8600 GTS Problems

[altwight]

I have a 8600GTS on windows XP 32bit. My CPU is a 2.4 c2d e4500 and 2x gig ram. Reason I'm posting here is because my friend recently broke his computer and started using his brother's. His brother has lower pc specs than I, with the same video card (8600GTS) My friend and I both play FFXI. When he swapped to his brother's comp he told me his FPS was a low 10 in moghouse, while mine is 29 in moghouse. So i sent him to the new 169.17 beta drivers for ffxi. He installed them and rebooted comp and logged onto FFXI. His FPS was 29 in moghouse so he was excited. This is where the problem for me comes in. His FPS at Whitegate AH on 8600GTS 169.17 driver is 25-29 FACING all the people (with lowest character models shown). My FPS at Whitegate AH on 8600GTS 169.17 driver is 13-15. We both have same settings. 800x600 display window'd 1024x1024 bg res shadows OFF character models set to lowest. This really gets to me because i bought the card hoping to run ffxi at max settings with 29fps everywhere (including dynamis) but i failed with 13-15 in populated areas I wanna know why his card yields 29 and mine yields 13-15 at the same place. Please note that i have nothing running in the background and all useless processes are closed out of.

My Specs
2.4c2d e4500 cpu
8600GTS 512mb
2x Gig ram
Windows XP 32bit
169.17driver

Friend's Specs
1.8c2d
8600GTS 256mb
2xgig ram
Windows Xp 32bit
169.17driver

[Avanarius]

Firstly, the character models are entirely dependent on the cpu and hardly depend on the graphics card at all. Secondly, even though you have the more powerful cpu, it depends on the current process usage. Other things it can depend on is: Driver conflicts, registry bogging, and disk fragmentation.

Look at the process usage between the two computers.
Who has more programs installed and/or running?
When was the last time you reformatted your computer?

[altwight]

reformatted not too long ago 2-3months

[Avanarius]

Meh, try registry cleaner, or disk defrag, other then that (I don't know how to answer that question)

Can try reformatting again if you're desperate.