Problem with FMVs -> Gameplay

[paladin181]

In the opening video going into the train station. I have downloaded K-Lite Codec (3.50) and set Truemotion1,2 to disabled (from libavcodec).

The opening FMV plays until it zooms into the train station, and the Shinra Guards who are supposed to be on the platform aren't there, then the screen goes blank, and no music plays, though you can hear sound effects (of Jessie and Biggs taking out the guards). Then, the dialogue box pops up, still on a black screen, and after clearing that, and holding forward for a few seconds, the battle scene starts, and I can finally see, then everything is normal except for the music. The music does start up after the battle. I haven't played through to the second FMV (standing at the open gate, looking up at the Reactor and the Shin-Ra logo before running through the gate) yet to see if it's any other FMV with this problem. I played through the second FMV, and the sprites are frozen on screen instead of moving properly. I noticed someone else encountering this problem on a different cutscene, and I'm currently searching for that post.

Has this been encountered before?

Another note is that I can get video restored by opening the menu before the battle with the soldiers, however, music doesn't start until the battle.

Edit: After moving on to the second FMV, instead of moving, Cloud sits still in the middle of the screen frozen and then just snaps into place at the end of the cutscene.

The movies worked fine before installing K-Lite.

Patch list:
Official 1.02
The SaiNt's Hi res patch
FFVIIMusic
YAMP
-MGP
-9999LimitBreak
-Krucis Default Run
NPC Replacement Project 0.6
High Res Cloud

EDIT: As of now, I've done the only reasonable thing. I've uninstalled K-lite until someone can help provide insight on this, as I'm tired of the FMV transitions. So if anyone gets an idea, I'd still love to hear it and try out some things. As of now, I've tried compatibility modes, upside-down movie patch, and a few tweaking guides on this site, all to no avail. Thanks for your time.

After doing dome research on this topic, I found this (original post linked in the quote):

In my short time here, dziugo has been helpful time and time again.


I have a question about Gypt though. I wanted to see if it had worked, so I chose new game and sought to use it to skip the beginning movie. When I press

Code: [Select]

press CTRL
press S
release S
release CTRLthe FMV is skipped, but the screen is black. I hear the train's steam end, and I can hear Biggs and Jessie attacking the guards as well as Cloud flipping off of the train. Then a window pops up with Barret instructing you to come along. Then I press up and can hear myself enter the battle. But at no point am I seeing anything but black.
...
...
[EDIT]
Forgot to mention a couple things. Even though the background music isn't playing if I skip the new game movie, it plays after the first battle is over.

The other thing is that if I use the first method mentioned above to skip the next FMV (the one where Cloud looks up to the reactor), everything works fine. But that FMV fades out and the game fades back in anyways. So the "problem" I experience in the first example might only effect FMV's that are meant to play into a playable field map. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any. Furthermore, when I use the first version to skip the new game movie and the screen is black, as soon as Cloud is controllable, bringing up the menu and then returning to the game restores the visuals. So it's not really an issue at all. I was just wondering if maybe I had done something wrong.

Now this would be wonderful new, had I installed Dziugo's GYPT patch. However, seeing as I haven't, but still experience this problem, maybe someone (possibly Dziugo, if he has time, or someone else far more knowledgeable about these things than I) could enlighten me a little as to the cause, and possible solutions? Again, I thank you for your time. I think I will try installing the GYPT patch and see if it can help me with the problem I'm encountering.

Another note I've found is that I'm running my movies off the HD, I suppose I assumed that would be obvious. Is this in anyway a cause or partial cause to my problem? Associated at all? Even in the ballpark?

Ok. New Edit. I found this post, much to my chagrin, no one was able to offer much support on the matter last year either. I'm still researching, however, so bear with me, if you are reading these updates... However, I fear I'm the onlyone who ever sees this thread. Fun, though, researching through old posts.

Edit: Installed Duck Truemotion player with FFDshow installed, and it only gave me horrible quality FMVs with the same problem.

[Edit] (10/25):I found the person experiencing the character freeze problem, and it is in the NPC_RP thread...

when clouds supposed to pick up jessie, he and jessie are supposed to get up and run away from the reactor, but cloud never gets back up and jessie and he just freeze, even when the video fo the explosion starts up

sorry for the small picture, somehow my hosting site resizes everything

It seems though that the question was pretty much ignored at the time, and could have been related to a bug in a previous release of NPC_RP
[/edit]

[dziugo]

How about unpatched version of FF7? I mean clean 1.02 ff7.exe and unaltered archives. Also, running FMVs from HDD won't hurt if you set the path correctly (and it seems that you got that right ).

