Wow, it works again, thanks a ton
Lesson learnt: Don't update anything funny on my HTPC again, it slows down my aging Q9550 + HDD HTPC by a considerable margin as well.
Also a side question, I did the Tifa's Final Heaven - 7th Heaven Modding Tutorial by EQ2Alyza and the game runs fine until I faced crashing issues in the bike chase section where I had to disable majority of the mods besides remako to continue; after reaching world map, it takes 20-22 seconds to load into world map, that includes after battle and exiting from field maps, I've then disabled majority of the mods besides main characters and NPC's field model, reunion menu overhaul and remako to bring down the world map loading time to a bearable 9-10 seconds. Any idea how to fix this? Thanks in advance