Character model flickering

[dagz]

On my tarutaru mostly his hair and parts of his clothes start to flicker when I am in game. In certain zones the flickering is worse like rolanberry and in other zones it is better like in lower jueno. I switched to my 9800pro and it was nearly gone but I still noticed it very little. I then switched to a ti4400 and the problem reappeared again. My original card is a pny geforce 6800gt. I tried nearly all the drivers but still no help, what should I do? Is anyone having any other problems with there 6800gt similar to this? I wonder if this is a driver problem or a problem on FFXI's end =\


specs:
pny 6800gt 256
1gb pc3200 corsair
500watt power supply
AMD 3500+
Windows XP

temps:
cpu- 40c
gpu- 57-59c

[Gizmo]

well

I've had this type of problem with any driver post 61.77 on my 6800gt (also pny) i never noticed it on any tarutaru but it was quite bad on any choc's i saw out & about

it seems that nvidia have managed to bork something in there driver's after 61.77 that SE have'nt been able to fix,this would explain why they still only recommend using a driver which is about 8 months old!

I'm hopping this month's update will fix this problem(and others that are caused with post 61.77 drivers)so i can update my drivers ,profiles are broken in 61.77 a having to have DV on in windows all the while looks a little silly

id say give 61.77 a go but also make sure you remove the older drivers completey id recommend driver cleaner for this if your not already using it

http://www.drivercleaner.net/

hope this helps

[dagz]

I tried a lot of stuff and it is still broke. I even reformated twice to make sure it wasnt the OS and it is still broke. I notice this also on the back of the chocobos and a few white dots on my tarutaru character model. I tried all the drivers starting from 61.76 all the way to the beta drivers and it still is broke =\. I put my geforce 4 in and even tried old drivers and that is broke too, hmm... Is it a ffxi problem? I put in my 9800pro and the problem went away tho... wth is going on?

edit: I never really noticed it on my tarutaru neither till I removed his tunic/headgear and standed there nakid. From the front view I noticed it on my hair a lot.

[dagz]

Man... this really sucks. Is this even possible? I tried the ti4600 card and a brand new power supply and it is still doing the same thing. I tried nearly every possible drivers and none fixes this. I tried underclocking my 6800 and it wont work. Either the game is bugged with the nvidia line cards or one of my other parts in my computer isnt working right (HD, CPU, MB). This sucks

[Gizmo]

I also saw your post over at NVnews about this

Im thinking this is a problem with Nvidia's z-buffer as i recall ATI's drivers can force a 32bit zbuffer to give more acurrate deep calculation's as where nvidia seem to be limited to 24bit

Since i saw your post about this ive been looking in & around bastok & have noticed quite a few area's with z clipping problems mainly flag's on the gaurd house and the side wall's on the row of shop exitting the market area

im gonna throw my sister(my old) 9700 in my pc in a moment an check to see if ATI also has this problem i'll report back asap

[gleneasy]

may not entirely help

but, if the flickering your talking about is when they become transparent and stuff, then youu can try reducing all the gamma,
completely. this not only makes the game look better but i think this may help you

but i may be wrong:spin:

[dagz]

Thanks for respoding.

Check this post as well, seems like someone else was having a problem similar to this way back:



http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/sho...ighlight=lines

Since this guy is saying the "3rd time" also he is saying that he quit. My guess is that a patch must of messed things up with nvidia cards. It still happends on ATI but it isnt really noticeable. I spoke to square tech and they didnt have a clue what was going on =\

Video here:

http://www.geocities.com/mike_dagz/ffxiflicker.avi

(right click save as)

The file is very small. I also tried a brand new rig. The only thing I kept was the hard drive and the same video card of coarse. Still has the problem. I notice you play a hume so you really cant notice it that much but it is really bad on tarutaru like in that video. This only happends worse in some zones like in lower jueno you cant hardly notice anything. I tried a ti4600 and it has the same results.

[dagz]

Also if this is indeed true with only 24-but nvidia zbuffer then that would suck =\ Can anyone confirm if this has beenn happening for a while?

edit: Ok something is wrong, fresh reformat and I am lagging in lower jueno? I can feel that I am getting low FPS when I walk =\

waiting on one part to die now...

