Hey, I just loaded Final Fantasy VIII for pc on my computer which is now running Vista. When I try to start the game I get the following error message.

"Unable to locate MIDI device. Final Fantasy VIII requires a Windows95-compliant MIDI device."

Anyone know how to get around this error and run FFVIII on Vista?

You'll probably need to download the device that it's missing. I can't help you any more than that.

You can count the days since Vista's release on one hand. Odds are there will not be a solution at this point.

Hmm. Final Fantasy VIII compatibility under Vista. VIII has major compatibility issues under XP, so it's not surprise that Vista wouldn't like it.


Okay, I just searched Google and found somebody discussing the same error message. Let's see... http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=30963&page=3 --- take a look over this thread and see if anything there can help you.

The information you gave on ubuntu I'm afraid isn't going to help me much. It would if that was my problem with ubuntu, but sadly on my ubuntu system it's directx drivers that aren't correctly working. Thanks though!

Anyone else have any other ideas perhaps? Or has microsoft basically screwed FF players until someone comes up with a fix of some sort?

Don't "bump" a thread just to say nothing. I gave you a thread above that discussed the exact same issue you described. Did it help you or not, and if not, let us know so we can go from there.

As far as I know, Microsoft changed/removed something that has to do with sound. Ive been reading about it on ign. Meybe ill try to find the article later

I know that microsoft made major audio stakc changes with the release of Vista. It's quite probable that they broke MIDI.

See if there are new, Vista specific, drivers for whatever audio chip/codec you are using. If that doesn't work, install an older OS, or go without FFVIII.

I know this isnt exactly as requested, but just as more infomation.

Vista + 7.1 surround sound: when playing music in Windows Media player sound only gets directed into the 2 front speakers, however if one plays a DVD all channels are used.

I have yet to install FF7/8 on vista but i assume neither will work, though i imagine with 'emulator' software 9such as which im looking for to play ff8 in a window) may be used with a external sound card ( sorry i cannot give you the example atm)

M3nAc3