computer crashing with ffxi registry tweaks

[Himay]

Just posted this in another thread, but I figured I should probably make my own.

I finished building a new computer about a week ago and it's real shnazzy, but I'm getting really pissed at how it keeps crashing when I'm playing FFXI.

Intel Q6600
ATI Radeon HD4870
Windows Vista 64bit
Asus P5E mobo

It never crashes when I'm not playing FFXI and so far it hasn't crashed with regular FFXI Config settings, but if I go and change the background resolution through the registry the computer crashes at random intervals. Just totally freezes up, no BSoD (does vista even have BSoD? <.<; or anything. I finally got a real error message the last time it crashed, when I rebooted, but like a retard I forgot to write it down. The solution mentioned something about ATI drivers crashing or something. Next thing I'm gonna try is maybe some custom drivers, anything anyone can suggest in that department?

Any other ideas or investigation routes for me to take? Any help is greatly appreciated.

P.S. I know some people might say just play with regular settings, but with a 1680x1050 overlay resolution, a background res of 1024x1024 looks like vomit.

[Kohan]

What resolution are you changing things to in the registry?

[Himay]

I've tried 3360x2100, 2520x1575, 2042x2042, 1680x1050 and they all crashed. Only the FFXI Config's highest setting of 1024x1024 has worked without crashing.

[Darwinion]

You are placing the correct Hexa value in the registry setting yes? (2048 = 800 Hexa). I know... you probably are but it's a possiblity.

For the record I just got a brand new PC yesterday and I'm having the same problem of random crashes and freeze ups in FFXI. I also changed my registry settings but I don't think thats the problem. I've noticed that if I have Firefox running in the background while playing FFXI then it's just a matter of time before a crash occurs. I may go 1 or 2 hours... maybe only 10 mins. It's even crashed while browsing Firefox without FFXI active.

But without Firefox open I can play without any issues at all. So far it's been like this anyway, so I'm keeping a check on if it crashes without Firefox open. I might try IE as well to see if it's exclusively Firefox.

I could be barking up the wrong tree with this. But any ideas?

[durst]

Known issue to many, Firefox sometimes likes to crash and lock up a system to the point of having to use the reset button, has happened to me before to, it randomly does it from time to time.

[Kohan]

I've tried 3360x2100, 2520x1575, 2042x2042, 1680x1050 and they all crashed.

The FFXI engine isn't built to handle any of those resolutions above 2048 properly. Even if it did run well, you'd probably see a fair amount of z-fighting, breaks in textures, and other issues. 1680x1050 sounds odd, too; I know that these are valid resolutions, but I don't know if they're the sort that the FFXI engine can actually display. I've never tested it to that degree (and always run it windowed, so I'm not concerned with covering the entire screen).

Perhaps try 1600 by 1200, or maybe 1280 by 768?

[Himay]

Darwinion: I just select the decimal value and it converts it into hexadecimal for me

Kohan: 1680x1050 (same for most 20in widescreen monitors I thought?) is my monitors native resolution and I know it wouldn't actually oversample to 3360x2100/2520x1575 but I figured I'd try x2 and x1.5 of my native resolution just in case (trying everything at this point). they both worked fine except for the crashing of course.

To clarify also, the crashing has happened 5 minutes after booting up FFXI and 3 hours, and everywhere in between. I thought it might have been the card over heating so I jacked up the fan speed and cooled it down a ton, but it still froze.

[durst]

That is strange, E8400 here with a HD3870 OC edition, im running xp though, vista seems to have alot of issues in ffxi, im running the game with those same settings.

Game runs fine, never crashes, no graphics errors such as filckers or anything, and thats with maxed out drawdistance as well, it might be possible its vista causing the problem, could be alot of stuff though, Directx issue or something maybe, try upgrading directx to the current one from microsoft if you havent done that yet and see if that fixes it.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b225/Durst440/res.jpg

[Himay]

Tried updating directx, but it just installed a bunch of optional packages. Guess it was up to date, we'll see if that magically fixed it anyway. So confused why this would be giving me problems, although I should have expected it with lolvista.

[Kohan]

Have you tried the lower resolutions? I know you've stated that only the FFXI GUI's resolution has worked without crashing, but have you tried lower resolutions than the large ones you input earlier (yet still ones higher than the GUI's)?