Removing Effects - What am I doing wrong?

[Murphie]

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y16/Ciphersavant/EffectsWoes.jpg

I have every single effect filter on, and yet still I get terrible lag from BRD songs and other AOE effects (FPS drops to about 2-3 during the effect and then goes back to normal). The party I snapped a shot in here was a BRD, COR, RDM, Meleex3 party, and I swear, the framerate lag almost got us killed.

I don't mind that the drivers don't play well with FFXI, but why can't I seem to turn off spell effects?

[Tirrock]

I wish I knew what was up with the effect filters too. I used to turn almost all of them on during dynamis or over-crowded HNM, it'd work maybe half of the time. (I use ATi Radeon 9600XT, if that matters at all. I've heard of nVidia cards having problems with bard songs/firaga.)

[Sabaron]

Turn off the "All ffects during battle" flag. If you put that one on, it overrides all of the other ones and "enables" them all while you're not engaged. The ones below it will operate even when you're engaged if enabled.

Basically:

"All effects during battle" removes exactly what it says it does, but it locks out all the others.

The other filters remove the specified effect under all conditions unless "All" is on.

This appears to be a "feature" in that it can be considered aesthetically useful, and makes it easy to switch up if you don't like clicking off your filters. For instance, if you want to do fireworks or something you can just click "All" on and watch the fireworks, and everything will still disable in combat without having to click off your filter settings. This "feature" is poorly labeled and almost completely undocumented.

[Feba]

You should check multiple driver sources - the one provided by your graphics card manufacturer is not always the best. I know nVidia cards tend to have problems with a lot of AoE effects, but downloading from your computer's manufacturer can be better than from the maker of the card itself.

[Murphie]

Turn off the "All ffects during battle" flag. If you put that one on, it overrides all of the other ones and "enables" them all while you're not engaged. The ones below it will operate even when you're engaged if enabled.

Basically:

"All effects during battle" removes exactly what it says it does, but it locks out all the others.

The other filters remove the specified effect under all conditions unless "All" is on.

This appears to be a "feature" in that it can be considered aesthetically useful, and makes it easy to switch up if you don't like clicking off your filters. For instance, if you want to do fireworks or something you can just click "All" on and watch the fireworks, and everything will still disable in combat without having to click off your filter settings. This "feature" is poorly labeled and almost completely undocumented.Thanks, Sabaron! I'll give that a try. It really is pretty poorly labeled.

Feba - I am using the latest Nvidia drivers, but I don't really see too many other options out there for myself. HP's site only has drivers from back in 2004, which I would actually gladly use if my newer video card would work with them. But alas.

I'm going to switch off the top filter and see if it helps.

[Mhurron]

I am using the latest Nvidia drivers, but I don't really see too many other options out there for myself.
www.omegadrivers.net

They're tweaked versions of the Forceware or Catalyst drivers. I'm not saying they'll fix your problems, but I use them on my ATI card and have never had a problem with them.

[Liquidedust]

Thanks, Sabaron! I'll give that a try. It really is pretty poorly labeled.

Feba - I am using the latest Nvidia drivers, but I don't really see too many other options out there for myself. HP's site only has drivers from back in 2004, which I would actually gladly use if my newer video card would work with them. But alas.

I'm going to switch off the top filter and see if it helps.

Nvidia 8800 series?

[Murphie]

Nothing so fancy, unfortunately. 6800XT Just new enough to not play well with the older drivers. And I tried the Omega Drivers back when I got this card, but they haven't been updated since 05 for Nvidia, unfortunately.

[Liquidedust]

Nothing so fancy, unfortunately. 6800XT Just new enough to not play well with the older drivers.

kk, trust me 8800 is giving me loads of headaches though.

But only in FFXI of course, for some obscure reason it very much dislikes to run DirextX 8.1 in a Vista enviroment which leads to 4-5 fps the moment there are more then 6 models loaded at screen at once. (no matter what other settings you have).

And no driver fixes or tweaks out there yet that sorts out the issue either.

