Final Fantasy 7: The game crashes... *BEFORE* I fight Palmer!

[Iconoclast]

Heya, everyone! So, I've got a puzzle for you, and tell me if you've got any ideas... Any help would be appreciated, but even a general idea'd be great. =) So, I've recently re-installed good old FF7, to give it a run, patched it up to version 1.02, copied the movies to HD, and all of that good stuff. I'm running Window XP media center, and have an NVIDIA graphics card, but have not had any problems up till now; the chocobo patch has been installed, and I'll slow the game down when it gets to the minigames. If I can make it that far! You see, for some bizarre reason, right after Shera pulls me inside to mention that Palmer's yoinkin' the Tiny Bronco, I go outside to fight him... and as soon as I step out of the back door in Cid/Shera's house, the game crashes to desktop, mentioning that FF7 has encountered an error, should I report it to windows? I know for a fact there isn't a movie that's supposed to play there; I've got the other fix in place for after the battle, then figured maybe my game didn't need it, and restored the old video file. No dice, so I'm stumped as heck. Any ideas whatsoever would be awesome. My config settings:

Direct3D

640-480 16bpp NVIDIA TNT soundmax digital audio, soundmax wdm midi, and yamaha XG midi. Well, thanks in advance!

[Terid__K]

I have a SoundMAX card as well, and I use the default Windows MIDI device. It's way better. Also, don't use Yamaha XG MIDI, use General MIDI.

As for your problem, try updating your Sound Card drivers. Also, make sure you are not using any video driver newer than Forceware 163.75 (They all make both FF7/FF8 unplayable.) I would also try Windows 95 Compatibility mode (If you use this, make sure you exit the game by pressing Alt + F4, instead of using the quit button).

If you have a GeForce 9 card, you won't be able to play this game until Nvidia fixes the driver issues (this can take a while).

[Iconoclast]

Thank you, my friend! No luck so far, but you've set me on the path to searching, so that's something.

First of all, I don't have Windows MIDI device as an option, and General Midi has caused 'Syncore' to crash several times, as well as one very frightening Blue Screen of Death. I don't believe I'm using a very new video driver, so that should be fine, and the only computer I own is a 'business laptop' with a NVIDIA Geforce Go 7900 GS, so I don't think it's that... But, there is one thing you suggested left(Besides windows 95; I just tried that, and no dice.)

I have been looking for ages for SoundMAX drivers. Maybe I'm just very stupid, but I've never been able to find them, and the official site didn't help. Any chance you could help me there, too? Hahah, but even if you don't, you've given me some good ideas.

[Terid__K]

If you are on a laptop, you have to look for the drivers on the official site for your model. Try looking it up on Google.

As a last resort, you could download the Install Disc ISO from a torrent site. It could be corrupted data that is causing the crash, and since you legally own the game, I don't see why not. I had to do it with FF8 because of corrupted movie files, and it worked fine.

[Iconoclast]

I might do that... But I'm going to wrestle with this thing first, haha! Thanks for all the help, Terid. I owe ya one, and for whatever reason, I do think it's the sound card... Since it's already caused syncore to crash, it might just be that, anyhow. Well, I'll fool around with it for a couple of days, and if I can't fix it, I suppose I'll have to take the path of least resistance. My only 'still scratching my head' issue is that I'd installed it before, although on a different computer... Well, I'll figure it out somehow. =)

[Iconoclast]

So, I completely fixed the problem! I decided to reinstall the game, one more time... Only this time, I chose to install DX5 and the Directshow drivers, as well; I'd recently found out it doesn't uninstall your current directx files, and heck, why not give it a try? Now the game works perfectly, I didn't even have to swap movies for the post-palmer-truck incident.  Thanks for all the help, Terid, and I hope this helps other people in my situation... Or at least goes to prove the old adage of 'reinstalling is a godsend'.