FF7 Recommended System Specifications

[Mofokubik]

Im going to buy an older computer so I can play all of my old favorites that I cant on this one. I was wondering what would be the perfect system to play it on...Any suggestions?

the system i think will run best on is this:

cpu- somewhere around 500mhz, a little lower though...
gpu- voodoo3pci
spu- awe64gold
ram- 64mb
os- windows 95 and dos
dx- 6

i really dont remember what kind of pc it needed, or what will work with the older dos games, but just give me your feedback...

[Rubicant]

There's no point! Just get a crap-ass hard drive, format it with FAT16, load dos and other crap you need on it...end of story. You don't need a slower computer to run dos games.

[Aaron]

Use Virtual PC.  You can install as many OS's as you want, and run them full-screen or in a window.  I use it to play some old DOS games and some programs that don't work under Windows 2000/XP but do work under Windows 95/98.

I have one Virtual Machine set up with DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1.  Hahaha, that's some old stuff.

Anyway, since this is for "FF7 Recommended System Specs," FF7 won't run in VPC (no 3D accelleration anyway) but it still works fine on many modern systems (with some tweaking).

[Mofokubik]

lol
i dont want to downgrade this computer....

plus i want to use all of the old hardware.

i just want to play games the same way i used to be able to....actually playing them without worrying about 1000 glitches messups and errors.

[Goku7]

Im going to buy an older computer so I can play all of my old favorites that I cant on this one. I was wondering what would be the perfect system to play it on...Any suggestions?

the system i think will run best on is this:

cpu- somewhere around 500mhz, a little lower though...
gpu- voodoo3pci
spu- awe64gold
ram- 64mb
os- windows 95 and dos
dx- 6

i really dont remember what kind of pc it needed, or what will work with the older dos games, but just give me your feedback...

For an ideal system setup, it would be better to aim for the Voodoo5 instead of the V3, largely so you don't have to miss out on the FSAA....

That is assuming that the V5 doesn't have problems using it in FF7pc, like the way all the later-generation video cards are having.

But, as I don't have a V5 for myself, and can't remember offhand if the V5 does indeed have those same FSAA problems as other cards, I CAN'T guarrantee that it won't have them, unless some of the other forumers here have any more information on that.

Oh, and for the Sound:

If you have your heart set on using an SBAWE64, make sure it DEFINITELY has 4mb of SF-RAM on it.  Any less and you'll be kicking yourself for not getting one that does.  I know I did, back when I bought one that only had 512kb of it.

But, that wouldn't have led me to buying this wonderful hardware XG card I have.

On the other hand, while normally I'd recommend getting a hardware XG card for sound, you'll be missing out on the Classic SquareSoft French Horn Sample (Trademark owned by SquareSoft, Inc. ), and those neato chanting voices in One Winged Angel.

[Anonymous]

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[Mofokubik]

I know, thats why I said awe64 gold... the gold version comes with 4mb ram on it. I just wanted a classic soundcard (one compatible with older dos games...cant get my damn live to work with stuff like that)

and as for the part about slower, yes i know, but i was also planning on running halflife on there too... (seen an emachines around the same system specs as the ones i wanted...50$)

[Rubicant]

Jari, you brought up a valid point. But it seems that mofokubik wants to play games that require a bit more of an edge in performance. So Mofo, you're torn between either having a somewhat slow computer that can play the same games you can normally play, only slower, or else get a very slow computer that can only run DOS games.

Mofokubik, I would suggest getting a 500mhz something that is NOT a cyrix or k6-2. The videocard I would suggest would maybe be a lower class 3dfx card, like a banshee. But don't expect older dos games to run properly, as Jari said.

But I honestly don't see the value of doing this.

[mirex]

I have an old P200MMX with Voodoo2, 12mb, and old games run ok on it .. FF7 is sometimes slow, but usually ok.

And if you plan to play old dos games on faster cpu's i think there are some "slow-down" programs, which can make P200 run on any speed ... even 12MHz

[Mofokubik]

well, i wanted to do this because i saw my friend running ff7 perfect without any problems. but after that we played halflife, and ran just as good as on this computer... i dont under stand it. xp sucks with old games i guess....

plus i was going to buy another computer any way, and this would be cheaper. so since im getting an old outdated computer, i want to make sure i do it right.

[Goku7]

Hey, a thought just occurred to me:

Has anyone tried to run the FF7 minigames on a modern system, but have Vsync on?

That may be answer to capping the framerate problems...

[Mofokubik]

too fast? I had no idea it ran too fast on modern comps...
have you tried moslow or cpukill?

[Anonymous]

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[Goku7]

It would have to depend on whether or not FF7 defaults to running D3D at 60hz.  Any higher than that, and it probably won't work, since as you know, VSync should only cap the FPS to the amount of hz chosen for the refresh rate.

At least, that's my understanding of its function...

[Mofokubik]

if you want, ill try vsync on my parents computer tonight

[Anonymous]

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[Goku7]

Goku7: Under Win2K/XP everything in DDraw or D3D defaults to 60hz. It's a 'nice' little feature that both of them have. At least with nVidia and ATi drivers one has actually tweak it, so that it doesn't ruin your eyes while you are gaming. Certainly 75, or even 85 would still be better than no throttle at all, because it does seem to run really fast.

Agreed.

PS. Goku7, here's something you might find interesting. I can't be bothered to send a private message about it. Altavista and Google should have translators, if you need one...

*clicks link*

First reaction:  Wow, that's a lotta German!

2nd reaction:   Okay, let's try Google's translator......*translator produces an error when pointed at the link*....crap!

3rd reaction:  Let's see if Babelfish will actually spit out something decent this time.......  Looks interesting, but they've definitely made translation errors; it's still not comprehendable....

Any chance they've got an English mirror of that page that they translated themselves?

[Mofokubik]

translators you say?
Google
Altavista Babelfish
Worldlingo
Freetanslation
some other translator
leet speak translator
all of these were in my bookmarks, but my 2 favorite are google and LEt+ SP34k ...

[Anonymous]

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[Rubicant]

Just as I predicted, Vsync didn't do JACK SQUAT!!

[Goku7]

Just as I predicted, Vsync didn't do JACK SQUAT!!

Assuming that the refresh rate in your test was 60hz, and Vsync was definitely being forced on, to the best of your knowledge, this can mean only one thing:

FF7 ignores either the refresh rate setting completely (in additoin to the lack of a frame-capping subroutine for the minigames), or simply ignores Vsync itself.

At least we learned something.

At any rate, let's see if Mofokubik can offer a 2nd opinion....since he said he was gonna test it.

[Rubicant]

Yeah, I tested it at 60hz. I could also tell it was 60hz by two indications. The screen was making my eyes want to melt, and my monitor said so. And by the way guys, there is no speed throttle with software mode, either. Unless you already knew..

so the only solution for this..really..is to either re-write the program (not gonna happen) or find a way to play at a... HIGHER RESOLUTION. Ficedula, would you be able to do this?

[Mofokubik]

if you want to slow it down, depending on your video card, you can use many features to do this... but still wont slow it down as much as you would like it too...
i ssay fice should "fix up" the mini games in ff7

btw...wtf people, i had no idea all the stuff that you people made, the only thing i tried until now was unmass...