[paladin181]

How about unpatched version of FF7? I mean clean 1.02 ff7.exe and unaltered archives. Also, running FMVs from HDD won't hurt if you set the path correctly (and it seems that you got that right ).

I'll try that, with K-Lite still installed. In the end though, I may just use K-Lite to encode all my avi's and then remove it, as that seems to be the problem THank you for the response.

Edit: Still no dice, same response as before, only with blocky characters after I get visuals back. Perhaps I should install the GYPT patch and use it? Even still, everything works without K-Lite (or possibly just FFDShow) so I'll encode the remainder of my movies and be uninstall the program. Thanks again though. Please, though continue to provide help, and I'll gladly test it, as others may be experiencing these issues.

[dziugo]

I'd try to get the default filter (the one on the install cd) working, powered by the upside-down movie patch if needed. Try to remove all the codecs, ensure that nothing is trying to play the FMVs (easily done with WMP and/or GSpot), and then install TM2.0.

[Westicles]

First of all I just want to say that I've been doing a massive amount of reading on here the past few days and have been brought up to speed on the multiple patches, mods, issues, and breakthroughs with the PC version of FF7.  I have all of you to thank for your input, ideas, and solutions.  With your help, I've gotten FF7 to run quite well and with the v102, NPC, ff7music, and YAMP patches/mods on vista.  I'm not having to run under any compatibility mode or anything; and the game works perfectly.

What I have installed:

FF7 - of course
v1.02 patch
Filter TM20 VFW
FF7_chocobo_patch.exe
TrueMotion Decompressor v2.0
YAMP - gyptinstant, snowboard/highway, and transparent dialogue box patches only
NPC reconstruction project (omg I love this)
New Spell patch by zero88
ff7 music by ficedula (with the OST in x-yy.mp3 format)

FFCONFIG SETTINGS
Display
   Primary Display Driver
Renderer
   Direct3D Hardware Acceleration
Display Resolution
   640x480 16bpp (full screen)
NVIDIA checked and TNT ticked


My first problem was with Saint's hi-res patch.  It would absolutely not work from the start (even when I applied it first).  FF7 would crash immediately.  I uninstalled and skipped it.  My next problem was with the ff7 music.  I ended up having to use the highwind decompiler to remove the midis from the lgp files so that they wouldn't play over the mp3's.  It sucks that the sound fx are integrated into the music volume, or I would've just turned the in-game music down.

Anyway, to the point... my third and final problem was identical to the one paladin181 was having.  As soon as the first FMV ended, the screen went black.  I heard biggs and jessie waste the guards and the "c'mon newcomer" box appeared.  I could then go to the menu and exit quickly to see everything now rendered perfectly.  I didn't have a problem until the second FMV where the camera revolves around cloud and he runs off the scene.  Whenever the FMV started, the cloud sprite wouldn't move and be stuck in place.  Barret would continue on course without stopping until he went off screen.  When the FMV was over, the normal scene was loaded, and everything was as it should be again.  I tried everything... I already had truemotion 1, 2 disabled in ffdshow, tried compatibility mode, etc... nothing worked.  I ended up uninstalling k-lite, tried running the game for shits-n-giggles, and it worked perfectly.  Apparently, the filter tm20 or truemotion decompressor had the problem already fixed and I was being too hasty with thinking that I needed the k-lite codec pack.  I'm now all the way to costa del sol without a single hangup what-so-ever with everything working as smooth as silk.

Specs:
Acer Aspire 5100-3825
AMD Turion 64 Mobile Technology MK-36 (2.0GHz, 512kb L2 cache)
256mb ATI Radeon Xpress 1100 HyperMemory
1GB DDR2 RAM
Logitech Dual Action gamepad (VERY nice to have.  )
Windows Vista Home Premium


Once again, thanks everyone for helping a lurker get up and running again.  I had completely forgotten about having this game until I stumbled across the 1.02 patch that led me here and hurriedly tried to reinstall it.  I appreciate everyone's knowledge helping me... I just hope this post helps paladin or anybody else out there who is having trouble with getting this running on vista.

[Mornion]

I have been experiecing the same problems as Paladin. It was no big deal, only anoing, until I got to junon on disc 1. I activated the elevator buton on the airport, the elevator going down animation played ok, but cloud and the elevator buton remained stil. When the movie ended and things weant back to a still background, the elevator was back up, but I could move as if I was on the bottom floor and thus entered the building and went on with the game.

