This is a helpful guide for people not able to get FFXI to run quite as smooth as they would like. Some of the steps may seem fairly obvious to some, but others might find them helpful. I was able to dramatically increase my performance through doing the following steps:
-If you have an MX card, use the 30.82 drivers. (really helps).
-If you use a Ti card, use the 43.45 OMEGA drivers
XP/2000 or
98/ME and during the installation click the tab for "Performance" setup. This is equal to the image quality in nVidia's drivers, except with tweaks to make the game run smoother. 30.82 drivers work fine as well, although stay away from the latest drivers, as they are geared towards the FX cards (unless you have an FX...).
-When you reboot your computer, hit the Delete key and go into BIOS->Chipset. If you have 512MB of RAM, set your AGP aperture to 128 or 256. 256MB of RAM, set it at 128. Also make sure you're using your max transfer rate (4x, 8x). Some cards default at 2x until you change it.
-Keep Fastwrites OFF.
-The next few steps involve going to your Start button, and then Run. First type
dxdiag in the line and go to the Sound1 and Sound2 tabs. Turn each Hardware Sound Acceleration Level to 'Basic'. Next, go back to your Run command and enter
RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %windir%\INF\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove. This disables the evil MSN messaging service that comes with XP. Not sure if it affects other OS's. Either way, this will remove any chance of receiving a framerate hiccup. On my CPU, this program (msmsgs.exe) would use 60% of my CPU exactly every 2 minutes, causing a slight noticable framerate stutter. It will ask you to reboot, hit OK. Go back to your Run menu again and type
msconfig. Go to the Startup tab. This will disable various programs from starting up when you boot your computer. Just clicking the icons in the taskbar won't get rid of them all. Its technically safe to disable any that don't have a "Windows" directory, but if you are unsure, its safe to skip this step. However, make sure as few of programs as possible are running. Especially Kazaa and Norton, they can be memory hogs when running games.
-Once you're in your videocard settings, I recommend turning Anti-Aliasing OFF and Antistropic Filtering OFF. Both can really bog the game down. Changing the Image Quality doesn't seem to make much of a difference, so play with it as you like. However, setting the slider to Performance under 3D settings will give you a noticable boost in FPS at the expense of some blurred textures. Turn Vertical Sync to ALWAYS OFF, and try to set your monitor refresh rate to over 70 to make up for it. Otherwise you may notice small rips in the textures. Running the game in 16-bit color helps FPS as well.
-In the FFXI Config, I've found that changing the Texture resolution doesn't make a large difference on the game, so I just keep it at 1024x1024. Screen resolution does, however.. although I can't stand looking at this game in anything under 1024x768. Also, try to make sure you're running the game in the same resolution as your desktop or your computer has to adjust between the two. Turn Texture Compression on HIGH, In-game Maps on HIGH. Turn Mip-Mapping ON. Bump Mapping is optional, didn't notice a drop in FPS, and you get neat effects.^^
- Another way to improve performance is to overclock your card, although you could fry it, so you gotta be careful. The default on a Ti4200 is 250/500, and I was able to bump it up to 260/535 before I began noticing black spots on my screen. If you get those, turn it down. 43.45 Omega drivers come with an overclocking tool built in. It also comes with an overclocking memory tester, but don't trust it. Don't overclock unless you really know what you're doing. In which case if you know what you're doing, you probably already skipped over this part anyway..
- You can always turn various settings down in game like weather, view distance, and people displayed on screen. I found weather to be the only beneficial modification though.
-Tarutarus give the best FPS. Galkas the worst. This is all minor though, and shouldn't be weighed worth a grain of salt.
MmMmm.. salt.
This was all based on my experiences, but the FPS I gained increased at least 1.5x if not double from my initial settings and using the evil 45.xx drivers from nVidia. You might lose a little image quality, but FPS>IQ. I know a couple more tricks to speed the game up, but you can PM me if you want to know more about it. They can mess with your computer if you're not careful.
I'll bump this back up when retail comes out. If anyone else has more tips, please do share.
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