Alright, so here's the deal. I had purchased Final Fantasy VII for the PC a few years back, just to see how it differentiates from the PSX version of the game. Now, back then I spent about an hour trying to get the game to run; couldn't do it, so I shelved it.
That is, until I stumbled upon this site about a week ago. I noticed all these cool mods and patches you guys here have made for it, so I couldn't resist trying this thing again (by the way, it's awesome that a game this old still has an active mod community; kudos to you guys).
Unfortunately, I ran into problems straight after installing the game, again. Naturally, I ran through every guide on the 'net I could get my hands on. I did all the usual:installed the 1.02 patch as well as the Chocobo patch, and tweaked some settings with RivaTuner. Now, with my game discs' health and vitality on the line, I faithfully executed "ff7.exe" one last time. Hallelujah. The game gets past the opening movie, and I can finally proceed to play the game.
Everything's just peachy for a while, as long as I ignore the hideous grid lines in favor of smooth models (I would use the Hi-Resolution patch, but sadly my widescreen monitor can only support resolutions up to 1280x768). I play through the game a bit, and then it dawns on me, "Hey, retard. You haven't even tried any of those awesome mods, yet!". So, accordingly, I went about downloading LGP tools and installing Scorpicus' Zack mod. After installing it, the game runs fine.
I uninstall the game, then reinstall and apply the same patches before trying out the NPC Reconstruction Pack. Now, here's where the sh*t hits the fan. I start playing, then the game freezes completely, only a few minutes into the intro-sequence. "Huh. Probably just a one-off thing", I thought. So, I boot the game up again. Freezes in a completely different area. Boot the game up again. Load a previous save from the Golden Saucer. Freezes randomly ensue there, as well. "Well," I thought, "Must be that damn NPC Reconstruction pack!". So, I do another fresh install. This time, I try Weeemus' character model. Same crashes in the exact same fashion.
So, I've come to this conclusion: I'm either using LGP tools completely wrong, or my game really doesn't like using nice and fancy models. Now, let me describe the way these lock-ups work:
- The freezes seemingly occur at complete random; often when I'm just roaming a field or in a conversation. Freezes are also frequent at the menu screen, in battle, and right after saving.
- It seems as if only the video freezes. I can hear the game (music and effects) continue, but it's as if the screen is just frozen still.
- I can even move and interact while the video is frozen. In fact, I've finished battles without knowing what the Hell I was doing just by repeatedly clicking. Same applies for all the other freezes. I can still walk around and use the menu, tho' I can't see what I'm doing.
- So far, I've only had issues with the NPC-RP and Weeemus' character model. It worked fine with Scorpicus' Zack mod, but I didn't have to use LGP Tools on that one. I followed the tutorial shown here: http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=4451.0
I normally run in Hardware Acceleration Mode with 4x anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering, but I've also experienced the same problem in Software Mode.
Relevant machine details below:
- Intel Pentium D CPU 3.40GHz
- nVidia 7950 GX2 (tried several drivers, currently using 169.28)
- 1 GB RAM
- Windows XP Professional (32-Bit) Service Pack 2
As much as I hate for my first post to be a "help me plz post",...
Any help would be
greatly appreciated.
