New Nvidia drivers for FFXI.

[Izzy]

Probly beating a dead horse at this point, but even with SP1 the .17s and the .47s I'm still recieving a 15FPS max and my graphics have severe stuttering.

Anyone know what I should try next?

8600GT

That's really fucking odd. Have you tried uninstalling your anti-virus program and trying? Those wreak havoc on gaming. Also, are you sure the drivers are actually installing and you don't have windows set to default back to your old drivers?

[Seraphise]

it stills says in Nvidia Control panel current drivers are .74 i'll try disabling vistas auto driver install and then reinstall the .17s just to try...Its seriously been an ongoing struggle since august.

How do you disable the auto install?
And I'm still using The norton that the computer came with.

[Izzy]

it stills says in Nvidia Control panel current drivers are .74 i'll try disabling vistas auto driver install and then reinstall the .17s just to try...Its seriously been an ongoing struggle since august.

How do you disable the auto install?
And I'm still using The norton that the computer came with.

I've had nothing but trouble with anti-virus programs that run in the background. Maybe you could uninstall it for a while to see if that helps you.

[Seraphise]

Got rid of my norton, No avail.

Maybe this means something maybe it doesn't, but with fraps on the game is unplayable.
If you try and record FPS goes to 0 until its closed

If you just have it open it averages 6-8 fps in somewhat populated areas

lags firefox too when ffxi gets very laggy due to fraps

[Kasten]

ust to make things clear to those who haven't installed these yet, they don't magically fix FFXI in vista. they improve framerates to playable levels for sure, but framerates in congested areas are still absolute shit (sub-20fps), which is unacceptable for the graphic quality this game has (Lacks?)

but that's more because of the total shit-job SE did with porting the game to PC, over a driver problem with a videocard. god, this game engine is fucking terrible.

/rantoff

Not for me, sorry. For me it magically fixed it. Beofre driver update Campaign or Bastok S = 3-7 fps. Now 27-29 fps.

Like said, if you believe it or not, i dont get a decerase in fps even in dynamis or campaign with this new drivers. It seems the games runs at the same speed nomatter where i am. It runs at 29 fps when im alone in N Gustaberg and it runs at 27 fps in Dynamis with 30 ppl there doing there abilitys. Since there is a fps limitation it runs not better on XP for me, same 29 / 27 fps.

System:
Core2Duo 6850
Geforce 8800 GT 512 MB
2GB Ram
Vista

Maybe you have lower specs on your system. Vista is known for a big RAM need and if you only have 1 GB it could very be that this slows you down. I installed these drivers at my friends PC who has nearly same specs as i have (hes only core2Duo 6600) and it was the very same for him. Incerase of fps from 5 to 29, wich is max so far i know.

You know that there is also an issue with certain USB input devices, so maybe your problem lies here.

If you only have the Vista/Nvidia problem and a good pc these drivers WILL solve your issue. The game wont fast than 29 fps no matter where, XP or Vista.

[Sai]

If you only have the Vista/Nvidia problem and a good pc these drivers WILL solve your issue. The game wont fast than 29 fps no matter where, XP or Vista.

As much as I'd like this to be true, it isn't. These drivers weren't a magic fix for me either, and I'm running specs comparable to yours (I listed them on page 12). I still get around 10-15 FPS in crowded areas, but for average things I can cap out at the 29 mark. Then again, I do have FFXI background settings higher than normal, this could be the reason but meh. who knows. I have indexing disabled, UAC disabled, and I'm quite positive my HID aren't causing any problems.

[Cephius]

Those of you still having problems after updating to the 174.74 drivers... it's possible there are conflicts or that your drivers are not updating correctly. I'll write a short guide here for completely wiping out the old drivers and installing the new ones. See if this has any effect on your performance. This is mostly for Vista but should work on XP too.

Prerequisites: download Driver Sweeper and save to your desktop. Also download the 174.74 installation package to your desktop and leave it there.

1: Browse to "C:\Nvidia", leave window open
2: Open device manager, and browse to your video card
3: Right click and choose "uninstall"
4: Delete driver software if prompted (your screen might flicker and revert resolution, this is normal), DO NOT REBOOT YET
5. Go back to the C:\Nvidia folder you left open, delete everything inside it
6. Reboot
7. Start in safe mode (tap f8 on boot)
8. Run driver sweeper, choose to delete all nvidia display drivers. Press the broom icon, it might seem like it did nothing but don't worry, it ran.
9. Reboot. Windows will install generic VGA drivers, if it installs a nvidia driver you did something wrong, go back and delete everything. Do NOT let windows update install anything for you.
10. Install 174.74 display drivers that you saved to your desktop. Once finished reboot

And that should do it. I don't know if this will help others but it helped me when I had driver conflicts.

