ReBirth 1,2,3 had recommended 64-bit Windows, 4GB RAM, and 1GB VRAM even though the games run quite alright with 32-bit (including XP) and lower specs. So considering the stated requirements always seems to be a gamble, and with the latest release of Megadimension Neptunia I called their bluff and lost. This time the game says it can run on 32-bit but this appears to be a mistake. I don't even see a 32-bit executable, it's purely 64-bit. But more importantly, the game must need some new-fangled instruction set because even with Win7 64-bit I can't run it at all. It crashes immediately with an illegal instruction.

I found out that Intel Software Development Emulator takes care of instruction set requirements and allows the game to run ^__^

Now I just need to figure out WTF is up with the controls. I can't find a manual for this game, it doesn't detect my gamepad, and I can't find anything in the game's config pertaining to controls. Insanity.

I have to laugh about the thread I ran across from Steam forums regarding this game. Apparently it launched with SSE4.2 and AVX instructions compiled in. A bunch of people couldn't run it and contacted support. A concrete answer concerning the issue didn't appear for MONTHS. A patch came out which removed the AVX but kept the SSE4.2. I gotta wonder if the devs are just spamming compiler flags at random and even know what they are doing with these instructions.

i had no issues with my xbox 360 controller. that is the most compatible controller however.

I disassembled the main game files with CFF explorer and searched for offending instructions.

openvr_api.dll has four instances of PCMPISTRI
v2r_nosteam_en.exe has a dozen or two

That appears to be the only instruction stopping the game from running normally (without the performance-sapping emulator) on 45nm Core 2 CPUs.

For Phenom 2, there is also the matter of DPPS, PTEST, and ROUNDPS appearing a few times in v2r. And PMADDUBSW in bink2w64.dll

Would have been so much nicer if the game was properly multithreaded instead.

your problem is not related to windows 7 directly. i myself can run it perfectly in windows 7. my hardware is intel core i7-2670QM and nvidia gt 630m. ram is 16 gigabytes while vram is 2 gigabytes.

i looked at the requirements for megadimension neptunia vii and it says intel i5, which is a quad core cpu. your dual core cpu is likely not compatible. hyperdimension neptunia rebirth 1, 2 and 3 however says core2duo. those will therefore run on your dual core cpu but, megadimension neptunia vii will not.