FFVIII XP Patch?

[Sayojia]

Does anyone knows where I can find a patch to make FFVIII run under Windows XP?
My PC just reboots when I run the game, but on a Windows ME, it just runs smoothly.
Thanks for your time and sorry if this was already asked.

[Messiah99]

FFVII has no known problem running on XP, its your system specifically thats causing the problem, give us some specs and maybe someone can help you...

[Sayojia]

It´s not FF7, it´s FF8..... (Eight) And it does have insures, and as far I saw, no-one managed to play it under XP.

I have e-mailed the EA and they helped me, but it still didn´t work.
I install the game, everything is OK. When I go play the game, it reboots my computer. I installed the patch compatible with my video card and it still didn´t worked.

My system:
Pentium III 797MHz
384MB RAM
Windows XP
NVidia GeForce4 MX 440

EA instructions:

This game was made before XP and is not officially supported. I can offer some suggestions but I cannot make any promises.

Make sure that you have closed any programs or tasks running in the background as sometimes one of the programs can conflict with the game. Background applications such as anti-virus programs are often the cause of conflicts.

· Hold down the Ctrl, Alt, and Delete keys at the same time
· Click the "Processes" tab.
· Click on the gray bar in the middle column that says User Name to sort by user name. · Do NOT select anything for SYSTEM, LOCAL SERVICE, or NETWORK SERVICE. · Click on anything besides EXPLORER and TASKMGR for this User Name or other user names. · Click on END PROCESS · Repeat these steps until only explorer.exe and taskmgr.exe are open for this user profile.

You can also try to run the game in compatibility mode.

Right click on the shortcut for the game.
Select Properties.
Select Compatibility.
Select "Run in Windows 98" Mode.
Select Apply.

As I said, it didn´t worked, any of them. That´s why I´m asking for a XP patch

[Messiah99]

Well, I can play FF8 on my pc, Im running XP, my only problem is a graphics one, but it still does run.

[Darkdevil]

I suppose I should really break out my copy of FF* sometime...its been 2 years since its been out of its box...Dont know if it will work on the system so i might as well check ^_^

[Jedimark]

lol EA gave you some pretty lame tech support there!

I don't really know what to suggest... i've never known any problems with FFVIII on Windows XP.

[Sayojia]

I don´t want to install another windows on my second hd, but I don´t see any alternative... For now :/
Well, at least the support is a lot better of where I came from. They just suggest to re-install the game, re-install Direct X, re-install Windows or just format the pc and re-install everything LoL

[trickstar66]

Well, it's like Messiah said, it's probably your system. This used to happen to me but on Windows 98. Damn thing would only give BSOD's at first but then one day it started to just reboot the system. Sad day indeed... I had to play the PSX version on CVGS. But I solved it by upgrading to XP. So maybe a Windows reinstall will do the trick?

[lordqane]

It´s not FF7, it´s FF8..... (Eight) And it does have insures, and as far I saw, no-one managed to play it under XP.

I have e-mailed the EA and they helped me, but it still didn´t work.
I install the game, everything is OK. When I go play the game, it reboots my computer. I installed the patch compatible with my video card and it still didn´t worked.

I am currently able to run the game with no serious issues or errors:
Win XP Pro sp 2
AMD FX-53i
2gb crucial ballistix ram
2x PNY Verto Geforce 6800 Ultra in SLI mode (71.82 Forceware Drivers)

Other rigs still untested:
p4 3.6HT 4gb ATI 800 XT Plat ed. XP Pro sp2
p3 600 512mb Hercules Graphics and SB Live running win2k pro
Athlon 800 768mb Geforce 5200 Ultra and SB Live running win 98se
AMD K6/2-450 512mb Geforce 2 Ultra and Turtle Beach Montego - 98se
P2 266 512mb Diamond Viper V770, 2xl 3DFX 12mb chained SB AWE64
Quad 800mhz Xeon 16gb generic video, generic sound - Win2k pro (dont forsee running ff on this one but may be an interesting task)

Parts in corner and closet for another 10-15 rigs; time to bother with it= 0

It took quite a bit of haggling with the program to get it to run in software mode, I still have some minor graphics problems, mainly with a small bit of scan lines.  My main problem I had post-installation was tearing and severe pixellation, but after some minor tweaks it was solved.  As far as I can tell, there was no difference between the geforce and non geforce patch, and there is more than 1 available geforce patch available.  The patch distributed by Square/EA does not seem to work properly with newer 6800 chipsets on Nvidia GPU's.  The modded patch has allowed the game to run, albeit in software rendering, I still havent been able to ascertain a decent set of Detonator Drivers to allow 8 bit textures, and none of the solutions on this site helped with the original problems I was having.  I have an old box I am working on salvaging and rebuilding which used a Matrox g450 max dualhead, which was the original card I ran both FFVII and FFVIII on when they were both released for the PC.  Seeing as how the Matrox was, and still is the king for 2d graphics, I will settle for second rate with my current rig until such time as im able to get my old box back up and running once again.  Will update with compatibility results as time permits.  Also planning on trying to run on G5 Mac with Win Emulator soon as work lets one go home with me.

[DarkestDream]

my FF8 running smoothly in my Win Xp pro Sp2 with a lousy graphic card