No sound effects in ff7 (win2k)

[Peroxwhygen]

Hey, sorry if this has been asked a million times be4, i searched the board first but couldnt find anything!

I have ff7 working on win2k, everything is fine except there are no sound effects at all.
It kind of makes the game seem dead and uninteractive, is their a patch for this? or can u download files for the effects or something?

Any help would be appreciated!

[Aaron]

Do you hear the test sounds in FF7config?

Check the file size of your audio.dat file (FF7 Install Folder\data\sound).
Is it 68.4 MB, or 0 bytes?

[Srethron Askvelhtnod]

It helps if you can be more specific: What sound card do you have? Do you have the latest drivers for it? Does the music work, or are you having trouble with music *and* sound? Are you running any other programs when playing FF7?

If you have a SB Live or later, you can try sky_render's fix. No guarantees it'll work, though.

1. Hit the start button
2. Choose settings
3. Choose control pannel
4. Choose add/remove programs
5. Select the windows setup tab
6. De-select, then re-select the multimedia option
7. Click on details to make sure the Sound Companion Option IS selected
8. Then apply

Edit: Waha! Beaten by Aaron again.

[Peroxwhygen]

The music plays fine, when i tryed the config i heard the chocobo make a noise yes, but in the game their r no sound effects at all, just music, my sound card uh not sure i use a thing called C-media mixer to control the volume and stuff.

Audio.dat is 68mb the audio.fmt is 52kb

[Aaron]

About audio.dat -> Just making sure, we've had some users complain about no sound who had an empty audio.dat, turned out their game was pirated

Anyway, to find out what kind of sound card you have, right-click on "My Computer", go to the "Hardware" tab, and click "Device Manager."  Click the "+" next to "Sound, video, and game controllers."  It'll be in here somewhere.

Another thing would be to check the in-game volume control and make sure it's turned up

[Peroxwhygen]

I have a CMI8738/C3DX PCIAudio Device
How do i turn the ingame volume up?

[EmperorSteele]

When you go in game, hit Menu then Config.  if your card supports it, you can adjust the volume in game.

In addition, double-click your volume control icon in your task bar, and make sure wave sound isn't muted.

[Threesixty]

If it was win98 I would have told you to put a check by the audio compression in windows setup.... But with win2000, I have no idea.

[Srethron Askvelhtnod]

I'm betting it's a driver, possibly DirectX. If you know how and don't mind doing so, downgrade to DirectX 5  (comes on the FF7 Install disc.) and see what happens.

[CorDharel]

w00t I thank god I found this forum!!!   Hi all!

I have the same problem, and I would kiss anyones a$$ if you can help me!!!

I also got a Soundblaster PCI card. And no, I dont have an "empty" audio file.

I got the latest drivers (SB PCI). And I can start the game. But the problem is: I hear no sound >effects<. I can hear the background sound, but Final Fantasy is nothing without the sounds.

The weird thing is, that I can hear the sound in the configuration menu under "sound" and under "MIDI".

I already tried installing different directX versions, this YAMAHA thingy on the installing disc, several codecs, removing the driver and taking the windows default drivers. I also tried every single setting I could find in the control panel in sounds.

If the game wouldn't be so cool, I wouldn't do all these things. But I have to get it to work!

Uhm probably interesting: In the in-game-menu "config" I can set the thing below (dont know how its called") from this "sound setting" from 100 to 0 and back. But the thing on the top is not working, there is just a "disabled" or anything like this...

I really hope any1 can help me!

[Threesixty]

What OS... there is a solution for Win95 and 98 and I guess ME that I know of....I already stated it, earlier.

Inside Add/Remove programs, in windows setup the Audio Compression needs to have a check mark by it.....or you have to uncheck it, reboot, and recheck it, reboot. There is no Windows setup in ADD/remove programs of Win2000 and XP.

[CorDharel]

I know that there isn't one. I am using WinXP  :weep:

But I had sound once! It's not so that I tried to install it and have no sound since the beginning!

[Threesixty]

...what about inside FF7. Inside the menu, under Config, under Set Volume and Music level. Is that set to 100? And is the volume for the Wave on your computer set to max?

Don't worry about that volume for the MIDI in FF7, most cards don't support that, That volume slider is supposed to control the music volume.

