Wow, having ff7 problemns... but in Win98 o_O?!

[EmperorSteele]

Okay, i built myself a low-end rig to run win98, and this way play older games without problems (like ff7).  I've gotten AA sorta working on a geforce 4 mx440, but i get those damned gridlines, no matter what i do or what drivers i download.  The card's not even mine (anymore), so i can't spend too much effort getting that particulair card working.  The default card is some geforce2 mx200.  I swapped cards to see what the problem was, but the 440 doesn't work much better than the 200.

Rivatuner says it doesnt support ANY of the drivers i'm Dling either, whether they be 5x.xx, 6x.xx, whatever.

Fun fact: Under winxp, the very same card worked perfetly, didn't even need rivatuner >=.

I'd rather not install winxp on this rig (I'll do a dual-boot as a last effin resort).  Suggestions?

For the reccord, my main rig with a geforce 6600gt hates ff7 with a passion, so i can't go back to using that =(

[Aaron]

Chances are if it worked in WinXP, it'll work just the same in Win2K, if you want to try that, since it might work nicer with your old machine.  (I'd definately do this, unless there's some other reason you need to keep Win98 around, b/c IME Win2K is much more reliable...  You'd probably want at least 128 MB of RAM though.)

I've never tried to use Rivatuner in Windows 9x myself...  Although, with a GeForce2 or 4, you could go all the way back to 3x.xx drivers and see what happens (...you'd think Rivatuner would support older drivers if anything).

[EmperorSteele]

Well, some of the games i want to install have a hard time with win2k (most notibly Thef, which detects win2k and refuses to install =P)

But okay, i'll try older older drivers...

*wishes for his old voodoo back, even though it ran all other games like poop*

[Aaron]

(most notibly Thef, which detects win2k and refuses to install =P)

I've snuck around that with compatibility mode for some games, never tried Thef though.  (Win2k has compatibility mode, at least in newer service packs, I believe...)

Anyway, good luck.

[voodoo47]

if you have win98,get a voodoo2 for five $ and you are fixed forever.you dont even need to change your primary graphics card..

[Threesixty]

I believe Thief has a user made patch that will allow it to work on today's OS's. I got it working on WinXP..I remember that much... I just don't remember what I did to get it working... maybe it will come to me, or I'll find the site that had the instructions or patch....

As for FF7 and old drivers. The gridlines were common for those old Det drivers. The old Det drivers where the 8 bit pallet passed were always broken. You need to find an old driver where the 8 bit pallet says failed.... Come to think of it... I think they all said passed. Rivatuner was the only thing I remember that would turn off the 8bit pallet.

I think the Det 6.50's are the one's you want... After that version, I think that's when the gridlines appeared. And I think the 6.50's also had the 8 bit pallet disabled by default.

And I believe after a certain ver number....12's maybe? And maybe all the way up to the mid 40's? They fixed the 8bit pallet in their drivers, but you needed to fool the TNT patch. You did that by using the ff7config.exe from the patch, but using the FF7.exe from the game....and by not selecting any of the nvidia boxes. But I don't remember the version numbers that started working and stopped working. Each driver had it's own problems.... But I remember one driver version that was near perfect.....I just don't remember what it was. Think it had the numbers 41 in it. Like maybe 12.41 or something.

[EmperorSteele]

Actually, a lot of the drivers in the 3x.xx range have bene causing a Blue screen of doom to apepar when i open ff7 config o_O  I might have to avoid those.

I remmeber specifically that the mx440 with 52.xx and 53.xx worked awesome, but when i tried it again, it didn't work o_O

I'm starting to theroize that maybe motherboards and mobo drivers may have some impact on all this, or perhaps the win9x versions of the same drivers aren't exactly the same as their winx counterparts...

As for thief working under nt: yeah, there's a small hack/commandline trick to get it installed, but in XP the movies don't play because xp doesnt like the movie codec thief uses, which is the secondary reason i wanted a 98 box

[Goku7]

I'm starting to theroize that maybe motherboards and mobo drivers may have some impact on all this, or perhaps the win9x versions of the same drivers aren't exactly the same as their winx counterparts...

Oh, there's a very good chance they are different -- after all, Win98 prefers the .VXD architecture while 2000/XP prefer the WDM architecture.

Now, you'd expect that you'd be able to get the same types of features regardless of the architecture, right?  Unfortunately, the WDM architecture is nerfed to heck and back under Win98;  just look at what happens when you use a WDM sound driver in 98 -- virtually ZERO hardware acceleration for EAX, Aural3D, DirectSound, etc. is given in exchange for hardware DirectMusic support, and CD-Digital Audio Extraction, which are two features you can't get with VXD in 98.

....anyway, I suspect its a similar thing going on here with hardware other than soundcards (like motherboards, or video, or perhaps even network cards and modems) -- the 2000/XP drivers are written with a WDM approach, and won't do jack in 98, so they have to re-write them for the VXD specification, which will still have some limitations, so the drivers probably have a few (small....ish) things that they can't quite do in 98 that they otherwise could in 2000/XP.

[Trek234]

Okay, i built myself a low-end rig to run win98, and this way play older games without problems (like ff7).  I've gotten AA sorta working on a geforce 4 mx440, but i get those damned gridlines, no matter what i do or what drivers i download.  The card's not even mine (anymore), so i can't spend too much effort getting that particulair card working.  The default card is some geforce2 mx200.  I swapped cards to see what the problem was, but the 440 doesn't work much better than the 200.

Rivatuner says it doesnt support ANY of the drivers i'm Dling either, whether they be 5x.xx, 6x.xx, whatever.

Fun fact: Under winxp, the very same card worked perfetly, didn't even need rivatuner >=.

I'd rather not install winxp on this rig (I'll do a dual-boot as a last effin resort).  Suggestions?

For the reccord, my main rig with a geforce 6600gt hates ff7 with a passion, so i can't go back to using that =(

Go to your driver options in the display control panel and TOTALLY disable anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing.

The grid lines will go away then.

[EmperorSteele]

That didnt do crap, which was why i posted in this thread.

But the issue is now semi resolved: My main system now lets ff7 work *rolls eyes*

[Trek234]

That didnt do crap, which was why i posted in this thread.

But the issue is now semi resolved: My main system now lets ff7 work *rolls eyes*

That fixes the problem just fine for me.  Are you sure you've turned it off for Direct3d games?  (not OpenGL)

[Trek234]

That didnt do crap, which was why i posted in this thread.

But the issue is now semi resolved: My main system now lets ff7 work *rolls eyes*

EmperorSteele, if you are still reading this do this

Make sure anio filtering and anti-aliasing are still totally off.

Make sure you have the 1.02 patch installed (the one that lets you choose Riva 128/TNT in the FF7 config app)

In the config app click Nvidia and choose "TNT" NOT "Riva 128".

When I have Riva 128 selected I still get the grid, but TNT for some reason solves the problem.  Again, make sure anio filtering an AA are off too.

[EmperorSteele]

They're completly off, yes.

But i wanted aa on, see, cuz i knew that that's supposed to work with the rivatuner trick (refer to the FAQ).  That was the whole POINT of building a second, lower-end system.  If i can't use AA, then there's no point =P  And if the lines appear, even when aa and af are off, which they do, then there's a bigger problem here.