On disk 2, when the story took me back to junon, and tifa is in the gas chamber and weapon is attacking, I have to go to the airport elevator once again, to steal highwind. What happens is the same as teh other time, but now, I'm stuck at the botom floor. The animation plays, barret and the butom, don't move up, after the animation the elevator is back down and I can move as if I was on the top floor, but I can't get into the ship!! The animation that shoud take place doesn't start.

I'm playng the game with in a athlon 3500+, with 1gb RAM, nVidia GeForce 6500 256 mb, windos XP SP2, with the 1.02 and the chocobo patchs only.

Can anyone help me? I'm a complete ignorant on working the game files, so I'll need a "For Dummies" explanation 

If no one knows a way to fiz this, could someone PLEASE take my save game, pass this bit and save right outside junon?? (I'll upload it as soon as I get a volounteer)

thank you so much for any help you can provide!!


PS: English is not my first lenguage, so any speling or grammar mistakes, I'm really sorry ofr it, bu I hope I got the message through

[Trojax]

Yeah this is the problem I was having too. (See my thread) I fixed it by uninstalling my k-lite codec pack.  I was able to reinstall it and not pick the Gabest Avi Splitter and it now ff7 works with k-lite installed.  So I don't know if you have that avi splitter or not but try getting rid of it and see if that helps.  Its difficult to tell using gspot which avi splitter (gabest or microsoft) is in use because they have the same name so its best to uninstall it completely.  Although I am not 100% sure this is what causes the problems with videos; I just suspect it.  Hope this helps a bit??

[Mornion]

I tryed uninstaling kLite and the problem persists. As a matter of  fact the FMVs are looking better now. But the characters continue to stand still on the screen as the FMVs are played.
I think I got rid of the AVI spliter, but I'm not sure.
Still, the FMVs do look beter now, so I think the codec, avi spliter, or anything like that may be related to this problem.
Since I don't know squat about this things I can't be sure.
(I think I wont be needing kLite for a while, so I'll keep it unistaled. Just thinking it could be of some importance to further atempts on solving this)

Thanks a lot for trying and taking your time to tell me, but unfortunatelly it didn't work for me

[ryg]

i have the same problem from the first Post.

But i can play the game without any errors until the second reactor. in this reactor is a flashback scene (screen fade red) and my game crash...

[Trojax]

Mornion if you have it uninstalled you could try reinstalling the latest k-lite and maybe just install the microsoft avi splitter (be careful it defaults to Gabest) and the minimum amount of codecs.  This is what I did but I guess the problem could be elsewhere...  You could check what filters you have installed with like Directshow filter manager or somesuch tool, but it should be uninstalled with the pack. Probably something else is splitting the FF7 movies, but it could be anything... I noticed I had nero doing it at one time.  Also I am using True motion 2.0.6.9 so maybe you could install that too if its still not working.

PS - I think these issues happen because the microsoft avi splitter returns some value to the game when the movie its playing is done.  But the other splitters like Gabest and Haali dont return whatever this value is or FF7 cannot recognize it.  Of course it probably sends something to tell when the movie starts too so thats why cloud(or whoever) doesnt move at all during a movie.  This is why in your example of the elevator in Junon it is not moved after the movie is done.. the game doesnt think the movie has been played.  This is my going theory though..maybe someone who knows more can explain it.

[paladin181]

Mornion if you have it uninstalled you could try reinstalling the latest k-lite and maybe just install the microsoft avi splitter (be careful it defaults to Gabest) and the minimum amount of codecs.  This is what I did but I guess the problem could be elsewhere...  You could check what filters you have installed with like Directshow filter manager or somesuch tool, but it should be uninstalled with the pack. Probably something else is splitting the FF7 movies, but it could be anything... I noticed I had nero doing it at one time.  Also I am using True motion 2.0.6.9 so maybe you could install that too if its still not working.

PS - I think these issues happen because the microsoft avi splitter returns some value to the game when the movie its playing is done.  But the other splitters like Gabest and Haali dont return whatever this value is or FF7 cannot recognize it.  Of course it probably sends something to tell when the movie starts too so thats why cloud(or whoever) doesnt move at all during a movie.  This is why in your example of the elevator in Junon it is not moved after the movie is done.. the game doesnt think the movie has been played.  This is my going theory though..maybe someone who knows more can explain it.

I am happy to report that this was indeed my problem. While I had no problem without K-Lite, I can now keep it installed so I can use it for other projects on my computer. If you experienced the problem i did, then try this, as it could very well be the solution to the problem.