GameBanshee Forums

Sorry if this thread already exists, but the search engine is down since yesterday evening and I have found nothing with a manual search.

I have installed Final Fantasy VIII on my computer, but when I try to start the game, nothing happens. I does not freeze, it does not ask me to insert disk one, it does absolutely nothing.

I have searched many forums, but they don't agree with each other and none of what have been proposed has worked for me.

I have an Athlon 2800+, 2,1 GHz, 448 RAM, Windows XP SP 2, and an Nvidia GeForce 4 graphic card. Some forums say that it is absolutely impossible to play the game on a GeForce over GeForce 2.

I have tried to install the game on Windows 98 and Windows 95 compatibility. It did not work. I have also downloaded the Nvidia patch, but did not work either. I changed the FF8 configuration, nothing seems to work. I made a DXDiag, it tells me everything is fine. I have also changed the sound acceleration settings as recommended on a forum, but it did not work either. I have another computer with Windows 2000 and a non GeForce card and the game did not start either.

Has any of you had that problem? Have you played FF8 on Windows XP? Any suggestions?

Thank you in advance.

Have you tried opening the CD folder and running it directly from the .exe file on the CD? I've never played FF games but this method has worked with other games I have had problems with. Other than that I haven't got a clue, sorry

You said you have installed the game in compatibility mode, but have you also tried to play the game in compatibility mode? You did say you managed to install it, so reinstalling it in compatibility modes doesn't really change that fact.

I already have tried both your suggestions. None of them worked.

Thanks anyway.

I'm not sure if this helps but have you tried going to the game's configuration menu and changing the video acceleration to software acceleration (or maybe hardware acceleration)? I hope it helps. Sorry I couldn't be of much help since I played FF8 many years ago on an older machine with Windows 98.

You probably mean "software renderer". I also tried that without any result. Thanks anyway.

I borrowed the game from a flatmate this afternoon, and I also had problems getting it to run.

You might want check if your midi drivers are in the proper upright and locked position, extra-especially if you have an external midi device like I have. Somehow the external device's midi driver got between one the player FF8 uses, and failed to initialize. The screen goes black as if it's trying to load something and that's all that ever happens. I managed to get the game running by installing vanilla midi drivers and by manually disabling the ones that came with my sound card and the external midi device. I found the whole procedure fairly ridiculous, but then again.. what type of game in this day and age would want to use midi? That's like the pre-pentium era, games like Falcon 3 and Golden Axe.

In any case, maybe something is up with those drivers in your case too. Try disabling the ones you already have. See if you can get the game to initialize its own midi player properly.

Thanks Tricky. I did not do what you told me, but you made me realize the problem was with the sound card and not the graphic card. So I changed the sound card configuration.

It seems also that there was something with the patch. The game started when I reinstalled the patch for the 3rd time.

Now I hope I won't have any bugs while playing it.