FF7 randomly crashing after battle

[ladylaurel18]

I'm running windows XP, FF7 PC version 1.02 with NPC Replacement, the YAMP with Minigames Patch, chocobo patch, and FF7 music.

I've got the K-lite Codec pack, and everything works - except that I randomly crash after battles. It'll go black, minimize to quarter screen, and I can't see my windows taskbar or the error dialog until I use task manager to end the process. Which I have to do every time I close the game - whether it's a quit, crash, or alt-f4. Otherwise ff7.exe will just keep running on its merry way.


Anyone have any suggestions?


Thanks

[Terid__K]

Happens on mine as well. So far, I couldn't find any fix.

EDIT: But the ff7.exe application not terminating itself means you're running it in compatibility mode. Don't use cm when running ff7, it does more harm than good.

[Aali]

Might be the random midi crash, drop me a mail if you want to test the experimental YAMP patch.

[ladylaurel18]

I turned compatibility mode off. Just thought a game made in '97 would like the computer to fake that it still supports MS-DOS.
The Midi thing? My midi sound's never had a problem - no skipping or being choppy. I mute my midi anyway since I'm using FF7 Music.

I'll try to pay attention to exactly which screen change it crashes out of - I think it crashes right before it goes back to the world map or whatever screen you happen to be running around on. It has never crashed transitioning screens normally, though.

So, kinda unsure about the Midi crash.

[dziugo]

Do you even know what are the symptoms of the mentioned "midi crash"?

[Terid__K]

Might be the random midi crash, drop me a mail if you want to test the experimental YAMP patch.

Experimental YAMP patch? So there is a fix being worked on?

This is pretty much the only crash problem left in my FF7. If it gets fixed, FF7 will run flawlessly 

And I'm pretty sure that's what I'm experiencing, since the beginning of a MIDI that wasn't supposed to be playing starts before the crash.

[ladylaurel18]

Midi crash symptoms - I read Terid K's thread, and as I said, there really aren't any indicators that something is wrong with the midi. It doesn't play the wrong midi, it doesn't skip, nothing. And it happens only, very specifically, when I'm going from a battle screen or battle reward screen, to the world map. In fact, it just crashed after I escaped from a battle. That would sort of rule out the Fanfare/midi thing, I thought.

I'll try it anyway, but my logic just doesn't think that's the solution.

Anyway, after that last crash, I noticed something interesting. My game has alt-tabbed out of itself before, without me pushing any buttons. This usually happens when I'm running around. I generally just roll my eyes, and alt-tab back. And no, there aren't any visible pop-ups or what-not when this happens.

Well, that 'quarter-window' thing looks about the size of a 640x480 res picture on a 1024x763 screen. So, I'm going to attempt to change my screen's normal resolution down to 640x480 and see if maybe next time it'll just alt-tab out and not completely crash. Kinda doubtful, but I'll do it anyway.

Oh, and the compatibility mode - turning it off is bad. I started crashing on Cid's Hyper Jump, so that's back on to Win 95. How is turning it on bad?

Thanks.

[Aali]

Getting that error report would be very helpful, the random midi crash always happens at a specific offset in winmm.dll