I play FFXIV on a fairly low-end laptop (though it does meet the minimum requirements to play), so I don't expect amazing performance. The problem I am having is that I get regular periods of extremely low framerate while playing (approx 1-2 fps), but it only happen intermittently. Each time I start playing, the game will run fine (on low settings) for several minutes. Then I will get a period of about 1-2 minutes of extremely low framerate that prevent me from doing basically anything (it makes me botch crafts, die in combat, etc). Then it will go back to running fine for about 3-4 minutes. Then horrible framerate again. This cycle continues for the entire time I play.
It doesn't seem to be fixable by changing my graphics settings. I have all special effects/etc turned off/lowest. I've tried changing the "Buffer" size from resolution to 3/4 to 2/3 to 1/2 and none of that has made the problem get any better.
Here are my specs:
Asus G50VT
Widows Vista Home Premium SP 2
Intel Core 2 Duo P7450 2.13 GHz
4 GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GS
Any thoughts on what I might be able to do to alleviate this problem?