... I suggest using the TNT patch, not that WinXP patch.

All you do is Overwrite the two files from the TNT patch, check the Nvidia box and TNT box, and select Hardware mode, and it should work.... But that's with the 77.77 drivers. And I think the few drivers that came before it...most other driver you need to figure out how to disable the 8bit pallet.

Now for that Geforce 2 MX Pro.... Umm... I don't know if that card is Forceware 75-80 compatible (it's not on the list). I know that the Geforce 2 Pro, is not. You have to use drivers that are ForceWare Release 70, type. Well..it'll tell you soon after you do the setup of the driver, whether the driver will work with the card, or not.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/77.77_winxp_32_supported.html

Oh..and you will need the Chocobo Patch. The chocobo races won't work without it. But, don't bother patching until you get this figured out.

And one last thing.... FF7PC is very, Video Driver sensitive. And Video Drivers are sensitive from Card to Card, as well. It may come to a point where you're just going to need to try every Video Driver version that you can find, until you find one that works. All I can say is that the 77.77 works great with a 6600GT.

Being that I was using Win98 for many years.... I can't say which old driver worked with FF7PC and which didn't. I think the one that worked really well iwht FF7PC was 14.01 or something, near that. But....can only get that version with Win98.

And the setup for that driver was different. In those days, you just had to copy over the FF7config.exe and not the FF7.exe.... And Not select any of the Nvidia options. You would just use the TNT patch to select Direct3d. This doesn't work with todays cards or Drivers. Back then the Direct3d pulldown would show up regardless, as long as it was the FF7config.exe from the TNT patch. They changed something in the drivers. Now it won't give you the option until after you select the TNT mode. At least that how I remember it. Been about 3 years.

[Brock]

Ok, first, thanks for all you are trying to do to help. Secondly (and this is my fault) most of it isn't very much help, but I think this is because I didn't post enough information about what I did.

When 8-bit textures passed, I was using the newest drivers (77.77), and it was in the group of screenshots of my unpatched (and working, but only in software mode) game. Also my Geforce2 MX Pro (as the box said), is apperantly the same as a GeForce2 MX 400 (or at least thats what my computer is telling me ), and that card is compatable with the newest drivers.

Before using the 1.02 patch (not the crappy AnimeVamp one) with no other patches present, I used rivatuner to make 8-bit textures fail, then I installed the 1.02 patch and checked the Nvidia box and the TNT button. This is where my problems began.

No matter what options I chose, even returning to software mode, I get the problems mentioned. Only by doing a fresh install, and leaving the game unpached and in software mode can I get it to work properly.

Finally, since it seems to be the only thing suggested that I haven't done, I will try to run FF7, with the 1.02 patch on it, with older drivers. Hopefully this will solve the problem and I can stop bothering you fine people.

Oh, and to EmperorSteele, I think that when I deselected the Nvidia button I lost the option for hardware mode, if that is important.

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Well, it seems I am a moron. When I installed the 52.16 drivers, and the 1.02 patch, the game works like a charm in hardware mode. Thanks for all the help you guys. Now just keep your fingers crossed and hope I can install some patches from this site and get them to work.

[Threesixty]

Umm... the 77.77's are not the latest drivers... And the one I downloaded, the 8bit pallet was disabled in them. I finded it highly unlikely that they would enable it and redistribute the driver. I guess that, maybe, it could vary from card to card. But, I have my doubts.

The latest reference drivers are 81.85... And I haven't tried them, yet. It's possible that the 8bit pallet is enabled in those 8x.xx drivers. Someone else, could confirm.