FFXI Network Problems

[Rionel]

OK, I've had this weird problem for a while with FFXI's connection.

Sometimes, out of nowhere, the Network connection in the top right corner will start disconnecting, going to R0.

Then, it'll shoot back up to normal, trying to stay connected. What ends up happening is I sort of experience a weird lag effect when it R0's, where nothing moves because it's disconnecting and then when it shoots back up to a normal R, everything kinda moves quickly in fast forward.

My internet connection is fine with everything else. It's just with FFXI that it does this.

Any suggestions?

[Kohan]

Do you have multiple users utilizing the internet on your network simultaneously?

Are you or anyone else on said network downloading torrents?

Even if you're the only person using the 'net, are you behind a router?

What OS (including version) do you have?

[Rionel]

Do you have multiple users utilizing the internet on your network simultaneously?
Yes.

Are you or anyone else on said network downloading torrents?
I don't think so. It's hard to tell because it's me and my 3 sisters usually using the internet.

Even if you're the only person using the 'net, are you behind a router?
I use a router, yup.

What OS (including version) do you have?
Windows XP

Thanks very much for the response.

[Kohan]

If any of your sisters are downloading torrents, this can actually have a very significant impact on your FFXI usage and result in the exact issue you described.

To describe the torrent-related process in as basic of a way as possible, the other users on the network -- and their activities -- are overwhelming your router. Because of the way BitTorrent works, your router may be prioritizing the constantly active traffic, and FFXI gets pushed out of the picture, resulting in your awkward disconnects.

There are various ways of fixing this, but the easiest is to make your machine a DMZ host. However, this removes every last protection the router provides that respective PC, so you should only do this if you really aren't worried about viruses and the like. If you have a good firewall and a good anti-virus application, and nothing terribly valuable (e.g., bank information) on your PC, then it probably won't matter. It's not like most of the really good hackers out there care to bother with the average Joe's PC, and if someone is talented enough to get to your machine, they're gonna get into it anyways. I'm not condoning carelessness -- just discouraging paranoia.

If you didn't want to do that, you can get into more intricate settings like port forwarding and the like. But before you do any of these things, you should find out if anyone else on the network is in fact frequently downloading stuff on their computers (or using anything else that hogs bandwidth).

Also, you say you have Windows XP. Which version? Home, Pro, Media Center?

[Rionel]

Hmm...

I use the Media Center version of XP.

Funnily enough, I've kinda read about DMZ hosting because I remember trying to fix Super Smash Brothers Brawl online lag with it or something!

[Kohan]

It can eliminate a tremendous amount of lag issues which users experience, since it bypasses the router, and is nearly equivalent to plugging your PC directly into your modem. You should still find out what the other network users are doing before you take any action, though.

[Rionel]

Well, my younger sister plays FFXI with me sometimes... would that be a problem for DMZ-ing and such?

[Hoshino]

I've actally been having the same issue since this morning. Connecing to POL is extremely slow and even times out occasionally. Once I log on to FFXI the game is laggy.

This has been happening to both my PC and my laptop. Everything else is working fine including other games I play online. I haven't changed any settings since last night either.

[Kohan]

Multiple FFXI users isn't really a big deal. I had three FFXI players in my household back when I was on a relatively mediocre ADSL connection, and we never lagged one another out, not even in Dynamis. Since FFXI was originally designed to work well over narrowband connections, it isn't a bandwidth hog. However, this is exactly why applications which demand a lot of bandwidth push FFXI out of the picture -- they're seen as bigger and more important.

If you're certain no one else in your network is doing anything that's overloading your connection, there could be other culprits involved, so let's check on some of those.

Run a thorough virus and spyware scan on your computer. Good, free anti-virus programs include Avast! Anti-Virus, Avira, and AVG. Some of the best anti-malware applications are Malwarebytes and Spybot.

Now repeat that step, but on the other PCs connected to the network, just to make sure none of them are infected with anything that's constantly sending/receiving data (and this way you'll possibly be able to find out if they are using any download services).

Also, have you installed/updated anything on your PC recently?

[Hoshino]

I haven't downloaded anything and scanned my PC as well. I think it was a server issue because it seems to be working fine now. My laptop received a message stating servers may be congested when I tried to connect to POL a little while ago. I waited a bit and it looks ok now.

[Rionel]

Oh man.

Another ridiculous problem popping up now. I was trying to do Campaign tonight, and during the fighting, a FFXI-2002 error popped up, saying there wasn't enough reserved memory or something. It's happened to me 3 times tonight and this is the first time it's ever happened to me. What the heck is going on?!

[Norellicus]

How much memory do you have?

How big is your paging file (If you don't know what this is, then just tell me how much free space you have on your HDD)?

Do you run anything in tandem with FFXI?

[Rionel]

How much memory do you have?
0.98 GB of RAM.

How big is your paging file (If you don't know what this is, then just tell me how much free space you have on your HDD)?
73.9 GB

Do you run anything in tandem with FFXI?
Maybe Teamspeak sometimes, but not much else.

[Norellicus]

Try this.

Right click on My Computer, select Properties.
Go to the Advanced tab, click the topmost 'Settings' button (it should be under a 'Performance' header).
On the resulting screen, go to the Advanced tab again, click the Change button to the lower right.
You should see something like this:
http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/3...tualmemyx0.png

You'll want to select that 'Custom Size' box, in the minimum put 2048 and in the maximum 3096. Then click the 'Set' button, followed by OK on all the open dialogs to save the changes. You'll probably be prompted to restart.

Give that a whirl, see if XI still whines at you about memory. I've never seen that error before so I don't know whether its PC related or not.