[Gizmo]

Hi again

we'll i dropped the 9700 in and im sorry to report that although the z-fighting is still there it's not quite as bad as on my 6800gt......it just sems ati have a more accurate z-buffer or better a better z-buffer compression method

Even turing off the lossless z-buffer compression under the LMA tab in riva tunner did'nt help the 6800 with these rendering error's

Id say it's upto both SE & Nvidia to work out this problem together you could try contacting one of the major FFXI site's about the problem and see if they'ed be willing to run a FFXI gfx card shoot out as it seem the only thing that will get NV of the butts aout fixing a problem with a game is bad web press!

Also why im speaking to another 6800 user about FFXI do you get bad lag in bastok markets? my system (3200+64bit 1024Mb ram 6800GT)drop's to about 20fps there no matter how low i set the clip plane or the number of model's on show its crazy

[dagz]

Well all of a sudden starting a few days ago I am getting like a 1 second studder non stop in lower jueno. Getting 20fps as well on high settings. This isnt right shouldnt the 6800gt be able to rip through this game? I am about to call pny and make them send me a new card. I am also getting a lot of white lines in the corners of the textures that I just noticed. My 9800pro was able to run 16XAF and 8X AA without any lag what so ever so something is wrong. I am wishing I got a x800pro/xt because there is so many problems people are reporting with the 6800 series =\

[Gizmo]

Hi Again Dagz

Yep im a little disapointed in how badly the 6800gt handle FFXI atm

now i know the game engine is old & locked to a max of 29 fps but you'ed think that with the spec's we've both got it would never dip below that !

I know the 6800gt is a great card i ripped through HL2 at 1600x1200 4XAA 8xAF and it never dipped below the high 40'es......
FFXI on the other hand is falling into the mid teen's at time's when in & Around Bastok markets(even when there's only a few ppl around)i dont know who to point the finger at on this one?
SE for not updating FFXI to take advatage of the 6800's extra power or Nvidia for shoddy driver support & not working with SE to fix the problem's Maybe both are to blame but no matter which it us who are lossing out

i could'nt belive the other day when i tryed it that my old 9700pro ran FFXI just as well(if not better)than my 6800GT So much for NV's TWIMTBP marketing bs....i think nv needs as a kick in the pant'sto get this fixed and im guessing all it would take is a major FFXI site to do a roundup of GFX card & how well they run FFXI because nothing get's NV's butt into gear on fixing driver problems faster than a little bad web press

[dagz]

Hmm but before about 5 days ago the card was perfectly fine performance wise. I was able to run 8X AA and 16X AF without any lag what so ever. Not even any lag in lower jueno. Now on the lowest quality settings my card studders in lower jueno so something is wrong. I am about to try this 6800 on a whole new rig (new hd,mobo,ram,cpu) and will keep you posted of what happends. I already spoke to a pny guy and they said that they will take a look at it and if nothing is wrong they will send it back =\ . If i still get the problem after that then I am just going to trade this card for a x800pro/xt on ebay.

[Gizmo]

Hummm might sound like a supid question but when was the last time you defrag'ed your FFXI hdd?

I installed chains the other day and after that i was getting thrashing/pause's it was'nt untill i defrag'ed that they went away(even thought windows defragger was telling me i did'nt need to defrag the drive)

i've also installed the lastest beta 75.90 which seem to have done a great job to inprove the over all smoothness of play but im still getting strange low 20,high teen's drops in both bastok and selbina(looking out to the sea from the HP its drops to 14 fps!)

If you do chop it in for a X800 let us know how you get on as i just might be following very close on your heal's

Cheers
Gizmo

[dagz]

defragged yesterday. I even bought a new HD to make sure it wasnt it. Now I just installed the 6800gt on my other rig which is a 2.8ghz p4, 1gig of ram, 7200rpm hd and I still get the studder problems. Going to try my ti4600 on this one now.

[dagz]

Ok the ti4600 is giving me the same "stuttering" problem. As for the fps problem the ti4600 is performing the same as my 6800gt without AA/AF. Did you goto lower jueno yet? Me standing infront of the auction house I saw my fps was 10 =\ this is so horrible that it was 9-10 fps without AA/AF. I made my choice and I am going to buy a x800pro. I read the 6800gt is better performance wise by a little but it all evens out at the end because the 6800gt has a ton of problems.

edit: nm I will just get the full x800xt for 420$