So, uh, Vista?

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EmperorSteele

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Sorry, havn't been around for a while, but anyway...

I got an e-mail from someone asking if ff7 needs to be patched for Vista.  I wasn't sure how to answer him, sooo....  Does 1.02 work?  Does one need the chocobo patch? (I'm thinking not for some reason)  Will we need new and different patches for Vista?

I'm personally not planning on upgrading, but i'm sure some of you by now have acquired it, so... uhm, thoughts?
 
I too would like to know if you need the v1.02 at all
or if you need it
or if we need to start a new patch
 
There is no way it could pass the chocobo races with the current approach of memory protection. That is, if it runs on Vista :P
 
Googling seems to indicate mixed bag (assuming the posters are correct, of course).

Specifically there seems to be an issue (at least) with ATi cards.

Aaron, if you read this; have you tried FF7?
 
Give me 20 or so minutes, I'll post back with the results.

Ok tested.

The Eidos movie comes up as a black screen, but with audio, then the game locks up.  With Admin privalages, with compatability, in a window, nothing helps.
 
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Same that happened to me before installing the truemotion codec under XP. Maybe is the reason?
 
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My results:
It works.  Mostly.

I installed it, installed the 1.02 patch, and disabled the "Truemotion" codec in FFDshow, and then I was able to run the game, no problem.  No need to "Run as Administrator."  It can't play videos, though, I bet this would be fixed if I could install the Truemotion codec in the upside down movie patch, but I can't install that, it seems that the installer is 16-bit and I am running 64-bit Vista.  This means I can resume old games and get stuck when I get to a cutscene, but not start a new game.  (I got past the video that plays when you open the game by just pressing numpad Enter.)

Note - Without Truemotion support disabled in FFDShow, I get behavior identical to that reported by James Pond.

So, if someone could look into what would be necessary to distribute the "upside down movie patch" without the installer or with a different installer, that'd be cool.  Maybe I'll do it.  I bet it's just copying and registering a .ax file.  (I'd be way happier to do it if VMware would hurry up and release something that works on Vista and isn't so dang slow.)

Also, I haven't confirmed this but I believe that you will definitely need to install the Chocobo patch if you are playing FF7 on any version of Windows that uses the NT kernel.

[Edit]
I should also report that FF8 works with no problems at all except the NVIDIA black-box problem that some people have in XP with later NVIDIA cards.
 
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I know this is not an option for doing any kind of patch but I'm wondering if the game can read the videos the same way if they are coded with, say, standard DivX. I mean, if it can read them simply recoding the videos with a "normal" codec without modifying anything else, providing you have that codec installed and working.
 
People have tried that with varying degrees of success.  Since the game runs in 16-bit and does a crappy job of rendering the videos, they generally don't end up looking any better anyway, even if you can get it to decode and play them.
 
I was thinking of it as a way to bypass the problems generated (by? around?) the videos, not for trying to make them look better
 
So, if someone could look into what would be necessary to distribute the "upside down movie patch" without the installer or with a different installer, that'd be cool.  Maybe I'll do it.  I bet it's just copying and registering a .ax file.  (I'd be way happier to do it if VMware would hurry up and release something that works on Vista and isn't so dang slow.)
Click to expand...
What files does the patch install?  I mean, failing all else, just grab the files, zip 'em up, transfer and put them where they belong
 
Hey guys, I'm new to the site and all and I just had a question about Vista.  I'm not too computer knowlegdable like a lot of you guys and from what I've read, it looks like Final Fantasy 7 won't work on Vista.  Is there any way to get it to work, or are some people already working on patches for it.  Thanks a lot.
 
If you'd just read this thread, you'd have your answers (or at least as many of them as we have).
 
I've got it working nicely on Vista (all be it a little quick!):

> Installed the game
> Installed the 1.02 patch
> Installed the upside down movie patch (forced administrator in win 98 compatibility mode)
> Truemotion disabled in FFDshow

If someone's got a save game around the Chocobo Races I could investigate what happens...

- Mark
 
Before, I posted that I could not uninstall the upside-down movie patch because the 16-bit installer will not run on my 64-bit Windows system.

Well, turns out that it is actually a 16-bit Winzip self-extractor.  Once I realized this (while I was sitting down, getting ready to use a 32-bit XP system to figure out an alternate install method), I unzipped the files with WinRAR, ran setup.exe, and it installed fine.  There was no need for me to turn on compatibility mode or anything.  Now, videos work in FF7 and I can start a new game.

I've re-zipped the files from the patch and uploaded them here so that anyone else with a 64-bit system can install it.  I'm also updating the link on FFSF and in the FF7 FAQ.

My conclusion: So far, it seems that FF7 works on Vista about the same as it does on Windows XP.  The issue I ran into would also affect Windows XP x64 users, and I guess I never got around to installing FF7 while I was using that OS.
 
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I was thinking of it as a way to bypass the problems generated (by? around?) the videos, not for trying to make them look better
Click to expand...
I had several broken TrueMotion movies that were causing FF7 to crash when they would play. I was successful at using VirtualDub to both re-encode the PC movies and encode the original PSX moves into Indeo 5. So yes, this is a solution, but it probably depends on the codec you use. I used Indeo because it comes with Windows and is recent enough that it shouldn't drop quality, although if I remember correctly, DivX worked fine too.

Check the thread here for a deeper discussion about both of these topics:
https://www.ff7catalog.com/]
 
I've got it working nicely on Vista (all be it a little quick!):

> Installed the game
> Installed the 1.02 patch
> Installed the upside down movie patch (forced administrator in win 98 compatibility mode)
> Truemotion disabled in FFDshow

- Mark
Click to expand...
These steps worked fine for me in Vista. I didn't need to use FFDshow either.
 
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