2boxing issues

[Bakthi]

So I posted this thread about a week ago on the windower forums:

Flickering/Tearing while 2boxing - Windower

it says:

I've been running FFXI using Windower since I got this laptop last July. Currently running 3.41 on Vista Home (came with the machine, XP would have been an extra $170). I have an nVidia 8400M with 128M of RAM using the 169.17 driver. When running a single instance, everything is fine; I can use plugins, run at high resolutions, set a good DrawDistance value, leave all effects on, and get good FPS except in very crowded situations. My machine is a 1.8GHz Core2 Duo with 2GB of RAM.

Recently, I've been trying to 2box a second account. The moment the second POL starts, the first one gets some horrible visual issues. PCs, NPCs, mobs, and animated stuff like lamps, fires, and even doorways for some reason have horrible flickering, with parts of them constantly disappearing and reappearing. Once both windows get at least as far as the character selection screen, they BOTH have the issues. It doesn't matter if I start both windows at 640x480 with everything in FFXI turned as low/off as it can get; the problem doesn't improve. I tried changing the settings in the nVidia control panel all the way to "performance", and that made no difference either. I've tried unloading all plugins from both instances for good measure. Nothing else is running.

I've searched through everything I can find on this site, and Google, and all I saw was one post from several months ago with no replies. If anyone else has encountered this problem, or better yet, has ideas on how to fix it, please let me know.

and I followed up with some exciting images:

http://userpages.umbc.edu/~rshaw1/2box1.jpg
http://userpages.umbc.edu/~rshaw1/2box3.jpg

As you can imagine, it's less than ideal. It sometimes seems better, sometimes worse, but always pretty bad. I could 2box using one account on my laptop and one on the PS2, but only if I'm at home (there's a reason I have a laptop) and only if I'm alone (so nobody else wants the TV), and that means no recast/yarnball/distance on the second account, and no DualSend. I'm posting here in the hopes that someone has encountered something like this, because I've had no response on the Windower forums, and I'm really hoping to get this working. Even suggestions of other stuff to try that might work would be welcome. As my follow-up post says, I've tried forcing vsync, turning off anisotropic and antialiasing, turning on triple buffering, etc. I've tried changing the bump mapping and mipmap settings, tried starting them both at my usual resolution, tried starting them both at 640x480, etc. FPS are fine, both windows are perfectly playable (performance-wise), but everything that isn't part of a static background flickers like mad, and I don't know why.

[Arthars]

this doesnt happen to my desktop after i upgraded it:

quad core 2.33(prolly dont matter)
ATI 4870(prolly this)
4gb ram(prolly dont matter, but i need this much because i run many VM for working purposes)

before i buy this PC, i have similar problems like your SSs, and sometimes even worse. I have multiple "tornados" in whitegate.

My old PC is:
P4
1GB ram
lol GeForce 8000 series

my laptop has similar specs as my old PC(yea a very old lappie) and i experience the same problem with dual boxing, but not always. I can restart my laptop, opening up 2 FFXI and run fine, then i randomly d/c sometimes(happens to wireless), RE-OPEN 2 ffxi and then the graphic crashes like those SSs. Work fine again if i restart PC and open 2 FFXI. Crash again if i d/c or close ffxi and RE-OPEN w/o restart, etc etc etc

im believe its the quality of the G card i had, because after using my new PC, i tend to 3-4 boxing for astral flow and the graphic crash have yet to happen.

[Sai]

I had a very similar issue with my laptop, but managed to fix it. A single instance of the game would run more than fine, but the minute I opened up a 2nd POL client, my FPS would turn to shit and I'd start getting flickering- however it was no where near as bad as your screenshots.

I fixed it by updating my video card driver. I'm not talking about doing the regular update, but finding those forceware drivers which are more suited for gamers. Since you're running a laptop, a good place to go is laptopvideo2go.com

[Bakthi]

I fixed it by updating my video card driver. I'm not talking about doing the regular update, but finding those forceware drivers which are more suited for gamers. Since you're running a laptop, a good place to go is laptopvideo2go.com

The driver I had was already from there, and I was under the impression that I'd never be able to update it and get more than 3-5 FPS on Vista. I decided to try the latest one (179.43) anyway, and surprise! same performance as before, and no more flickering. I am occasionally ecstatic to be wrong.

Thank you both for your replies. I wonder if I'll still see manticores belch out a torrent of squares in Limbus.

[Arthars]

I wonder if I'll still see manticores belch out a torrent of squares in Limbus.

this prolly can happen on any type of PC XD

i think the problem lies on the manticores for this one