7th Heaven w/ Steam Overlay/Streaming/Controller

[cTop]

I like to play RPGs while I work out via Steam Streaming to a little netbook.

It took a bit of effort but I got 7th Heaven and modded FF7 running through Steam WITH the Overlay, Streaming, and Steam Controller support.  So I thought I'd share my success and method for anyone else trying to do the same.  (Note: I'm pretty certain that this DOES NOT enable achievements or anything else through Steam, but I didn't specifically check either.)

Obviously you should get 7th Heaven/Mods running locally without Steam first.

For Overlay/Streaming
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Then add BOTH the 7th Heaven exe and the correct FF7 exe for the mods you're running as Non-Steam Shortcuts.  Once you've done this, launch the 7th Heaven shortcut and click "Launch Game" and it should work like normal.  Steam will recognize that another exe launched and "switch over" to FF7 more or less seamlessly.  It's a little out of scope to talk about how to stream here, but it'll work the same as streaming anything else, just make sure you launch from the 7th Heaven shortcut.

For Steam Controller Support
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Once you have the above working, set up your controller mappings in the FF7 exe shortcut.  I found it easiest to start with the WASD/Mouse template to start. You can pretty much set it to any keys you want, just avoid using any X-Input bindings.  I made the grip button "Select" and "Cancel" and also setup "Ctrl + S" and Screenshots onto a touch menu for the left pad.  (If anyone's interested I can post the text from the config file)  The 7th Heaven shortcut should automatically use the default Desktop bindings, so you shouldn't need to touch it. 

Once you're in the game, bring up the Menu (using the default controls), go to Config -> Controls and remap all the hokey numpad controls to your controller.

Obviously for convenience it's best to set up the Steam Controller to keys that you could actually use with the Keyboard to play too, or you could map the numpad controls to the Steam Controller directly and avoid having to remap them in the game.

[theonyxphoenix]

Awesome! I'm going to have to try this step-by-step.  I'm guessing streaming this to a netbook with Steam Controller support should also work to stream to a Nvidia Shield Portable, no?

[cTop]

I assume it'd work.  I've had a couple issues where 7th Heaven won't launch the game (you hear the beep and get a black screen for half a second, but then it quits).  I think this happens if I switch from playing on my gaming laptop to running on the netbook. Rerunning the patcher seems to fix it though.

Also I'm not sure how the keybindings work for the Shield, but I had some issues binding my steam controller keys to regular keyboard keys.  It works great until you have to name someone.  For Steam Controller, I just quickly mapped the default keypad directions and select key all to the right touchpad to quickly get around it.  It'd be better to go back and just directly bind to the defaults though.

[theonyxphoenix]

I got it working through streaming, but then when I went back to change the controls I messed something up. I mistakenly opened the FF7_launcher and FF7_Config in an attempt to change the mapping.  Only then did I realize that I would actually go into the game using the FF7.exe.  I managed to launch FF7.exe and map the controls to the keyboard but now whenever I launch via 7th Heaven it won't launch.

Is this a case where I just need to run the patcher, do you think?  I think if I can get it to launch and then bring up the virtual keypad on the touchscreen I can hopefully get into the menu to update the keybindings and see how that goes.

Now, if I can just get it to launch...

[Kaldarasha]

As alternative it's possible to back up the FF7_Launcher.exe and the FF7_xy.exe (xy=shortname of your language in my case it's FF_de.exe). Then go to the converted FF7 folder and copy and plast both 7thHeaven.exe and FF7.exe in there. Rename them both to:
-7thHeaven.exe = FF7_Launcher.exe
 -FF7.exe  = FF7_xy.exe
Now you can start the game through steam. Well it worked for me because I have the Steam release and the original installed.

For the achievements, well I guess it's possible to add support for them. We need a tool which observe the var of the games and can change achievment.dat if a certain condition is true. If we also launch the original launcher through 7thHeaven it should update the achievements.

[cTop]

Don't be scared to try running the patcher again. I was afraid it'd be like starting from square one, but your setup in 7th Heaven will be maintained.

[theonyxphoenix]

Ok, so I was able to get the game running on the Shield Portable.  On the PC, I went in to the game and into the config menu and set up the direction/confirm/cancel, etc. to keyboard letters.  Then when I launched it from the Shield I could use the onscreen keyboard to interact and move.  Unfortunately, when I went in to the config and tried to bind it to the Shield Portable buttons it doesn't seem to recognize any input.

You had mentioned changing things in the FF7.exe shortcut. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that. Any suggestions?

I found information on the GeForce website that suggests using xpadder running on the PC to bind keyboard inputs to a gamepad.

[cTop]

I mentioned changing the Controller Configuration in the FF7 shortcut in the Steam Big Picture UI, but I think that's Steam Controller specific.

I don't know how the Shield handles inputs, so I'm just taking a guess in the dark here.  It's possible that your Shield is only sending X-Input (ie Xbox controller) signals and only supports games that directly allow this type of input.  X-Input is newer than FF7, so obviously FF7 doesn't support it.  In that case, you'll need something like xpadder to recognize and remap the X-Input signals your Shield sends to the keyboard signals you set up in the game.

I've used joy2key in the past and had good luck with it.  The name "xpadder" sounds like it's meant to handle remapping X-Input though, so you may have better luck there.

[Skillmon]

Does anyone know whether this still works? I've tried, but for me neither the overlay nor the controller worked.