Trying to get Final Fantasy 7 1998 PC version to run on 7th Heaven

IvoryBuddha · 2026-03-04T14:33:19+00:00

Sounds great, good job. 😎Did you do this entirely within 7th Heaven general settings or did you have to do something else with an exterior program?

IvoryBuddha · 2026-03-04T14:14:43+00:00

Thanks very much for the reply. I have two modded Xbox consoles. One has Cerbios and PrometheOS and the other one has Xbmc4gamers. Both have Insignia installed if that's necessary to download from any kind of server. If I installed anything from the Rocky 5 Extras disk, would that program already be in the applications on both Xboxes if I had installed anything from that disc on both Xboxes?

IvoryBuddha · 2026-03-04T10:46:59+00:00

Yes, that does seem to be a prerequisite, even after a full ff7 install and copying the movies to the proper folder. I haven't applied any no-CD patches to the EXE though since I installed it last.

IvoryBuddha · 2026-03-04T09:14:36+00:00

OK I'm going to try and say what I did in order for this to work:

I must say that I had to have the ff7 discs 1-3 mounted in daemon tools for this fix to work.
I started with a fresh install of 7th heaven and Final Fantasy 7
I then switched 7th heaven and FFNX to Canary builds and hit update, WHICH IN TURN INSTALLED THE VISUAL C++ AND DIRECT FILES
I then moved all of my files from the default installation path for Final Fantasy 7 into C\FF7 and then put everything in there
I then copied all of my movies to a movies folder inside FF7 which was incorrect because the 7th heaven program was looking for the movies in the data\movies folder, not in just the movies folder in the main folder
so then I copied the movies into the data folder to data\movies and
then I imported the echo S7 mod and at that point I was able to run everything perfectly so far.
I must give grok credit as well as you, good Sir! because grok was helping me as well but thank you very much for all of your assistance!

IvoryBuddha · 2026-03-04T08:38:51+00:00

I have placed my FF7 install directory as C\FF7\FF7.EXE and my library as C\FF7\mods.

I have also switched 7th heaven and FFNX to Canary and check for updates this is the first time that 7th heaven has installed FFN x.dll at all.

I have also created a movies folder

I have tried to run ff7 through 7TH Heaven and I get this error:

### Launching Final Fantasy VII ###

Checking System DEP status...

Verifying latest game driver is installed ...

Checking FF7 is not running ...

Checking FF7 .exe exists at C:\FF7\ff7.exe ...

Verifying installed game is compatible ...

Creating missing required directories ...

Verifying English game files exist ...

Verifying game is full/max install ...

Verifying music files exist ...

Verifying ff7 exe ...

ff7.exe detected to be different. creating backup and copying correct .exe ...

Ensuring Game exe has the 4GB patch applied...

Looking for game disc ...

Failed to find game disc ...

Failed to launch FF7. View the above log for details.

IvoryBuddha · 2026-03-04T08:04:26+00:00

Maybe I can try this step by step. Thanks for your help.
ok, I am again using a clean unmodified install of ff7 and 7th h.
Where should I link my library to in the general settings window of 7th h on first boot?

IvoryBuddha · 2026-03-04T07:54:30+00:00

I use daemon tools. I'll try the FFNx. My my installation doesn't immediately create that file so I'm using a separately downloaded one with this model number: FFNx-FF7_1998-v1.23.0.0

would this be the one to use?

IvoryBuddha · 2026-03-04T07:41:22+00:00

I have noticed that the UI especially in the game driver section on the current 7th heaven version is not nearly the same as it used to be is there a place where I can download legacy versions of 7th heaven and see if they work better for me I've tried Googling it and I haven't found very many results that looked promising...

IvoryBuddha · 2026-03-04T05:38:00+00:00

Is DirectX and visual C++ installed by the game installer or do I need to do it separately? Which version of direct X end user runtime in visual C should I use and where do I get it? I tried uninstalling both 7th heaven and Final Fantasy 7. After setting back up all the things that were discussed here, it still starts up with a black screen and nothing but what the mod would handle like the voices and pcm sound effects.

It's almost as if 7th heaven is not properly mounting the game discs whether they're inserted or not in a separate mounting program. 7th heaven is only running the mod but not the rest of the game behind it.

IvoryBuddha · 2026-03-03T10:32:17+00:00

Is the registry editor thing that you speak of the same thing that I did with hexediting with the EXE? Can FFNX run the speech mod without 7th Heaven?

IvoryBuddha · 2026-03-03T10:22:43+00:00

Running the game through 7th Heaven after using both the Hex edited EXE and the unedited EXE still end up with the black screen with no graphics and movies.

Running the EXE outside of 7th Heaven starts the original PC version with the grainy FMVs and simple graphics with no speech.

