Final Fantasy VIII

Patches

The latest patches for Final Fantasy 8 come in two flavors:

Geforce(Nvidia Cards) v 1.2

Non Geforce(Non Nvidia cards) v 1.2

Those patches can be found here: FilePlanet

Issues and Fixes

Running from ISO

If running the game from a series of .ISO files, the game will fail to see the ISO drive.

1. Run the Registry Editor
2. Go to the following key:
   • 64-bit Windows: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Square Soft, Inc\FINAL FANTASY VIII\1.00\DataDrive
   • 32-bit Windows: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Square Soft, Inc\FINAL FANTASY VIII\1.00\DataDrive
3. Change its value to the drive letter that the .ISO occupies(usually E or F), and relaunch the game.

8-bit paletted textures fix

When attempting to run FF8 PC on a modern system, the games launcher will fail most video cards as lacking 8bit texture support. This causes the game to use textures that are of a lower resolution. To fix this, as well as allow the game to run at higher resolutions, download the custom launcher that may be found here.

General graphical issues

There can be several graphical issues and artifacts when trying to play FF8 on current hardware, especially when you have an Nvidia card. Aali of the qhimm.com forums has created a custom graphics driver that works with both FF7 and FF8 which ends up fixing most issues you may encounter. You can get the latest version of it here.

Using controllers

Normal xbox controllers will work fine with this game, but the left stick by default controls movement. If you want to use the dpad, or if you have a specialized joystick like a fight-stick you need the program Xpadder. When using Xpadder, only map the d-pad. Don't map the buttons to keyboard letters or they will trigger twice in-game. Configure buttons via FF8Config.exe

Trainers and Utilities

Several trainers and misc. utilities exist for FF8 PC, some of which can be found here.