If you say it worked in the past and now it doesn't.....what did you install since then? Any DirectX updates?

[Rubicant]

I dunno if this'll help...but I noticed something while modifying the registry components of ff7. In the "sound" key, there's something called "Sound_GUID". I deleted the entire thing and when I opened up ff7config.exe, there was a blank slot in where there was to be a sound device. In other words, there was no sound device selected. I started FF7, and sounds played anyways, even though no device was "selected". So I'm assuming it picks the primary sound device. Maybe it's possible that the sound drivers they are using won't work with ff7, or else they installed DX9 which words "wonders" against FF7pc.

[CorDharel]

what about inside FF7. Inside the menu, under Config, under Set Volume and Music level. Is that set to 100? And is the volume for the Wave on your computer set to max?

Like I said, I have 2 settings to set: The first is "disabled" the second I can set from 0 to 100... Don't know what is music and what is sound effect.

And is the volume for the Wave on your computer set to max?

Yep it is. All other sound thingies work like mp3 or sound in other games.

Don't worry about that volume for the MIDI in FF7, most cards don't support that, That volume slider is supposed to control the music volume.

So in the config program of FF7 the first "sound" thing is for the sound effects and the second with this "General MIDI" stuff is for the music?

what did you install since then? Any DirectX updates?

I installed directX9, but I also downgraded to DirectX5, but this didn't work. I think I also installed a sound card driver I found on the internet.

Perhaps FF7 sound effect worked when I installed WinXP. Then I applied the sound card driver then it didnt work anymore. So the solution could be to

a) format (I DONT WANT TO FORMAT MY SWEET PC AGAIN!    )
b) deinstall the driver and install the default sound driver from winxp. But how should I do this? Install the driver from the winxp cd?  :erm:


On the official site I read anything like "dont install quicktime .... blabla ..... FF7 sound wont work anymore ...... blabla.... that it works again you have to reinstall windows and NOT install quicktime anymore..."
That would be the worst case!  :isee:

[Edit] HEY I remembered something on the toilet!!!

Before I installed the sound driver, the entry in the configuration tool of FF7, the first thing not the second, was something like "GS270" and now it is something like "PCI235". So when I can manage to go back to the previous state the sound should work again!  

Any suggestions?

[Aaron]

b) deinstall the driver and install the default sound driver from winxp. But how should I do this? Install the driver from the winxp cd?

To restore original XP drivers...
Go to C:\Windows\inf (it's a hidden folder, you either need to turn on viewing hidden files/folders or open it from Start -> Run)
There should be some OEM files in here.  (oem0.inf, oem0.pnf, oem1.inf, oem1.pnf, oem2.inf, oem2.pnf, etc...)  The OEM files get added when you install drivers, so that Windows can find the INF file for the driver again later if necessary.  Delete them (or if that makes you nervous, move them out of the INF folder to somewhere else).  Then go to the Device Manager and remove your sound card.  Right-click your computer name at the top of the device manager and select "Scan for Hardware Changes."  Your sound card should be redetected and installed using XP's drivers, since it won't be able to find any other ones.

There is no Windows setup in ADD/remove programs of Win2000 and XP.

If you go to Add/Remove Programs and click the "Add/Remove Windows Components" button on the left, you get the same thing.  However, Audio Compression is not an option, as far as I can tell.

[CorDharel]

AAAAAAAARRRRGGGGGGGG!!!!!!

I did something very stupid... AND I HAD TO FORMAT MY WHOLE 80 GB HARDDISC!!! WAAAAAHHHHH ALL THE MOVIEZ AND GAMEZ AND APPZ ARE GONE!!!  :weep:  :weep:  :weep:


BUT I reinstalled windows and now: FF7 WORKS WITH SOUND EFFECTS!!!!! w000t I can now enjoy the game

80 gb versus 400 mb... thats a deal

But like I said: if I would reinstall win, it would work

Thanks guys for your help! Much appreciated!

[Aaron]

Just so you know... you can usually reinstall Windows without having to format your disk.

But, good thing your FF7 is working now

[CorDharel]

Yeah I really enjoy it!   First time I hear the sound of shiva and infrit...

BTW that was the same problem like the one I had with FF8. I suppose FF8 works now, too