[Izzy]

ust to make things clear to those who haven't installed these yet, they don't magically fix FFXI in vista. they improve framerates to playable levels for sure, but framerates in congested areas are still absolute shit (sub-20fps), which is unacceptable for the graphic quality this game has (Lacks?)

but that's more because of the total shit-job SE did with porting the game to PC, over a driver problem with a videocard. god, this game engine is fucking terrible.

/rantoff

Not for me, sorry. For me it magically fixed it. Beofre driver update Campaign or Bastok S = 3-7 fps. Now 27-29 fps.

Like said, if you believe it or not, i dont get a decerase in fps even in dynamis or campaign with this new drivers.

You obviously forgot what your performance was with an XP machine. I had 29 fps in vista as well...it still performed like shit. You're just used to playing at 3fps for so long.

[shaddix]

i remember having great performance on my old 2.4ghz p4 machine with an ati 9800 pro :3

moved to [email protected] and 8800 GTS + vista and fail lol.

[Jearil]

If you're still getting stuttering when around a lot of people, try disabling shadows in the game. It's under config in the main menu of FFXI, one of the misc settings I think. I disabled it and a friend of mine did as well and both of our games have been extremely smooth ever since.

Just thought I'd put that out there for people who are tinkering with windows or ffxi config parameters and haven't tried that yet.

[Lexa]

I just got an 512MB 8800 GT OC, and the 174.74 drivers fixed the lag issues for me - however, I have a question. When I boot up my PC, everything seems fine at first, all the normal icons/whatnot loads in my taskbar. Then suddenly a message pops up, saying "Server busy - this action cannot be completed because the other program is busy. Switch to... or Retry" and at the same time, the little icon for my sound volume disappears.

If I choose "Switch to..." nothing happens. I still get sound, and can still adjust it via my keyboard, but the icon is gone which is annoying since I adjust my sound quite a bit via that one (just habit).

If I choose "Retry" the sound icon comes back.

Obviously neither option prevents me from using my PC, playing FFXI or anything else that I've discovered so far, just very very annoying. Anyone know what the reason could possibly be, and/or how to fix it? Vista 32-bit, btw.

[Kylen]

Has anyone else seen any major problems when running Skype at the same time as FFXI? I play on a laptop with XP, 2g RAM, GeForce 7600 Go card, shadows/weather off at 1024 x 768 resolution with the 169.17 drivers that I downloaded from laptopvideo2go.com (I learned after the fact that these were mainly for Vista users). I normally run at 28-29 fps and get about 15-20 fps in Aery if I don't turn down my settings.

However, whenever I do Nyzul Assault or Salvage, my whole group uses Skype for faster coordination, cell lotting, etc. Every so often, my game practically freezes up in there, dropping to 1-3 fps and I can't even access my macro window or pan the camera around. This typically happens when there's a lot of movement on the screen, i.e. our whole group is running through a hallway together. If I stop and point the camera at the wall for a few seconds, my framerate slowly goes back up. When fighting the Chariot bosses, I'm lagged out at ~3 fps almost the entire time and can barely do anything. The only other application I have running besides Skype is Firefox usually.

I'm not really sure where to start tracking down the problem; I have no clue whether it's a problem with my graphics card drivers, sound card, in-game settings, or possibly even overheating. Has anyone else had problems like this when using Skype before?

[Gatsby]

I've run Skype concurrently with all my machines and have yet to see a problem. (Vista business with 8600GT, Vista Ultimate 8800GT, XP home with Some sort of Go vid).

[vanimedle]

I think you need to clear up some points first. Do you only use skype in Nyzul/Salvage and not in Aery? Do you play with game sounds on? While you named off the specs for your pc you didn't name the speed for the processor, ultimately SE fails at programming for computers so your processor is what does the majority of the calculations for your video output instead of mainlining that work directly to the card, so all our fancy cards and drivers are pretty much just relegated to cleaning it up and putting makeup on. Don't get me wrong vid cards make a world of difference visually but SE only uses a tiny fraction of the calculating power on the cards available today.

If you are only using skype at those times I would be willing to hazard the guess that your processor just can't handle it all at the same time rather then looking for fault in drivers. If you do play with game sounds try decreasing the load on your system and turn them off.

