Final Fantasy VII problem

[Forrest]

Hi, I am trying to run Final Fantasy VII with ePSXe 170. The very first screen plays something like "Sony Entertainment of America" or something like that but it will never advance to the next screen. Then once you exit the program, you hear the music for the main Final Fantasy VII screen and the only way to get it to stop is to restart computer. You have to restart the computer anyway as if you simply try to run the game again, nothing will apear, just a black screen. Any help or advise getting the game working will be appreciated.

[FatTrucker]

ePSXe will only shut down using the 'file' 'exit' command. If you click on the 'x' in the corner of the window ePSXe will still be running in the background.

You don't need to restart the PC. Just hit Ctrl, Alt and Del together to bring up your running processes menu. From there you can select anything and tell windows to close it.

Not sure why its not running at startup as it sounds like FFVII is booting ok once its running in the background. You could try running it in a window if you're not already, or alternatively hit Alt and Tab a couple of times to bring it back into focus. Could be its a video initialisation issue so perhaps try a different video plugin.

If it wasn't running at all then I would have gone for it being a bios mismatch, as it is it seems likely its some kind of video problem either with the plugin you're using or your graphics hardware.

[Forrest]

I changed my video plug in as you advised and configured it. It seemed to fix the problem but the game is still not doing as it should. I am having problems with the game freezing during loading sequences. I even had it freeze at the end of a battle once. I had to play the sequence where they jump off of the train 17 times before it finally loaded the tunnel area. I have still not made it to the second boss due to this problem although I have been able to make it to the reactor.

Any help will be appreciated.

[FatTrucker]

Possibly a bad ISO. The fact it did manage to get past the train sequence eventually points toward it having trouble reading the ISO or Disk.
Its also worth re-installing Direct-X and the latest drivers for your graphics card just on the off chance its your graphics causing the problems.

[Forrest]

I am using the Original Final Fantasy VII disks and not copies. The disks are also in very good condition and are clean and scratch free. I have heard that some CD-Roms have trouble with playstation disks I was wondering after I made the post if that could be the problem but I downloaded a CD Rom plugin and didn't get any results. Also it is happens very inconsistantly. The freeze at the end of battles is becoming more common as well. It will not really freeze but I will defeat all the enemies and the screen but the battle screen will just remain, the characters timer will even keep going up but the attach option will not appear when it reaches max due to there being no enemies. It just really annoying I have finllay made it further than I said in the last post but I have to save at just about every new screen. It is getting very annoying and I must say I will probably give up on the game if I can't get this fixed. I will also try cleaning the disk just incase there is something I am missing or can't see. I am pretty sure I have the latest graphics drivers but I will double check that.

Thanks

[FatTrucker]

If you're running from the original disks then its almost certainly a problem with your drive reading them. Lots of modern drives have trouble with old PS1 disks.

Easiest way to check is to make an ISO of the disk, run ePSXe with the ISO, if the problems disappear then you know your drive isn't happy with the ancient media your trying to run on it. If you do make an ISO then convert it at the slowest possible speed.

You could also try a different CDRom plugin, I think CDR WNT/W2K core 1.7.0. is recommended when running from the original media.