Lag issues with new Dual Core PC

[Cujo]

I just recently built a new PC, the specs are: E6850 C2D, Asus P5E3 Deluxe Motherboard, 2GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 RAM, 8800GTX Video Card, Turtle Beach Montego DDL Sound Card, 2x Raptor X HDDs, Kingwin Mach 1 800W PSU and using Windows XP.

My problem is, FFXI runs like crap. I get 21FPS in Whitegate with Shadows OFF, 1680x1050 Overlay, 1680x1050 BG Res.

My Old PC which was a single core AMD FX-57, using the same video card, could walk around in Whitegate at it's most crowded spot at 29FPS with medium shadows on.

I'm praying that someone can help me shine some light on this situation, it's really depressing me that I spent all this money to build a new PC and FFXI runs like $hit. I've tried everything over the last couple days to try and fix this problem to no avail.

Also, before anyone asks, I have Speed Step and all that crap turned off in the BIOS, and i'm using those new Beta drivers for the 8800. I've also tried about 6 other drivers.

[Avanarius]

I'm really sorry to let you down but 21 fps in whitegate COULD be normal even though you mentioned that the older pc ran it better. The game definitely isn't optimized for new hardware. To play the game at 29fps constant on my e6600 I have to lower the character models on screen and still turn off shadows, so it's hard to say what would be going wrong with the e6850 or how to optimize it past what it's already running at.

As for recommendations try setting all the graphics settings to bare minimum to see if it improves fps any (I assume it wouldn't) which would mean a hardware/software conflict related to drivers, or it could just be normal (old game doesn't like new hardware).

Did you update chipset drivers?

[Cujo]

Yes, updated the chip set drivers, updated BIOS. Even at extremely (unplayable) low resolution, it still runs exactly the same. My FX-57 runs the game perfectly /cry

[Cujo]

Also another thing I wanted to bring up, it's kind of unrelated to the main topic, but odd non the less.

I've installed Brandsons UI mod, but the menus before you get into the game are still the ugly blue menus. Also, the background looks kind of odd to me. It's nice and clear on my other PC, and the menus are black.

Here's a screenshot:
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y13...102_063224.png

[Avanarius]

Do new games run fine?

[Cujo]

Just played Crysis with max settings on with ease.

FFXI fails.

[Avanarius]

yar, I would blame ffxi for this one. Try and lighten up anything eating the cpu even though it shouldn't be much of an issue with a dual core.

[Kaisha]

Have you tried setting the core affinity of the pol.exe process in the task manager? Perhaps forcing it to use just the one core may do the trick.

[Marsala]

Also another thing I wanted to bring up, it's kind of unrelated to the main topic, but odd non the less.

I've installed Brandsons UI mod, but the menus before you get into the game are still the ugly blue menus. Also, the background looks kind of odd to me. It's nice and clear on my other PC, and the menus are black.

Here's a screenshot:
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y13...102_063224.png

I had this problem too. If you used the #1 background as the replacement you will get this problem. I believe that .dat file is 14 in the .dats but in the game menu it will be background #1. What you need to do is choose one farther down the row such as background #8 in the game menu which corresponds to .dat 21 I believe. The corresponding .dats are in the readme. Hope this helps.

[Cujo]

Have you tried setting the core affinity of the pol.exe process in the task manager? Perhaps forcing it to use just the one core may do the trick.

Tried that. I actually seem to get a couple more FPS with both cores on. Iv'e pretty much just accepted the fact that FFXI will never run as good on this CPU, as it did on my old single core.

[Kurgan]

Out of curiosity, try disabling sound in the game. I've heard some sound cards (or their drivers) cause the game to be sluggish, but the problem disappears if you disable sound in FFXI (in the FFXI config tool).