Speed and performance issues

[SquireStrat]

Hello. First disclaimer. Long story and I'm not very pc savvy.

I recently had to take my Gateway MX6440 laptop into Best Buy (I have warranty with them) for a broken hinge, failing keyboard, and a few other small physical issues. After calling to check on it I was told they had to replace the hard drive and that I'd need to reinstall my OS. They also replaced the LCD and the keyboard.

When I picked it up they did not bother going over anything with me and since I had been waiting for a very long time and was in a rush to get home to start the updating process to get FFXI going I didn't bother asking for an explanation. Man I wish I would have right then.

After running my OS disk I attempt to reconfigure my wireless settings. After searching for the options awhile I realize it's not there at all. I plug in hard straight through the modem. Nothing. It then hits me I do not have any of my drivers. After a few phone calls and a couple more hours wasted in Best Buy they tell me I need a separate drivers disk that I should have burned when I got my pc. They eventually installed the drivers to operate the internet and a few other basic things and sent me packing.

After some awesome help from my LS (I have 360 so logged on for advice) I eventually got my pc running to what I thought would be normal. I get Firefox 3 with add-ons installed and all of my anti-virus items going (AVG 8.0, Spysweeper, also running CCcleaner and HijackThis) and perform all of the windows updates. I install FFXI and log in.

Currently I'm running at around 12-13 FPS. This is while having shadows turned off, footsteps off, almost every chat filter on, all effects on, and anything else FFXI related that I can think of. I was advised to open my graphics card console (ATI Raedon Xpress 200M) and set items such as Anti-Aliasing, Anisotropic Filtering, and Mipmap setting all to "performance". Nothing so far has made a difference. I am using a secured wireless internet connection using Verizon FIOS.

Before taking my pc in I consistently ran around 18-20 FPS. Not mind blowing, but better. I really do not know what to do or where to turn for more help. I apologize if this is too long winded but I wanted to try and give as much information as possible. Thank you for any and all help.

[Cephius]

Use the link you posted for your laptop to download all the drivers you can for the laptop. Get the BIOS and Video card drivers if you haven't already, make sure they're the most recent version. Make sure you have all Windows updates as well.

This kind of issue usually means something with your video card, though you said you can access the console and that windows recognizes it as an ATI card, so it may not be that. Still, update your video drivers to the most recent version and see if it helps.

[Shuemue]

If the latest Catalysts don't work, try http://www.omegadrivers.net

[SquireStrat]

I'm running Windows XP Home service pack 3. The BIOS section on the Gateway page is for Vista only. All windows updates have been done. My ATI driver is the most up to date as I downloaded it from Catalyst.

I'm not sure if I'm leaving anything else out that could be important. If there is any other info that I could supply that could help out in troubleshooting this please let me know and I'll try my best to provide it. I would take it back to Best Buy but they said my "cover all" warranty does not cover software issues.

[Shuemue]

Which video drivers were you using previously? The ones from the Gateway site? Sometimes newest drivers aren't always the best.

Also you might want to contact Gateway, BIOS updates are usually OS independent.

[SquireStrat]

Here is the link to the current video driver I have installed. This sparked a thought from earlier when I was having problems with FFXI looking like garbage. I tried to reinstall the graphics and video drivers but was having huge problems. A friend gave me the link to the current Catalyst driver download. But I still had an issue running the video driver. I kept getting the message I needed to download Microsoft Netframes 2.0. After I did that I forgot to reinstall the video driver I 'think'. I just reran it and I did not receive a message saying the driver was already installed.

Could that mean I was missing that driver? I haven't logged back into FFXI on pc since making this thread. I'll give a try in a bit. And thank you for your responses. Much appreciated.

[Shuemue]

Yeah, it's quite possible you were using a generic windows driver. Let us know if this works?

[SquireStrat]

The previously mentioned 12-13 FPS was in SSG at Charybdis camp with only 2 others waiting for ToD and no fighting.

I am currently logged in at Konschtat Highlands. While just running I hover now around 22 FPS hitting as high as 28.7 and as low as 18.2 While engaged in a fight I sat around 18 FPS and hit as low as 15.8 ish.

It would appear my problem is solved. Something else I want to mention though. I had been running the "full" trial version of AVG 8.0 with everything under the sun running. I deleted it and downloaded the "free" trial version of 8.0 that doesn't include a multitude of items the "full" trial version does. One thing being AVG firewall. So I'm back to using windows Firewall.

FFXI is running faster and my internet browsing would appear to be even faster as well. Thank you for helping me along. If anything else comes up I'll be sure to post.