Hey everyone, I'm new to the forum so apologies if this is in the wrong spot.
I have been having issues with this new laptop and running FFXI. My old laptop's keyboard and USB drive (can't plug in a new keyboard w/ USB anymore because the laptop doesn't recognize anything in the USB drive) stopped working, so had to buy a new laptop that could run FFXI. I wound up getting a Dell Inspiron 3520, and turns out its working great for everything BUT FFXI.
The computer came with Windows 8, and the only graphics card in the laptop is the HD Graphics 3000 card. I have read up on the problem and found that people have been having issues with FFXI that had either or both of these (Win.8/HD3000) on their computer, and I wanted to see if a solution has been found by anyone that has not just one of the features but both.
To sum up the problem....when I DO manage to log in to the game without crashing, no character models show up on the screen. Everything functions normally, but I cannot see NPCs, monsters, other players, etc. All I can do is target invisible character models and read the text above them. However, lately I am not able to log in to the game without it immediately crashing.
Is there any way to correct this problem that has been confirmed? If Windows 7 will definitely fix the problem without me having to buy a new computer w/ a different graphics card, I will buy it and install it. If not, however, I may just buy a refurbished desktop model that I was able to find in another thread in this tech forum that costs just over $200 and should run FFXI just fine. Thank you.
P.S. I tried working with Dell Support and they told me that Windows 8 was not the problem, but as they were unable to fix my problem in the first place and had no clue what to do I'm calling BS.