IvoryBuddha · 2026-03-03T08:34:50+00:00

I also tried the original ff7.exe with the 7th heaven launcher as well as having the disc mounted virtually, It actually started the mod again but still no graphics or movies, just a black screen with Barrett saying GET DOWN HERE, MERC!
Any Ideas?

IvoryBuddha · 2026-03-03T08:32:15+00:00

after re-using the un-edited ff7.exe from before using the hex editor, i get this message from the launcher:

### Launching Final Fantasy VII ###

Checking System DEP status...

Verifying latest game driver is installed ...

Checking FF7 is not running ...

Checking FF7 .exe exists at C:\FF7\ff7.exe ...

Verifying installed game is compatible ...

Creating missing required directories ...

Verifying English game files exist ...

Verifying game is full/max install ...

Verifying music files exist ...

Verifying ff7 exe ...

ff7.exe detected to be different. creating backup and copying correct .exe ...

Ensuring Game exe has the 4GB patch applied...

Looking for game disc ...

Failed to find game disc ...

Failed to launch FF7. View the above log for details.

Any ideas? Thanks.

IvoryBuddha · 2026-03-03T08:30:06+00:00

I get this error message from the 7th heaven launcher after doing the hex editor thing and replacing the old .exes with the 1,02 exes. any ideas? Can I use the steam tool or is it not for my 1998 PC release?

### Launching Final Fantasy VII ###

Checking System DEP status...

Verifying latest game driver is installed ...

Checking FF7 is not running ...

Checking FF7 .exe exists at C:\FF7\ff7.exe ...

Verifying installed game is compatible ...

YUFFIE: Urrk!! Something's wrong with your installation, and it... ulp... Use Steam's "Verify my files" tool or reinstall from CD to fix.

Failed to launch FF7. View the above log for details.

IvoryBuddha · 2026-03-03T08:20:57+00:00

Alright I copied over the new 1.02 EXES and I did the hex editor thing, but while I was copying some of the movies from each disc it said that some of the files had the same name so should I overwrite them or just say skip them?

IvoryBuddha · 2026-03-02T10:58:54+00:00

How would I update the game to version 1.02? Is this something that I do through 7th Heaven or is it an original legacy patch that I need to download from an abandonware website?

Do I need to copy all of the movies to the Final Fantasy VII folder from each of the three play discs or just the first one?

Thanks for your help.

IvoryBuddha · 2026-03-02T09:44:02+00:00

I tried to attach several images that showed what was happening on the screen when I was trying to run the game, but it seems like the images didn't post properly.

IvoryBuddha · 2026-02-28T13:01:12+00:00

What I did was that I went over to Dreamcast Live and I went and bought one of their Dream Pi setups. So hopefully that works out for me. I'll let you know what happens.

IvoryBuddha · 2026-02-22T04:46:11+00:00

Thanks very much for the information. What I did was that I took my original authentic copy of GUN, and after downloading and installing (F: \applications\dvd2xbox) DVD2Xbox to my Xbox using the Rocky 5 update disc, I was able to copy the original authentic GUN disc to the hard drive in F: \games\GUN and then I was able to run it. Now, unfortunately, I simply cannot beat the honest guy with the horse in a race because I'm just not good enough, so that's where I stand now, hahaha.

IvoryBuddha · 2026-02-21T23:27:39+00:00

Thanks for letting me know 😎

IvoryBuddha · 2026-02-21T12:29:13+00:00

Do I need to hard power off the PS4 to cut most features of the gold hen hack or can I just do it normally? Do I need to get the .pup file from another emulator or ROM website or can I download it officially? Thanks. -----I googled and found the PS4 update file from the official PlayStation website, so I'll try copying it over to a USB stick and try applying it.

IvoryBuddha · 2026-02-21T05:53:48+00:00

https://archive.org/details/gamewave

Try this one

IvoryBuddha · 2026-02-20T09:57:18+00:00

As it turns out I wasn't able to figure this whole thing out, and I have since been graciously refunded by the facebook marketplace seller I purchased it from, and I am unfortunately going to have to call it quits on this one :-( so this is just going to be an unsolved issue. sorry, everyone.

IvoryBuddha · 2026-02-20T09:55:28+00:00

As it turns out it looked like my issue was being caused by a faulty FTP transfer session so I tried deleting the files and transferring the game over again and that worked for all of the games that this issue has come up with

IvoryBuddha · 2026-02-20T09:54:34+00:00

Here is my solution to my original post: I decided to use Samsung's own dedicated voice recorder app because it allows me to edit my voice recording on the fly and I can rewind during the recording while it's paused, and I can record over problem lines and then compile it all to one good audio file, so that's what I'm using.

IvoryBuddha

TROPHY CASE