[Kylen]

I think you need to clear up some points first. Do you only use skype in Nyzul/Salvage and not in Aery? Do you play with game sounds on? While you named off the specs for your pc you didn't name the speed for the processor, ultimately SE fails at programming for computers so your processor is what does the majority of the calculations for your video output instead of mainlining that work directly to the card, so all our fancy cards and drivers are pretty much just relegated to cleaning it up and putting makeup on. Don't get me wrong vid cards make a world of difference visually but SE only uses a tiny fraction of the calculating power on the cards available today.

I only use Skype when I do stuff in Salvage/Nyzul, never in Aery or anywhere else. I do get occasional bad lag spikes in Whitegate and other places, but nowhere near as frequent as when I'm in Nyzul or Salvage. My laptop is an Everex XT5000T, with an AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TL-50 processor (1.6 Ghz), which from what I've read should be plenty fast enough to run the game. I've upgraded the memory to 2 1-Gb sticks of DDR2 667 speed RAM and "upgraded" from Vista back to XP, but besides that I've made no major modifications to it.

That's good to know about the load placed on the processor vs. the actual video cards from FFXI. I'll try turning off in-game sounds and music next time I'm on Skype and see if that helps. Thanks for the advice!

[Vertabreaker]

Here's an odd situation. Figured I might as well post it here instead of makeing a new thread. I just upgraded my PC to quad core(Intel) and slapped a 8800GT AKIMBO in (1GB version) and my FPS is lacking in comparison to my old dual core(AMD) and my old 7950GT KO(512MB). My old system had no problem keeping 28+ FPS no matter where I was (dynamis, whitegate, etc) but now when I'm in whitegate is spikes down to around 17/18.

Visually you can't tell. the game doesn't skip or lag or anything but seeing the FPS @ 17ish is just annoying. I'm rocking the newest drivers for the vid card as well. Any ideas?

I also just did a fresh install with a new HDD so maybe there's something in the FFXI config I must've missed. I have the AKIMBO settings the same as my old card so I'm not sure why the change in FPS. Any ideas are appreciated.

[Cephius]

Here's an odd situation. Figured I might as well post it here instead of makeing a new thread. I just upgraded my PC to quad core(Intel) and slapped a 8800GT AKIMBO in (1GB version) and my FPS is lacking in comparison to my old dual core(AMD) and my old 7950GT KO(512MB). My old system had no problem keeping 28+ FPS no matter where I was (dynamis, whitegate, etc) but now when I'm in whitegate is spikes down to around 17/18.

Visually you can't tell. the game doesn't skip or lag or anything but seeing the FPS @ 17ish is just annoying. I'm rocking the newest drivers for the vid card as well. Any ideas?

I also just did a fresh install with a new HDD so maybe there's something in the FFXI config I must've missed. I have the AKIMBO settings the same as my old card so I'm not sure why the change in FPS. Any ideas are appreciated.

Did you download and install the 174.74 drivers listed in this thread? They're beta drivers, so they don't show up normally, you have to go to the Nvidia site directly to download them.

[Vertabreaker]

Here's an odd situation. Figured I might as well post it here instead of makeing a new thread. I just upgraded my PC to quad core(Intel) and slapped a 8800GT AKIMBO in (1GB version) and my FPS is lacking in comparison to my old dual core(AMD) and my old 7950GT KO(512MB). My old system had no problem keeping 28+ FPS no matter where I was (dynamis, whitegate, etc) but now when I'm in whitegate is spikes down to around 17/18.

Visually you can't tell. the game doesn't skip or lag or anything but seeing the FPS @ 17ish is just annoying. I'm rocking the newest drivers for the vid card as well. Any ideas?

I also just did a fresh install with a new HDD so maybe there's something in the FFXI config I must've missed. I have the AKIMBO settings the same as my old card so I'm not sure why the change in FPS. Any ideas are appreciated.

Did you download and install the 174.74 drivers listed in this thread? They're beta drivers, so they don't show up normally, you have to go to the Nvidia site directly to download them.

I'll give them a shot. Thanks

[shaddix]

174.xx are bad for sli ._.; getting all this glitching with rainbow six vegas 2 i have to go back to 169.17 D:

[Djams]

174.74 on Core 2 Quad 6600 / 2 Go / Geforce 8800 GTS 512 Mo / Vista Business 32 bits = 9 fps @ Auction house