FFVII Chocobo Crash!

My laptop hasn't only done this with FFVII but we'll start from here.

My problem is the part where you are required to do the Chocobo race in the PC version of Final Fantasy VII. The game works swell right until we are required to Chocobo race. That's when the game crashes.

Though I suspect that it might be due to my laptop failing in the 8-bit Paletted Textures test (This I looked up in the Final Fantasy configuration program provided. Does the Chocobo race utilise these textures? If so, is there a way to fix this problem or is my graphics/video shit?

Also, the laptop crashes in a game called Call of Cthulhu right after you go through the door you opened by killing a man on a machine. I've asked some people and apparently there are no "fancy stuff" that might cause the crash (no ultra-special-power-draining effects etc.) WHY???

My laptop has the minimum requirements for both games. It is:

HP Pavillion dv1000

Intel Pentium M Processor (1.73GHz, 504 MB of Ram)
Display: Plug and Play on Mobile Intel 915GM/GMS, 915GML Express Chipset Family

Any help would be greatly appreciated ^_^

Jam it back in, in the dark.

It's a well known issue with FFVII PC and Windows XP. You won't be able to go any further until you apply the XP patch, which I think is unofficial. Google around for it, it shouldn't be too hard to find.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Roph

It's a well known issue with FFVII PC and Windows XP. You won't be able to go any further until you apply the XP patch, which I think is unofficial. Google around for it, it shouldn't be too hard to find.

I've played FF7 under XP and have had similar problems. When I get to the sewers area just after meeting Don Corneo the first time, the game would crash. Strangely enough, the patch didn't fix it for me. It's possible that the game has a hard time with the hardware you're running. At the time this game came out, GeForce2 cards weren't even released yet. I've seen a few patches to make the game a little more compatible, you might wanna google for them.

As for other games crashing, make sure you have the latest drivers for your motherboard and video card.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Thanks Roph and rendr. I'll give them suggestions a shot.

How ya doing, buddy?

I've heard many things about the Infamous Chocobo crashes...the best I could dig up was:

Quote:

Oh, and some advice for any FFVII PC players:

-Anti-Aliasing/Anisotropic Filtering WILL NOT WORK PROPERLY ON ANY ATI VIDEO CARD PERIOD. You can still enable hardware acceleration by applying the official patch and selecting TNT2 in the video menu in FFVII Configuration, but enabling the other two options will give all 2D graphics (bacgrounds, menus, etc.) an odd grid distortion. The game is playable, and the battle graphics looks quite nice, it's just a pain in the ass to stare at a grid when choosing commands. If you have a Nvidia card, it will supposedly work fine.

-If you have the hard drive space, I suggest you copy all the movie files to the FFVII directory (preferably "Final Fantasy VII\movies\"). Go to Run and type "regedit" which will bring up your registry editor. From there, select HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and then SOFTWARE. Locate Squaresoft Inc. and open it. Then click on Final Fantasy VII. To your right, should be numerous files, but double click on MoviePath. Set the value to wherever you have the movie files copied to, save your changes, and exit. No more annoying delays between acessing the CD drive when moving to a cinematic. You can thank Eidos' dumb freaking asses for making the movies bloated as fuck .avi files.

-While there is an WinXP patch that fixes crashing during certain areas in the game, there is one other patch that supposedly makes the game look and sound better. DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS PATCH. It causes numerous errors, and actually makes the music sound worse.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Well, I've tried the FFVII suggestions and they work fine so thanks to all those who've written in.

But I'm still stuck over the second part of my question, which was about how some games would suddenly crash after performing without any hitches. I had a look at the updating driver solution, but apparently the version I have is newer than the one posted on the website. Any suggestions?

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

No one answered so I'll revive this thread again.

About the game crashing for no reason at all (Call of Cthulhu), I have the latest version when it comes to driver updates. My laptop is enough to play it (and it has worked until the bit after you see the man on the torture machine at the start of the game). I've checked guides to see if there are any uber-special effects. None. I even rented the game to see if I could play it. Same problem. Anyone have a suggestion/the reason why this would happen?

Moving on, I've googled my way through 10 pages but I'm unable to find to solution to my GTA:SA problem. Okay, it's a really daggy game but for the times I need some mindless-action, I would like to listen to my MP3s in that game.

Here's what I've tried:
- Followed the manual about My Documents/GTA San Andreas User Files/User Tracks.
- Tried putting Mp3s, WAVs and the shortcuts of both formats.
- Got Windows Media Player 10.
- Got the latest version of Quicktime
- Got a package with virtually all codecs.

The suspicious thing that I can put my finger on is the fact that when I installed the game, played it and then saved it, I couldn't find my save files in My Documents. Instead, they were somewhere in the actual root folder itself. Also, the reason why it may be like this is because it is an copy given to me by a friend (he dl via bittorrent).

The game plays well but the missing GTA User Files folder and the lack of listening to my MP3s are really annoying absences for me. Any suggestions?

FELIPE NO

I wanted to mention that this so called XP patch for FF7 is in fact a fake/ripoff. What I needed for playing FF7 on 'Windows 2000 SP4' was this application from MS that let me precisely configure the compatibility mode thats selectable for old applications (where you can select: windows nt, windows 95 and so on). I don't know the name for this app but you can download it from MS (or even MSDN?) for free IIRC. There are only a few hacks you've to select for the compat mode. This sometimes already fixes the chocobo problem. If not, there is a special chocobo patch that hexfixes the executable.
Now this xp patch if simply a ripoff of the applied chocobo-patch and some strings replaced. If someone wants more info that I could upload some archive containing the information I gathered for getting FF7PC to run on my machine (I saved some websites and boardthreads).

cya
liquid

How ya doing, buddy?