[Macht]

Thanks, Sabaron! I'll give that a try. It really is pretty poorly labeled.
Feba - I am using the latest Nvidia drivers, but I don't really see too many other options out there for myself. HP's site only has drivers from back in 2004, which I would actually gladly use if my newer video card would work with them. But alas.
I'm going to switch off the top filter and see if it helps.

Sound like such a broken record repeating this, wonder still why no one listens.

If you are using GeForce 6 Series graphics card then FFXI only supports optimal performance with Nvidia ForceWare v66.93. If you have downloaded a driver version higher then that you will experience latency, model chopping, model 'blinking', and other various problems.

If you are on GeForce 7 Series or higher you should be using Directx9.0c (Note the 'c' the Directx9.0 that Windows initially released was bugged on the updates, have to go to their site and make sure you are getting DirectX9.0c) and use the Nvidia ForeWare 91.47.

[Murphie]

If you are using GeForce 6 Series graphics card then FFXI only supports optimal performance with Nvidia ForceWare v66.93. If you have downloaded a driver version higher then that you will experience latency, model chopping, model 'blinking', and other various problems.Thanks for being condescending. I know this. But Nvidia ForceWare v66.93 doesn't work with my video card. So I am out of luck and have to make do.

The card is great. The drivers are fine. The game runs wonderfully with the exception of how it renders BRD songs and COR rolls. SE knows there is a problem there, and has known about it for a long time, but has yet to fix it. That's bullshit.

[Feba]

the 8800GT(X/S) is fine with FFXI, now that they released new drivers, just not in Vista. Really though, lots of things have problems with Vista, it's just a new OS, and it's not that good.

[Murphie]

I have to buy another gig of RAM before I can bother with a new video card, but I'll probably just go that route eventually, as it's clear this problem isn't going to be fixed.

Anyway, Sabaron was right. Un-clicking that top option turned off all effects, so I don't have any more bard lag. The game is a lot less pretty now (IMO), but that's the price you pay for performance.

[Macht]

Heh, well just seemed like something I had to point out. Yeah, those instructions for the drivers have been there for the Game just about since it's release. Still those issues are there. It leaves me to think that the changes to fix the problem, probably would create issues with the PS2 using it. With them keeping everything of the base coding the same between platforms just means they might not fix it for a while, as long as the PS2 is supported anyways.

[Taskmage]

This is kinda weird ... When I first installed FFXI on my new PC I was impressed that I was getting absolutely no video lag from telepoints or bard songs. I've made absolutely no changes to my video drivers or to directx since then, and now telepoints, bard songs, escape and fire spells are bringing my framerate to a screeching halt again. ><

The only thing I've done is install other programs. I thought maybe something was running on startup now that wasn't back then, but the only thing I can find is Adobe gamma loader, and disabling that doesn't seem to have any effect. I suppose it's possible that some FFXI setting got changed that made the difference, but I don't see any options that make any sense for that.

[Raydeus]

Effect lag is due to the video card being unable to keep up with particle effects (it would also be noticeable with weather effects such as sand storms).

Maybe the new software modified your preset DirectX settings.

[Feba]

Effect lag is due to the video card being unable to keep up with particle effects

Technically, I believe it's because of a problem with nVidia's drivers, not the card itself. This is why a four year old ATI might look better in earth weather than an 8800GTS

[Taskmage]

Maybe the new software modified your preset DirectX settings.As it happens, I did notice the change after installing UT2004. >.> I didn't see how that could have any effect, but I guess I should've thought of that.

[Feba]

If you installed a game, it's very possible it changed your DX version. Try upgrading it again, I imagine UT'04 would try to right an older version, possibly 8, although I don't keep up with Dx for obvious reasons.

[neighbortaru]

If you installed a game, it's very possible it changed your DX version. Try upgrading it again, I imagine UT'04 would try to right an older version, possibly 8, although I don't keep up with Dx for obvious reasons. yup. sometimes when an installer says something like checking for Direct X, it's actually checking for a specific revision and if you have an older one (DX9Apr06) it'll refresh it with a newer revision (DX9Dec06)