Battle and menu crash

[Gallocs]

Hey everyone. I've had an account here for quite a while and recently decided to check out any new mods, or updates to textures and the likes. I came across a newer re-modeling project than the one I previously used. I promptly downloaded and set it up. Unfortunately, after trying to play FF7 with the new textures, alongside the high-res patch and the PSX music mod, I cannot open the menu or get hit/deal damage in battle without having ff7.exe crash. I have tried v1.02 of the .exe to no avail. I also used YAMP to install the PSX music and the high-res patch. With or without using YAMP, the error occurs. I have also tried getting dziugo's 9999 cap removal to work with/without YAMP to no avail. I am running on Windows Vista Home Premium x64. I am able to view the cutscenes/videos after installing and configuring the k-lite codec pack.

In short, I've tried a number of different things. I've installed things in various orders and still, I cannot play the game. I legally own the game, but use daemon-tools to virtually run the disc, since my physical discs are getting scratched as a result of their use. The only fix I've seen mentioned was in a post here, which no longer contains a working link (the post by dziugo supposedly remedied a similar problem). Which I cannot find now... argh. I have had the game work under XP, but I don't recall what hardware I had at that time. Should any more details be needed, feel free to let me know. Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Current hardware:
CPU - Intel Q6600 @ 3GHz (overclocked 600mhz, but stable.)
GPU - eVga GTX260 Core 216 (slightly overclocked as well, but it's stable.)
RAM - 8GB DDR2 1066 @ 5-5-5-14 (G.Skill)
HDD - Two 500GB Western Digital's in Raid 0 (The 5000AAKS's.)

[obesebear]

First off, quit using the Hi-res patch and instead use Aali's Custom Graphics Driver.  You will need to have the 1.02 exe and config for it to work.  YAMP can be used in conjunction with it.

Post again if you still have trouble

[Gallocs]

Thanks for the suggestion. I downloaded it, ran the 64-bit vista .reg file but I still have the same problem.

[obesebear]

Assuming you're running the driver correctly (which now rereading your post makes me think it wouldn't matter anyways)  one of your files is messed up.  Specifically, it's probably the lgp that stores the .tex that has the numbers and letters on it.

If you're using a virtual drive with files from CD1, I'd suggest using the CD2 files.  If THAT doesn't work, you could always download it from the internet and I'm sure those files would work.

[Gallocs]

Even after trying to use a fresh 1.02 EXE and config. file, I encounter the same error. To elaborate on the custom driver situation, I extracted everything to the same directory as the FF7.exe, changed a few settings to match my resolution, and enable the FPS counter. However, even after saving that and adding the registry key using the Vista64bit reg. file, I still have the error. (Yes, I had already setup the FF7 config to match my setup.) I even tried reverting to the original char.lgp file and I have the same problem.

On a side note, even after all of this, when I opened the game and loaded to my save file inside the first reactor, the FPS counter was nowhere to be found, making me guess that the driver isn't loading. As far as the lgp that has textures for the fonts/menus/damage number, which lgp would that be? The only one I ever touched was char.lgp to extract it, update the files in it and repack it into an lgp. O.o

Thanks for the suggestions so far though!

[obesebear]

Well if you copied all your files from the CD which you said was beginning to become quite scratched, one of the lgp files could be damaged without you having to have modified it.
I have no idea which lgp has that info, but I'm pretty sure one of them is corrupted.  That's the only explanation I can think of for the game crashing whenever letters or numbers should be loaded. It isn't char.lgp or battle.lgp since you have no problems with models loading.

I don't use Vista so I may be wrong with this, but you have to run FF7 as admin and in XP compatibility mode, or something will happen that has to do with Virtual store (basically, Vista SUX and you should upgrade to 7  )  You may also be able to disable UAC and have it work just fine.
If you really want to test the driver, I suggest changing fullscreen to false and the resolution to 800x600, this way when the game loads you will know for sure if it is working or not.

[Kudistos Megistos]

magic.lgp maybe? Not sure what's in it (except for the obvious )

Anyway... yeah, copy lgp files from one of the other discs and see if they work. Surely not all of the discs are scratched?

[Gallocs]

After setting Aali's driver to make FF7 run in a window at my native res, the FPS counter shows up and it is obvious that the driver is now loading. I can now access menu's and finish battles. One question, are battles supposed to be only 13-14 FPS? That seems a bit low...

On a side note, I'm not using the discs. I'm using virtual images I made of them a couple years ago when the discs were still in good condition. . Time to go try that modded char.lgp! Thanks for the suggestion obesebear! After reading through Aali's post's I can't believe he was able to come up with a, "custom," driver for FF7. The character models seem to scale well with the resolution.

[Aali]

Battle is supposed to run at 15 FPS, but an incompatible refresh rate (not evenly divisable by 15), an inaccurate timer or both could throw that off a bit. I noticed the same drop to 13-14 on my laptop, while my desktop runs it at a steady 15 FPS at all times.

[Gallocs]

Thanks Aali for the quick reply! Your custom driver appears to work very well with the original char.lgp. However, when I tried to use the reunion patch char.lgp, I ended up crashing. Although, I can live without it, since the original models seem to scale VERY well with higher resolutions. I currently have Aali's custom driver, dziugo's 9999 breaker, and PSX Music as installed by YAMP working perfectly together. Thank's for the help everyone!

[Reaper24]

You can use PRP instead of Reunion.

[foreveranxman]

Hi there.  I've been having this happen to me too.  I ran a bunch of mods and installed the new models and such and I've figured something out.  I'm trying despeately to get a Hard Mode mod to work, and that seems to be what's causing the problem for me.  Whenever I replace the KERNEL file and the scene.bin file, it crashes whenever I try to open the menu.  When I copy the original versions of those files back into the folder, it works fine.  But that means I can't get the hard mode to work... Anyways, maybe you've altered the scene.bin or KERNEL file and that's what's crashing your game...

But if anyone knows how to help me get my game working with Hard Mode, I would really appreciate it!

[LeeHiOoO]

Yeah, prolly is an issue with kernel.bin and scene.bin.
But I think u should post this at the thread where u downloaded the "hard mod".